Final Edition - Frédéric Malle has Left the House

Malle and Estée Lauder, How the Numbers Add Up

Now that Frédéric Malle has left Editions de Parfums (originally published in May 2024) it's a good time to see how well the company fared, before - and after it was sold to Estée Lauder. 

Just as in cinema, there are two ways to assess performance; box office and the critics.

Without access to sales data, I’m using the less precise method of looking at what they say on basenotes.com. For those who don’t know Basenotes, its a community of fragheads and fellow travelers that allows members to post reviews of any perfume in their data base.

Using this as a source of information is far from ideal; reviews can range from ‘this is the best thing since sliced bread, period!’ to more balanced and thoughtful responses that weigh up the positives and negatives of a perfume, pay note to its performance and evolution, and sometimes even say that its good - even if the reviewer doesn’t like it.

Reviews must be classed as positive, neutral or negative, which adds a semblance of objectivity, but different reviewers have different standards, and a positive for some may be a neutral for others, or even a negative. Another problem is these reviews only represent the opinion of Basenotes members (who are mostly male) and not the perfume buying public as a whole (who are mostly female). And then there’s group think, which may dissuade reviewers from going against the herd and posting dissenting opinions.

Over and above these factors, there is an observable trend at work. Over time, many perfumes settle at around 60% positive ratings, with roughly 20% neutral and 20% negative. This happens so often it seems to be the average, and so 60-20-20 can be taken as a rough benchmark, with any notable deviation being significant.

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Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle can be divided into two periods, before and after it was sold to Estee Lauder in late 2014. Twenty three perfumes were released under Malle’s direction, and by May 2024, eleven released by Lauder.

Under Malle the mean average scores of the Basenotes reviews were 66% positive and 12% negative, while with Lauder they have been

53% positive and 15% negative. (No votes had been cast for the latest release Acne Studios.)

Votes cast are 1,402 for the Malles and 152 for the Lauders. Some of the Lauder perfumes had gained less than ten reviews, which made those results more of a work in progress than a finished picture. Within the scores there were some interesting numbers.

Under Malle the highest ratings were 83% for Le parfum de Thérèse, the legacy from Roudnitska that got the ball rolling, 79% for Lys Méditerranée (with 5% negative reviews), 79% (and 6%) for Portrait of a Lady. The lowest were 50% Eau de magnolia, Dans tes bras 47%, and Outrageous with a dismal 25% positive.

During the Lauder period the highest ratings were 71% for Promise (a total of 17 reviews, of which 14% were negative), 71% for Sale Gosse (7 total and zero negative), and Music for a While with 65%. The lowest scores were 43% Dawn, 37% Cologne Indelibile, and Uncut Gem 29%.

Back in May 2024 when this article was written, the killer numbers were these :

43% of Malle’s releases got 70% or more positive ratings, only 17% of Lauder’s.

Half of Lauder’s releases scored less than 50% positive, only 13% of Malle’s did so.