A recent article, “What Makes a Perfume Expert?” by Ermano Picco, positions itself as a defense of rigor, knowledge, and slow-earned authority in perfumery. While the premise appears reasonable, a closer reading exposes a disconnect between institutional ideas of expertise and the way perfume is actually experienced, discussed, and lived today.
For reference, the article in question can be read here:
https://www.essencional.com/en/posts/what-makes-a-perfume-expert/
My disagreement is not rooted in a rejection of training, history, or intellectual depth. Quite the opposite. The issue lies in the article’s framing, which is structurally flawed and culturally narrow.
The first problem is categorical confusion. The article treats social media creators, trained perfumers, historians, evaluators, and critics as if they are operating within the same role and competing for the same authority. They are not. A TikTok creator sharing what they enjoy wearing is not attempting to replace a perfumer, nor are they claiming the scholarly authority of a historian or critic. They occupy a different lane entirely, speaking to a different audience, with a different intention, using a different language. Conflating these roles creates a false conflict that does not exist outside industry discourse.
The second flaw is the assumption that social media commentary inherently disrespects perfumers or degrades the craft. In reality, perfumers in most commercial contexts work under creative direction. They execute briefs. They are professionals, not untouchable auteurs. Disliking a perfume is not an insult to perfumery. Taste is not a moral failing. Criticism, even when imperfect or informal, is not violence against the art.
This distinction matters because perfume is not consumed like academic theory. It is experienced. And experience is not something that can be credentialed.
There are legitimate problems within fragrance social media: overconsumption, undisclosed gifting, algorithmic sameness, shallow trend cycles, and inflated price narratives. These deserve serious scrutiny. But blaming influencers for a so-called “death of expertise” is a convenient distraction from deeper structural issues within the industry itself, including marketing opacity, creative homogenization, and the increasing distance between production and consumer trust.
Another blind spot in the article is its assumption that experts drive consumer behavior. They do not. The general population does not buy perfume because a critic, historian, or perfumer endorses it. They buy perfume because they smell something and respond to it emotionally. Ask a teenager who Luca Turin is and you will likely get a blank stare. That does not make the teenager ignorant. It makes the argument irrelevant to how perfume actually lives in the world.
And here is the core issue the article never fully addresses: smell is not like wine, art history, or music theory. You cannot opt out of it. You have been smelling since the moment you were born. Every human being carries a lived olfactory archive shaped by memory, culture, proximity, and biology. That does not make everyone a trained professional, but it does mean no one is an amateur in the way this article implies.
Smell is involuntary. Immediate. Bodily. You do not need permission to experience it, and you do not need credentials to respond to it. Expertise can contextualize scent. It can deepen understanding. It can offer historical and technical frameworks. But it does not override perception.
What is most troubling about the article is its quiet contempt: toward popular taste, toward non-institutional voices, toward people who engage with perfume without academic or professional validation. That posture does not protect perfumery. It isolates it. It turns a living sensory art into an inward-facing conversation with diminishing cultural relevance.
If we care about the future of perfume, the goal should not be to police who gets to speak, but to raise the quality, transparency, and honesty of discourse across all platforms. Expertise should illuminate, not dominate. It should invite curiosity, not shut it down. And it should never confuse authority with ownership of experience.
Perfume does not belong to experts.
Experts belong to perfume.
That distinction matters.
So let’s ask better questions.
Who is speaking, and to whom?
From what position of knowledge, experience, or responsibility?
And with what degree of transparency and humility?
If you work in fragrance, write about it, create content, or simply love wearing perfume, this conversation includes you. I invite readers, professionals, creators, and critics alike to engage with this question thoughtfully and publicly. The future of perfumery depends less on who claims expertise and more on how honestly, rigorously, and generously we choose to talk about scent.
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