A Snif Sampler
Instagram's favorite affordable brand
When Snif first launched and was building it’s audience in 2021, I was inundated with targeted ads, mainly on Instagram. It seemed too convenient and a little scammy, one of those DTC “try now buy later” types. Even more annoying, it was a “disruptor” brand, started by two ex tech/finance bros who wanted to “shake up” an industry that they didn’t know anything about. This is the same story and marketing schtick as Crumbl and Rephr (and notice too the pattern of removing a letter to make it seem sleek and tech edgy. Tumblr, your impact). I have never been a fan of the barely disguised disdain and superiority complex disruptor brand CEOs always seem to have. I remember a few years ago when a tech article about Crumbl landed on Twitter and in it the CEOs described their “unique” process to creating their cookies. It was, get this, they would bake two variations of a certain recipe, then try them and decide which was the best and take notes on how to improve the recipe! As someone dryly replied, “so they’re doing A B testing?”
Snif was tepidly received by the overall fragrance community as I recall, this Reddit thread giving a fairly good indication of the general attitude surrounding it. There were the standard “this new fragrance company will change the way you shop/look at/experience fragrances” fluff pieces, most notably from publications like Forbes and not Elle or Vogue. However, there’s only so much “we’re not like the old guard, we don’t do pretentious stuff like ‘notes’” that you can market yourself as before you alienate a very serious fanbase. There was some backlash to the flippancy with which they seemed to regard fragrance and its fans. Snif’s initial marketing modality was to not include top, heart, and base notes on their fragrance pages, as they believed people didn’t really understand what all that faff meant (huh?). They were above that silly pretension. Instead they would give vague little descriptors like “woody” which put a lot of people off buying (or even trying) from the website.
But, no one could deny how elegant, captivating, colorful, and aspirational their visual marketing was. Many posts on Reddit titled “has anyone tried Snif?” included some version “their marketing intrigues me” in the body. As a brand built for Gen Z and optimized to sell via SMS and IG, their marketing concepts have never missed.
Furthermore, Snif decided to keep themselves less expensive, all full size bottles are $65 for 30mL. The packaging is simple and clean, little bottles that fit in your palm with their signature blocky font and a nice strong magnetic closure cap that snaps down tight. They don’t take up too make space on the shelf and go together cohesively. Snif only makes EDT concentrations, keeping prices down while allowing for customization on power. If you want a powerful, rich scent, you can spray more times, but those who want lighter, gentler fragrances need only spray once or twice. They also started a “secret menu” of weirder scents, but still at affordable prices.
July 30, 2023 Snif launched in stores in Ulta and if there’s one thing I like to do, it’s sniff. As luck would have it, my local branch is very busy and a natural candidate for Snif to open in (they did not launch in all Ulta stores nationwide, that came later). I went, I sniffed, I left. And sadly, I could not stop thinking about Sweet Ash. That was the beginning of the end for me.
I now own 6 full bottles and a travel spray.
Vow Factor
This scent is a collaboration with fragrance influencer Professor Perfume, real name Emilia O’Toole. Snif learned early on that a social media reliant brand does very well when partnering with an influencer. This perfume was created to be worn on Emilia’s wedding day, which I think is a very cool opportunity for her to make something unique and specific for her big day. It is a floral forward fragrance, sweet, green, and intriguing.
On first spray I find it to be incredibly sweet and airy, very cloying in the air around you, but that’s Bulgarian rose for you. There is a noticeable greenness to it, from the mandarin orange, but that clears quickly, while the sweetness of the rose remains. Orris (Iris) helps lift the fragrance into the air, adding a slight powder to temper the rose. This airy quality settles after a few hours and what’s left is the syrup sweet rose, the warm orris, and the soft ambrette. It creates a very cozy, pretty dry down. Not as aggressive as it was earlier, but still there for the wearer’s enjoyment. The tonka also brings in heady depth, really making the base very sexy. I know it was made for a wedding but the way this fragrance opens on me, it would be a great date fragrance. Starting light, sweet, playful, and airy, and getting deeper and quieter as the night progresses, encouraging a little more intimacy, hinting at whispers in dark corners, still playful but now with a little heat.
It’s not super innovative, but it’s great if you don’t already have a good iris/rose/tonka combo. I also like that the bottle is green. I feel like green is such an underrated color for fragrance packaging. It creates such a vibrant pop of color on the shelf.
They continued the story with Emilia, and she created Honey Suite, a perfume for her honeymoon with notes of honey, lavender, incense, and vanilla bourbon, all notes that I love. I haven’t tried it but the midnight blue bottle with its cascade of stars has danced in my mind since they sent out the sequel announcement.
Sweet Ash
I love this one and it’s a compliment getter for me. It’s warm and rich, one of those fragrances that hangs in the air long after you’ve walked past. The notes list looks like it should be a men’s cologne, but somehow it’s most decidedly not. With the exception of the bergamot, this is all mid and base notes, so it’s long lasting with a very powerful sillage. The vanilla and tonka are apparent immediately out the gate, with their creamy warmth offsetting any medicinal greenness that can come from juniper. The moss and patchouli give a light spice and aromatic depth to prevent the vanilla and tonka from becoming monotonous. I always feel luxurious wearing this one, like a rich middle aged woman who wears fur and has a driver. I wouldn’t say this fragrance is elegant but it’s certainly opulent. I find this to be a very linear fragrance, same from first spray in the morning until I go to bed at night, and it last the whole day and then some. It’s a heavy, powerful fragrance and a light hand should be used, lest you give yourself a headache.
Again, not terribly innovative, but a really good fragrance. In the interest of transparency, this is their Baccarat dupe, but it’s closer to the Extrait than the original 540. I have worn Sweet Ash and BR540 Extrait back to back to check and well… if you have the money, buy the 540. If you don’t, this is a good scent, just don’t compare it too closely to the $475 powerhouse. Very coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb.1 If you allow Sweet Ash to stand on its own, I love it. Comparison is the thief of joy, after all.
Coco Shimmy
Every time I wear this I want to love it more than I actually do. I am guessing I'm trying to force it to work in situations where it doesn't, and this should fully be reserved for wearing from May to August (Northern hemisphere) when it's actually hot. It is coconut and it has the mineral creaminess of sunscreen but rather than being the deep, rich scent of the sunscreen of your childhood, it's more like the thin recreation of it when you're 22 and trying to buy the generic drugstore brand because it's cheaper and you're giving it a sniff test in the white linoleum tile aisle of CVS under those awful fluorescent lights and it's so close but falls disappointingly short. Maybe I am simply giving you an extremely microscopic look into my young twenties.
It’s the La Croix of sunscreen scents, so close and yet so far. It’s like trying to remind yourself of summer in March when it’s still cold and slushy and a little gross outside. I think the wax note sort of cheapens it and the pineapple makes it just a little too fruity. It can't decide if it wants to emulate sunscreen or a Piña Colada. No matter how many times I wear it, it doesn't hit as hard as I want it to. It's exactly the notes it says on the tin, but the sum of the parts just isn't enough. Overall I would say it’s very thin. The creamy sunscreen is thin, the coconut is more coconut water than cream, the pineapple is underripe. Even when I wear it in summer, I feel like I could get a better scent than this by just wearing some Coppertone and a body spray.
The longevity is fine, especially for a fruit scent. Coconut and pineapple generally last longer than citrus notes, so those stick around for a while. The sandalwood base retains some of the coconut and sunscreen so that smooth creaminess lasts for about 6 hours quite noticeably. I just wish it was more robust and interesting. The concept is so good and I’m always on the hunt for a good summer scent, but I don’t love this one the way I want to.
Dead Dinosaur (Secret Menu)
Arguably one of my favorite scents on my shelf. I love reaching for this one and this too has netted me quite a few compliments, enough that I gave a coworker a sample and she announced every time she wore it. It’s unisex but masculine leaning but only slightly. This is like if a girl was a grandpa, light, green, and gently cologne-y. Every time I wear this it reaffirms my desire to learn to smoke a pipe. I feel like JRR Tolkien when I wear this, or the grandfather from The Parent Trap (1998). I know this isn’t selling it to the young feminine crowd, but you should try a sample and let it surprise you.
The gasoline note adds this weird, gaseous, nearly metallic note. It is the elevated version of what you smell at the gas station. Snif’s marketing for this painted a picture of a garage and it is the smell of ambient gasoline in the air, but more of a collector’s show garage where the cars are all older and clean and covetable, not your neighbor gutting the Pontiac Firebird he insists will be a collectable. The gasoline accord remains nearly the full wear time for me, it doesn’t burn away. If you were a kid who loved smelling gas, you may enjoy that. If you are prone to headaches, you may not. I love it.
Underneath the tang of the gasoline however, is a gorgeous, refined base. This is where the cardigan wearing grandpa is. He’s just emerged from his garage, lovingly polishing his Aston Martin DB5, and is sitting down to read. The cologne he put on this morning, the same one he’s been wearing for 30 years, has settled down like it’s part of him and you go to give him a hug. It’s a little spicy from the pink pepper but mostly it’s green and comforting. The magnolia offers that beautiful smooth creamy richness that comes from white florals, but the ginger and cedar add a little heat and woodiness. The orris root and amber create depth but this is not a warm or heavy fragrance by any means. Like the loveliest classic aftershave or maybe he just naturally smells like that, the clean green of a patch of evergreen trees exuding from him at all times. I ought to start doing a daily crossword.
My favorite part of this fragrance is the way the gasoline and cedar combine to create something really intoxicating (and it’s not just the fumes speaking). This is such an unexpected play on an otherwise very classic light cologne. If someone wearing all YSL Y variations at once was also hanging out in the classic car area of Barrett-Jackson. And again, I must stress, that person could be of any gender, because this is light and green enough to be unisex, despite my grandpa imagery.
Soda Snob (Secret Menu)
This is a heavy, rich warm scent. Not to say it should be relegated to winter time only, but be careful of how much you spray (spoken as someone who doused themselves first time out the gate). I actually love how it performs in the heat. The lime note is sharp and fast, just there on first spray and lingers for about half an hour. It gives the toasted caramel/cinnamon/vanilla mix time to open and mellow. When you smell it, the spice of the cinnamon hits first and then the warmth of the caramel tamps it down like a sticky, sweet balm
It's hard to explain the carbonation aspect, since it's there but not when you try to smell it. The slightly sharp, gaseous quality of carbonation, the smell you get when you put your nose into an open cup of McDonald's Coke as you go to take a sip, is there in the air around you, but when you go to smell your wrist you just get the warmth of the brown cola. After the carbonation and lime top notes burn away, the caramel base lasts for 8+ hours. I have sprayed it in the morning and smelled it as I go to bed.
It's honestly a very fun and tasty fragrance. It's less the smell of soda itself, but more like the parts of the soda stream in your cup. The carbonated water, the cola syrup, the lime wedge you add. Highly suggest if you've ever wondered what it would taste like to mainline coca cola syrup without the soda water mix in. A great gourmand for someone who likes caramel but isn’t looking for the baked goods branch of foody scents. The sillage also does not immediately make people think “soda” if they smell it on you, although the cola concept is easy to appreciate once you mention it. I love spraying this fragrance and I love smelling my wrist throughout the day.
On an art snob note, I am pretty disappointed to hear they used AI to create the marketing images for this collection. While it makes sense, given that Snif is trying to position themselves as tech vanguards of the fragrance economy, I do wish there was still a respect for artists and the environment that use of AI does not denote.
Others
I have sprayed Rose Era, Heal the Way, Golden Ticket, and Tart Deco on my wrists in Ulta and worn them around all day, but that it the extent of my knowledge with those scents. From what I recall, Rose Era is pretty, if a bit sweet, and a little boring. There are better, more interesting, and more well balanced rose scents on the market. The inclusion of strawberry is nice, but I find it to pull lollipop-y on me and I just didn’t like it as a whole. Golden Ticket was similarly bland and forgettable. Tart Deco did not give me the cherry I was hoping for, it smelled artificial and wan, like a cheap cherry candy.
Heal the Way is the only one that I have really considered buying. I already have Kayali’s Yum Pistachio Gelato, so I don’t really need another pistachio scent, but Heal the Way is different enough that it is worth trying both. Personally I find Heal the Way to be more creamy, smooth, and long lasting than Yum Pistachio. Kayali’s is very airy and powdery (it always makes me sneeze when I spray it) and the pistachio is a little more thin. Yum is pistachio whipped cream, but Heal the Way is a rich pistachio latte. If I finish my travel spray of Yum Pistachio, I would buy Heal the Way as a replacement. If you have one, don’t get the other, but if you have neither, I would choose Heal the Way over Yum Pistachio.
Overall
The best part about Snif for me is that they are an easy, affordable, and accessible way to get into fragrance or add some weird ones to your collection without breaking the bank. They do not hold up against niche perfumes, but that’s an unfair comparison from the get go. If you’re looking for a cheap, reliable daily driver, gearheads telling you that the Lamborghini V122 engine is one of the most powerful and reliable on the market is not helpful beyond opening your eyes to what’s possible at the upper echelons of the market. If you are looking for luxurious or innovative perfumes, you may already be beyond what Snif’s core collection can offer you. Snif’s Secret Menu is still worth watching, for odd and offbeat offerings, like Dead Dinosaur or Slice Society, their pizza gourmand. Overall Snif is great for people who aren’t looking to drop huge money on fragrance, younger consumers who are still trying to find their preferences in an overwhelming market, or people who want a multifaceted fragrance wardrobe to pull from without bankrupting themselves.
Personally, with time and distance and a more rigid backbone when it comes to pretty marketing, I can look at my collection and say I went a little overboard. Some of the scents are not what I want them to be. Some are better. Some are not worth the $60 price tag, but I have to admit the concepts are always interesting, even if execution falls flat. I think the brand is nice and fun.
I’ve left out the two discontinued ones I own, Show Pony and Salty Stares, although I love both of those enormously. If you would like to read about Salty Stares’ lovely fresh greenness, check out my earlier post on Green Gourmands.
More Lucidity
Something I do want to mention, at the end of this little roundup, is my continued dislike for Snif’s marketing and selling practices. Snif is very much a business built for modern consumer culture and capitalizes heavily on hype and influencers. In an article in Modern Retail, cofounder Bryan Edwards said, “We took a lot of inspiration from the early success of just general drop culture that we saw within fashion and streetwear especially as we were building the brand. We could drive demand for the brand, demand for our products and fragrance through scarcity.” They used this to their advantage when Vow Factor first dropped, with early access stock being sold out in 30 minutes and general supply in 5 minutes.
The article also mentions Snif’s reliance on influencer partnerships to drive business, as it allows them to draw on both their core audience and the influencer’s audience. The idea that the influencer has a loyal fan base that’s already primed and willing to buy what the influencer pushes combined with the FOMO of limited quantity drops creates a easy environment for Snif to sell out. If they choose to err on the side of lower stock to “sell out” even faster, like the (in)famous Kylie Cosmetics Lip Kit sell outs, well you can always sign up for a pre-order to guarantee you get it on the restock.
As the case study published by their SMS marketing company Postscript said,
The biggest turning point for Snif’s SMS marketing strategy came from a collaboration with food blogger and influencer Tieghan Gerard of Half Baked Harvest on a candle, Half Baked Pumpkin Smash. They were able to use Tieghan’s existing social media presence to help promote the upcoming product drop
They seemed to have cooled a bit on their scarcity drops. Most new scents also launching in Ulta requires a certain amount of steady stock. I will not begrudge a company trying to make money, it’s the reason to start a business, but I do take umbrage at them artificially creating scarcity in order to induce panic buys. If your product is good enough on its own, you shouldn’t need to rely on frenzy tactics to sell it.
Also, if you feel that Snif shows up a lot when you google things, check out this case study from the e-commerce optimization company they hired to help with SEO. It involves words like “backlinks” which I had never heard before, but describes how they aggressively optimized Snif’s standings for search engine returns on generic and non-branded terms, like “cherry perfume.” The upshot is that after about a year Snif was showing up in 65x more non-branded searches and their YoY Growth bar graph shows a dramatic upward slope.
Snif has shown up in quite a few of their partner company’s case studies and brand success stories. I already linked to their e-commerce optimizer Gr0 and their SMS service provider Postscript, but the company who did their visual branding and marketing, Crème Collective, and their subscription service provider Smartrr, also have write ups of what they’ve done for Snif. On the one hand, I love seeing the scaffolding of an operation, the bones and muscles supporting a company. Naturally it’s not the two CEOs sitting down looking at sans serif font options, deciding which would test better for a cool zillennial crowd. At the same time however, it does feel a bit like seeing the exit signs on a Disney ride, jerking you out of the immersion just for a second. I know, of course, that major perfume brands spends millions of dollars designing every aspect down to the box paper color in a way that “speaks to the brand experience” and makes you want to buy it. It just feels like I’m seeing that Snif was carefully constructed like a Terminator to part me from my money.
This is an absurdist meme that was originally a joke about “which is louder, hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby” and hyperbolizing the fact that the obvious loser feels equal to the other, but has come to exemplify just a fully one sided and ridiculously uneven comparison
I cannot stop talking about cars today omg