Recharge Yourself

What works best when you are going for a business meeting with your premium client? Perfumes! As we all know perfumes are meant for disseminating fragrance and that is why they are right up there in the list of man's all time best friends. Perfumes spell the dignity and class of the person wearing it. They also imbibe confidence, freshness, zest, and energy and manage to get the best out of you. People who grind day in and day out for their livelihood have to wear perfumes to keep themselves and others around them fresh, lively, and charged up for the task at hand. In this way, perfumes not only act as catalysts for keeping away dirty odour but they also act as means to recharge everyone around you.

Intelligent Corporate Gifts

When it comes to corporate gifts, companies rate perfumes very highly and they are at the top of their list. Perfumed sprays of various fragrances if gifted to your client can win him over as never before. All that the company has to do is know about their client's favourite fragrance and gift that client the perfume bottle of that fragrance and they hence stand a wonderful chance to win him over. These perfumed bottles can be gifted in gift sets, which in turn then can be beautifully gift wrapped to further impress the client. Furthermore, perfumes cannot be bracketed as gifts for a particular season because unlike some other corporate gifts they can be gifted during any period of the year according to the presenter's wish and convenience. Moreover, there are different perfumes available for all seasons and that is reason enough for making perfumes as gifts for all seasons.

Domestic Industry Overview

Amalgamating essential oils, aroma compounds, solvents, and fixatives makes perfumes. Different methods like distillation, maceration, and enfleurage are used to extract various aromatics from the raw materials. Earlier natural products were used to extract scents but later the trend of producing perfumes from synthetics also came into existence. A perfume creator has to work around thousands of aroma chemicals but balancing and blending the right fragrance is wherein the real twist lies. Perfumes are predominantly created of flowers and blossoms, leaves and twigs, bark and wood, fruit and seed, resins and lichens, scent glands of civets and musk deer and all the products used are artificial to avoid any objection from the animal rights activists. Some of the flower fragrances used for making perfumes include tuberose, lotus, mysooru mallige, dundu mallige, frangipani, mimosa, and champa. Some of the Indian manufacturers export these fragrances to various companies of perfume sprays located abroad. However, some manufacturers import raw material for the plants from abroad. Tastes of different people are different and hence some people are seen preferring subtle fragrances and some others are more inclined towards stronger fragrances as per their needs and choices. Therefore, the Indian market today is full of various types of perfumes from strong to very strong aromas and from mild to very mild ones. The fragrances change in terms of concentration, fluctuating from a slightly concentrated eau de cologne, eau de toilette and eau de parfum to the strong parfum. There are a few major categories of scents viz., florals, greens, fruity, orientals and the oceanic. Florals are normally feminine scents, greens are fresh energetic perfumes, fruity as the name suggests have the essence of fruits, orientals are intense perfumes whereas oceanic are modern perfumes that use synthetic elements.

The cost of perfumes depends upon the segments, which it comes under and these segments are segregated into premium, middle and lower sections. The lower segment containing many local brands starts from a range of Rs.100/- to Rs.350/-. The middle range perfumes including brands such as Charlie starts from a range of Rs.350/- to Rs.1000/-. The premium segment comprising of International branded perfumes such as Poison, Hugo etc. starts from a range of Rs.1000/- onwards. The industry according to some insiders has grown by 20 per cent per annum since the last 5 years with over 100,000 employees working for it. The perfume industry of Kannauj district of Uttar Pradesh is the largest in the country and perfume making there is almost like a cottage industry because every second manufacturer fashions some sort of incense of their own. Nevertheless, the downside of the Indian industry is that due to the inclusion of sandalwood in forest products and the subsequent hike in the price of sandalwood oil, the manufacturers are hit badly. Moreover, the Government is not aiding the manufacturers and because of tax, they are further deprived. Manufacturers generally import fragrances from Europe although flowers grown in Indian fields yield universal fragrances that breeze their way to the bottles of some branded International perfumes like Christian Dior. Although the bad news for local manufacturers is that top International houses are having a major share in India with the local ones acquiring a minor part.

Although perfumes are expensive and people normally look for international brands, the future is still looking good for local manufacturers since the demand for new fragrances is increasing by the day and if the local manufacturers can provide good fragrances at a reasonable price, then people will not opt for expensive International brands.

International Industry Summary

As far as the overseas perfumery industry is concerned, France rules the roost as it boasts of the most popular and high quality perfumes since the country is known to be the birthplace of perfumes. In addition, the little town of Grasse in France is the traditional centre of perfumes. Some of the well renowned brands in perfumes have originated from France. The names of some of the famous brands in perfumes include Coty, Dior, Paris Elysees, First Class, Paris Club, Givenchy, Calvin Klein, Lancôme, Yves Saint-Laurent and the most popular brand named Chanel. Some of the most saleable brands in India are Adidas, Ferrari, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss etc. Apart from France, Italy, U.K, Spain as well as Germany are some of the other countries having strong base in India.

Bottles For Various Aromas

Perfumes are volatile and need containers with tight lids for preventing evaporation. Hence, bottles are required for safe storage of perfumes. The best bottles of perfumes are made with colored or faceted glass or any opaque material. This helps in preventing damage to perfume from sunlight. Perfume bottles are one of the important aspects that people get attracted to. The outer appearance of the perfume bottle has a lot of importance attached to it and we normally tend to see people being carried away with the decorative beauty of perfume bottles. Collection of perfume bottles of various size, shape and colours were available right from the olden days. Some people in those days used to preserve it as antique pieces in the past and there were some that even went to the extent of re-filling them.

The first types of perfumed bottles were geometric shaped bottles. Then colored glass bottles appeared which people marked as classy if the colors were rich. Subsequently, China entered the fray with porcelain bottles. Perfumed bottles these days are manufactured using materials like Murano. Some of the types of decorations used are millefiori or latticinio. Milchglass, a thick white glass ornamented with flowers or figures in enamel was started by Germans to manufacture perfume bottles and is very popular because of the striking appearance that it gives to the perfumed bottles.

These days, perfumes bottles are designed by the designer keeping the entire concept in mind which is at par with the brand image, the target consumer, type of fragrance, male / female etc.

Women's Best Friend

Who says diamonds are the only best friends women have? Perfumes alongside diamonds are usually pretty close to women. Usually, women belonging to the corporate sector have a unique penchant for different types of fragrances. Hence there is a niche category of perfumes especially for women, and the demand for the same is always high which explains the reason for every brand having a separate category of perfumes for women today. Thus today we might notice that women normally do not attend social functions without wearing their prized perfume.

Ideal New Year Gifts

Although perfumes are one of those rare gifts, which can be gifted during virtually any period of the year, they are still the ideal gifting solutions on New Year's eve. The New Year period is a massive one for manufacturers as well as suppliers as customers tend to go on a spending spree on shopping during New Year. This attracts manufacturers as well as suppliers to not only launch new products in the market but also modify the existing products according to the latest trends in the market. That is exactly the case with perfumes as some companies repackage their older perfume products in new bottles for selling as well as for promotional purpose. The bottles are generally designed beautifully with various colours and that attracts customers to buy those products even when they know that there is nothing new in the product itself. Some retailers also gift some unique products as add-ons with an expensive perfumed spray or a deodrant bottle during New Year to attract customers. All these reasons make perfumes fantastic corporate gifts.

Also aggressive promotional strategies come into play during New Year; new brand ambassadors are launched and all these tactics support retailers in selling perfume products at the speed of knots. Since the past few years celebrities have started self promotional campaigns by launching perfumes under their own signature name by signing contracts with perfume houses. Some of the well renowned Hollywood celebrities started this trend and recently some of the renowned Indian celebrities have followed their trail.

So be it a Calvin Klein or a Hugo Boss, a Charlie or a Ferrari, the next time you choose a corporate gift for new year gift giving, don't look beyond perfumes as they are the types of gifts which can mesmerize your client, employee or associate at any day and during any time of the year.