Flankers: Why?

generated by Ideogram AI

Why do so many flankers exist? For those who are not familiar with the term, "flanker" refers to a perfume that bears the same name as an existing scent, but with a twist or addition. Like Coke, Diet Coke, and Cherry Coke. Or Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios. An other way to think about them: flankers are like sequels. Shrek and Shrek 2, Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. The same characters doing the same things, but with a different story. 

A flanker isn't the same as a concentration--there may be an EDT, an EDP, a Parfum, and an Extrait of the same scent, Chanel No. 5, for example (which also had an eau de cologne)--but those aren't necessarily thought of as different fragrances, despite the occasional alteration of ingredients. There are, however, flankers of No. 5, including Eau Premiere, Elixir Sensuel, and L'Eau. 

Clear as mud, right?

In my mind, there are three types of flankers: 1) a scent that is very much like the original, with just a hint of a tweak to the ingredients; 2) a scent that possesses the soul of the original, but is different enough to stand on its own (a true flanker); 3) a scent that has absolutely nothing to do with the original fragrance, but it bears a variation on the name. 

Fragrance companies do this to cash in on the popularity of a successful product. If they make a new scent and give it the same name, people who like the first iteration might be interested enough to purchase the second (third, ninth, etc.) whether or not the new version is anything like the original or not. This seems a bit disingenuous, though there may well be people who own Guerlain's La Petite Robe Noir and will also buy any or all of the thirty-ish flankers that have been released since the original came out in 2009. (The few I've tried smell identical, though I haven't done any side-by-side sniff tests.) But if the original is good and popular, why keep reinventing the wheel? And if the scent is vastly different, why not just give it a new name? 

Some fragrance companies make all their bank on flankers. Mugler, for example, essentially only has two fragrances that have earned them any real money, Angel and Alien. According to Fragrantica, there are at least 33 variations on the Alien theme, including a handful of masculines. Angel has a whopping 58 listings, among them flankers of flankers (like the 4 variants of Eau Sucree). Not included in that 58 is the Angel marketed toward men, A*Men, which has 19 flankers of its own, nor Angel Innocent (now just called Innocent though the bottle still bears the Angel star motif) which has 7. Sure, Mugler has put out other fragrances over the years, such as their excellent Mugler Cologne (of which there are 9 iterations), plus Les Exceptions and Mirror Mirror, two collections comprising 22 quite different and very good scents, all of which are currently discontinued. I was lucky to get one of the last bottles of Les Exceptions Over the Musk--a stunningly beautiful ambrette and musk concoction--from the Mugler.com site back in 2019. I was also able to snag a bottle of Miroir des Joyaux, a rich woody floral that I like to wear at Christmastime, from a discounter. (Fragrancenet still has a couple of Les Exceptions and most of the colognes available.) Apparently none of those scents--nor Womanity or Aura--sold as well as Angel and Alien, so Mugler is milking their cash cows dry. Surprisingly, however, despite the preponderance of Angels on the market, including the original, the new Fantasm (which I'd like to smell), and Nova, it's rare that I notice anyone around me wearing it. Certainly not like I did when the original came out in the early 90s. 

Many of Angel's flankers smell like, well, Angel, but with the volume of one note turned up or down. But there are also versions that have an added ingredient that changes the scent considerably while still keeping the Angel DNA intact. The original Eau Croisiere from 2019 has a lovely mango note, while its own flanker from 2020, also called Eau Croisiere, swaps out the mango for fig. Angel Iced Star, which came out in 2021, is essentially Eau Croisiere, but with pineapple and coconut instead of the mango or fig. I think of scents like these as true flankers, while the ones that haven't changed the original fragrance much are money-grabbers, pure and simple. 

Other flankers that fall in the "true flanker" category, those fragrances that bear the soul of the original, but with enough ingredients tweaked to make it truly different, can be more appealing to those who could not wear or just plain disliked the original. Let's go back to Chanel No. 5. I can't wear the original, and am not a huge fan of scents with an extreme amount of aldehydes. But Eau Premiere, which is a pared-down version of the original, with the aldehydes, ylang-ylang, neroli, jasmine, rose, vanilla, sandalwood, and vetiver, but minus the citrus notes, lily-of-the-valley, civet, amber, orris, patchouli, and oakmoss. The result smells very much like No. 5, but also quite different. To me, it's almost like the love child of No. 5 and Guerlain Shalimar, which is one of my favorites.

Speaking of Shalimar, it, too, has a number of flankers that smell a great deal like the original but might appeal to a broader audience. The original came out in 1925, a sexy amber scent with prominent citrus and vanilla notes, plus leather, incense, civet, and resins in the base. Over the years, the scent has been "cleaned-up" a bit with the removal of many of the base notes (though there is the occasional limited edition re-issue with the skankier notes added back in), and the flankers have modernized the fragrance even more. Parfum Initial, for example, added caramel to the now standard concoction of citrus, iris, patchouli, rose, jasmine, tonka, and vanilla. Initial L'Eau removes the caramel and adds more citruses, plus freesia and hyacinth, and Initial L'Eau Si Sensuelle takes out the extra floral notes and adds green ones. There was also a version that ramped up the orange blossom--Souffle d'Oranger--by adding mandarin, orange blossom, petitgrain, and neroli (I am so sorry I missed out on this one!) and several that leaned heavily on Shalimar's vanilla aspect. Ode a la Vanille Sur la Route du Mexique has caramel and chocolate, but the list of notes for Ode a la Vanille Sur la route de Madagascar reads very much like the original formulation. (I must admit I am relying on Fragrantica, which I know is not the gospel when it comes to listings of notes. It just seemed easier than trying to track them down elsewhere.) 

As for the third type of flanker, one that has no relation to the original fragrance whatsoever--there are far fewer examples of those. One that stands out in my mind, however is Black Opium. YSL's original Opium is a warm amber, one of those fragrances that used to be referred to as an "Oriental," loaded with spices like cinnamon, cloves, and pepper on a base of woods and resins. Black Opium is a sweet gourmand with coffee and vanilla. The only similarities between the fragrances are that they have used a bottle with the same shape (though the original has come in several bottle styles over the years), and the name. There's no reason at all that the newer scent should be named after the classic. Zero.

It's not only iconic fragrances for which flankers exist. And by iconic, I mean in the original sense of the word, not the current usage where pretty much anything can be iconic just because some TikTok user deemed it so. I'm talking Barbra Streisand iconic, not Sabrina Carpenter "iconic." Scents like YSL Libre, Valentino Valentina, Carolina Herrera Good Girl, and Jessica Simpson Fancy all have flankers, whether they need to or not. The original must have sold well, so I suppose there was no reason to try something new.  

Which seems very lazy to me.

In an industry already flooded with fragrances, do we really need more that are merely repetitions of what we already have? I suppose since flankers do sell, the answer is yes.

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Posted by theminx on Minxstinks
Note: this post is my opinion. I am not affiliated with the companies mentioned in this post or any other companies.