Smell Today, Gone Tomorrow

WWD has an interesting story today about limited-edition scents.

Beauty companies want to compare them to status bags, and hope their scarcity drives up demand, cache, and ultimately sales.

Our immediate reaction is, "Whoa, hold up!"

Something special about perfume is the way it helps define you. Girls walk by and they leave a trail of fragrance - how many times have you been next to someone at a party and thought it was your best friend / your worst enemy / your sister just because of the scent?

By asking women to shake up their smell every season, you might actually alienate them from a trendy perfume.

Or you could inspire exactly what you want - hording, Seinfeld Elaine-and-sponge style - by creating a scent so craved, it sends women buying cartons of it... but that seems less likely.

Of course, there is one more option:

Make a "limited-edition" perfume and keep it there forever, like the "I Love Marc Jacobs" perfume that's claimed to be scarce at Sephora for like a year...

It's still there, you can go buy it.