The Cologne Podcast

#297 - Insidious Absolue: Dan's New Fleet of Fragrances at Insider

• Myke & Ryan • Season 5 • Episode 297

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COLOGNE15  at  Insiderparfums.com

Ever wondered what goes into creating a fragrance that captivates the senses and stirs emotions? We promise to unravel the artistry and ambition behind Insidious Absolue, a scent that takes inspiration from Creed's Absolu Aventus. Join us with our friend Dan @fragrance_weirdo, as we navigate the delicate balance of innovation and expectation when launching a new fragrance. Dan shares his journey in curating a range that offers both rarity and affordability, making luxury scents available to those who cherish them. Together, we explore the mature and bold characteristics of Insidious Absolue, contemplating whether it holds its own amidst fan favorites.

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Myke:

hello everybody, welcome to the clone podcast I'm mike and I'm ryan and we're two best friends going on a fragrance journey, smelling brand new fragrances, giving you uneducated opinions and hanging out with our friend, dan. Welcome to the show, dan, hello. Well, let's just jump right in, okay, because we've been obsessing over. People are gonna have heard by now this insidious absolute that you just released. What made you guys go for after you did insidious, did you not just already have the mic drop done? You had to now do the absolute version as well yeah, insidious absolute seemed like the obvious next step.

Dan:

Really, I've got a particular soft spot for eventus. I know it wasn't a universally beloved release, but actually I really like it. It wasn't universally loved because all the Creed fanboys were like give me 2011 patches, oh, yes, no, you're not getting old patches, you're getting a different perfume. Sorry, which is why it came as a bit of a disappointment to the inverted commas community, you know, but actually I really like it. I think it's a great release. It's a very much more refined fragrance. Where Aventus is a headbanger, aventus Absolute is far more smooth and a little bit less. It's funny. I had a discussion with Steve about this Everyman Fragrances the other night and he said it seems more grown up and more mature and I was like I think it's maybe a bit on the more youthful side.

Myke:

That's what I said too. Okay, me and him have had this argument as well, behind closed doors, I think because he let his wife say it smelled like her dad Really, and so then he was saying Well, her dad's got good taste in fragrance. He's a proper geezer. Am I right? Yeah?

Dan:

absolutely Top geezer. Okay, there we go, so, but it seemed like the obvious next step for us. But there's a sort of just a commercial reality with a business like Insider which is that you need to have a decent range of perfumes, right? So we've been working away for the last it's basically actually about a year's worth of work, maybe a bit longer, on rebranding the business and creating a whole new range of perfumes, and I wanted to try and keep in my head a few guiding principles. I know there will be people rolling their eyes and go it's a fucking clone shop. You know, guys, you'll be right, I can't deny that. But what I wanted to try and focus on was not just cloning every piece of shit that sort of has some commercial sellability, but to try and focus on a few things.

Dan:

So, yes, old stuff which you know you cannot get or has been watered down to the point where it's no longer available, rarities and unusual things. So, just as a, for example, there's a fragrance based on a Ramon Malvisar black cube right which no one's ever heard of. It's a complete, it's a curiosity right. It's a sort of Spanish brand, very small niche. You can buy it, you can buy it still, but it's such a sort of niche, little sort of curio, that I wanted to sort of democratize that a bit. And then the other thing is just this so crazy expensive perfume, yeah, you know perfume that sells for thousands and thousands of pounds. Now it has no business selling for that price. You know that price bears no relation to the cost of production or anything like that. And again, I wanted to try and democratize that a little bit. So if you take a fragrance like Persian Rose, which is based on the spirit of Dubai, nargesi, nargesi will cost you what's? 1,300 pounds, I guess about 1,800 bucks, something like that Probably For 90 ml.

Dan:

That's quick math, someone correct me.

Myke:

Hey USD is slowly tanking. So God knows it'll be 3,000 by the time we release it.

Dan:

Yeah, absolutely. But the point being it's stupidly expensive, right. No average punter is going to take a blind buy on an $1,800 bottle of perfume, and the reality is you can probably smell it in about four retail places in the world. So you're a bit stuck there, and what we've done is essentially democratize that. Now there will be lots of people who think that's a shitty thing to have done, and sure we can argue about the sort of commercial wherefores and realities of clone business. The reality for me is people want to smell this shit. It smells fucking great, and why not, you know. So anyway, the creed of ventus absolute, or the insidious absolute, seemed like a natural follow-on. Now I'm not sure which of those buckets it really fits in, because it's sort of affordable, right. But at the point that we started work on it it was actually actually a limited edition. They were like oh yes, well, this is limited edition, we're only making whatever it was 3,000 bottles or something, right. And of course they've now bought it back, but that's sort of beside the point now.

Myke:

You can't believe anything these days.

Ryan:

Well, I have to say you know he smelled the original Creed Absolute. I haven't, so I don't know anything to base it off of. So for me, like if you just give me like an idiot's point of view really quick, is like when I smell it it does have that tone of creed, but it's also kind of got almost a is in my incorrect here. Is it kind of got like a blue kind of fragrance thing kind of going on because it seems so smooth and wearable and like a, uh, a very safe way, but it's honestly, it is loud and it is to me it's masculine, it's uh, yeah, yeah, right, it's bad-ass man, but is it more? Is it kind of a blue fragrance or no? Am I wrong?

Dan:

So I guess it depends how you define blue fragrance. Really. I tend to think of blue fragrances as being sort of shower gel sort of that, that, that kind of vibe. Of course, the archetype of that genre would be Dior, sauvage Gotcha and, yes, aventus Absolute actually does get compared to Sauvage Elixir quite a lot. Now, I don't think they are identical by any stretch of the imagination, but there's certainly some similarity there and there's a sort of dark, rooty, almost licorice-y vibe in the Sauvage Elixir, which is similarly represented. It's not a licoricey vibe in the Sauvage Elixir, which is similarly represented, it's not a licorice, no, I don't think. But there's a similar sort of representation in Aventus Absolute. So yeah, I mean long way round, but yeah, I would go with. There's a blueness to it for sure.

Ryan:

Well, I mean, as me, just being kind of like fresh out of the water on it, I was literally blown away by the fragrance. Like you, just being kind of like fresh out of the water on it, I was literally blown away by the fragrance. Like you, y'all did a bang up job on it seriously, and of the three that we uh we got, this one was the standout one, for sure. And man, he's worn. It smells amazing. He smells on me. It smells amazing. We've had other people smell it. They all have had nothing but great things to say about it. So commend you like a lot on it. It is awesome.

Dan:

I'm genuinely delighted to hear that. I mean, ryan, you've never actually smelt the original Mike, how do you think it compares? Because I think Ryan said you have yeah.

Myke:

I have, I haven't got to wear it. So I've smelled it two ways. I've smelled it on somebody and then I've smelled it in nema marcus and it smelled great. I don't have enough like experience with it to really get down to say it's 95 this, it's 95 that. But whenever I smell it the first thing we said was you smell the aventus type dna. It does smell like warmer, a little sweeter, a little smoother. It smells fantastic.

Myke:

And it kind of leads me to a question I wanted to ask you, because when I think about clone houses, I think about like a cheaper, not as good. Yeah, like, when you think of clones, typically you think of a knockoff, right, you think of something that's like not as good, but it'll get you by in a pinch. Yeah, you know, but what are you doing differently than these other guys? Because everything we smell that we've gotten from you smells like almost better quality than at least with the creed stuff. Yeah, so what, like? What's your approach? You don't have to give away the secrets, but what's your approach that keeps you delivering like that?

Dan:

well, it's very kind of you to say so. Uh, firstly and it's great to hear that because that is sort of the ambition here, right, um, I'm sure there will be people rolling their eyes at this sort of notion of a high quality clone house, but I've been collecting perfume for you know, decades now, right, um and um, and I don't really have a problem with clones. I sort of got to the point where, well, look, creed keep putting their prices up and they keep watering down their product, right, sorry guys, but this is, this is bullshit, um, so I, I personally don't have a problem with it. So I'm starting from that place, right, right, and others won't be. I just want to sort of level set, yeah, but once I started from that place, I sort of was like, well, cool, but if we're going to do this, they do have to be good quality, right.

Dan:

I mean, there's tons of brands just knocking out bullshit, right, and charging 20, 30 bucks for, you know, weak Cerati oil type bullshit washed up with alcohol and stuck in a plain bottle.

Dan:

I didn't want to be that brand. I wanted to produce a quality product and, yes, it's a clone or an inspiration, but there's no reason it can't smell fucking great and it can't perform well and it can't be in a nice bottle with a decent atomizer, and sure, ours are a bit more expensive as a result. But that's the sort of ambition and the way I went about that was basically by contacting a perfumer who is, you know, basically at the top of the tree right in the perfume business. So so all the stuff on the insider website about we work with an insider, a perfume industry insider, it's not bullshit. There is genuinely a master perfumer that we work with that I cannot name, because that's part of the conditions of us working with them, and we thought, well, fuck it, let's make that a selling point of the business yeah, that's great you know, that's how we're producing decent quality stuff.

Dan:

We've got a great perfumer and I know enough about perfume to know whether or not something's good enough. At least I like to think I do, and again, I'm really conscious of throwing like sort of stones in glass houses. But a lot of these clone brands are just cynical marketing exercises by people that don't really know anything about perfume. So they're not great judges about whether their product is good enough. They just want a product that they can sell on a and compete on price, and what we're trying to do is compete on quality.

Ryan:

I'm going to agree with that sentiment and I don't think that you're crazy on price and I need to really just back this up and put a little caveat here For the people that have not subscribed to our Patreon. We released an episode where we smelled this already and we gave just to skip ahead for you here. We gave really high marks to. We actually called a friend of ours named Nikki because she smelled it. She fucking loved it, literally gave it a 10 based on how it smells and the price point on it and even on the episode.

Ryan:

I'm like guys, I know this sounds like we're like slurping this dude off on this and it sucks, but they are, they are, but it's just the reality of it. I mean, I feel like people can just from the beginning of this interview can see like this guy's kind of like no bullshit, no frills on this. You're kind of being upfront and honest and sometimes it might be a little brash, but we love this. I love it. Right, it's so good and the price is not bad and the quality is absolutely there. A patron member that we have his name is Carson. He owns the original. He bought it before we even told him this was available.

Ryan:

We even told him this was available. Yeah, and then he ordered the NCS Absolute from you and he fucking has the real one in this one. He loves that one as well. He loves this. Awesome, that's fantastic. It is all high praise and I think we all feel that inner like we're not trying to sound and feel shilly, but it is what it is.

Myke:

Well, I mean, why would we get on here and pitch something that we didn't wholeheartedly love either? Though I think the beautiful marriage that we kind of have with your products that you're making and our audience is that it's a perfect fit. Like, the people who listen to us are kind of on the fringes of the fragrance community, because we're I mean, we're clearly not the guys you know we're not wearing the lab coats and smelling the lab to mom and all that the guys you know we're not wearing the lab coats and smelling the lab to mom and all that other stuff you know. Like we, we have no idea, but we love stuff that smells good, exactly, and most of the time we just can't afford to buy it, and I think we attract a lot of people in that similar boat that then come across something that is high quality. They're not afraid to spend their money, because they've probably bought a ton of Latafas and stuff in the past and they've kind of been like oh, you know, it's kind of there, it's not you like.

Myke:

You buy to the hype too many times and after a while you get cynical about all clone houses or inspired by fragrances, I'm sure.

Dan:

But this comes along and it's like we can't say enough good things about it because it really is so good it's genuinely really nice to hear that, because I do worry that we have overpriced stuff, but I can't afford to make it too much.

Dan:

Cheaper is the reality, because if you're trying to do stuff like this at the sort of volumes we are, to the quality that we're aiming for, then it actually gets rather expensive. And funnily enough, uh, the us is our biggest market now. Yeah, um, but our shipping to the us is so fucking expensive and right, that's one of the things we are working on. So I've actually had meetings with dL where they're going to try and get us a better price on the shipping to the States, which hopefully will allow us to increase our volumes, which will allow us to drop the prices further, and you get into a sort of virtuous circle on that. So it is something I'm conscious of. I do worry about that, about that, but I mean just on the point of price, I don't know whether it's at all useful, but I'm more than happy to offer a cologne podcast discount for your listeners. There we go, guys.

Myke:

Of use Absolutely, and we're only getting $100 of every purchase $100 of every purchase, excellent.

Dan:

So basically Such a great deal.

Myke:

Basically, that's everything that's everything and then some yeah, yeah, that's our awesome no obviously we're not getting anything out of this. We're not getting any sort of kickback. This is just you being generous to our listeners.

Dan:

I couldn't afford to pay you a kickback anyway. Um, it's, it's lovely that you have to go and sort of make that disclaimer, so I know we're not getting paid. Yes, he's clearly paying fucking what? What the fuck am I paying these guys?

Dan:

do me a favor I actually I've had to go back to work so I started a new job on on monday. Well, no, I mean I don't mind that, but the perfume business, it generates a bit of money, but it certainly doesn't generate enough money for the family to live on. So you know, I don't have money to pay people to shill for me.

Myke:

Well, at this point you really don't have to pay. We just have just genuinely a lot of excitement behind it just because it is so good, like you guys really do care about it, and you're right. You differ in that from some guys that are just like we have to compete against. You know, we have to have this thing to speak to the Aventus in the market and we have to have this thing to speak to the Sauvage and the you know one millions or whatever you know. But it's not really like that. It comes from a love of fragrances. You can tell that in the quality.

Dan:

Absolutely, thank you. Can I just go back to something you said, because there's a really interesting link between our podcasts here. Okay, here we go. So one of the things on Les Odrins is we quite often get people writing from America saying, oh, we love your podcast, but we don't really know what the names of the stores mean. So when you say this particular store, it doesn't travel very well. And you mentioned the name Neiman Marcus yes, and allow me to be the British cultural attache here we go and say I don't know what the fuck Neiman Marcus is. Isiman marcus like a sort of drug store or is it like no, it's like a um designer store.

Myke:

You'd go in and you could buy ysl handbags and you know, okay, the gucci bathrobes and stuff like that, and then they have a huge like they'll have a creed counter and they'll have, okay, killian, you know they'll have all those kind of things.

Ryan:

It's usually attached to the mall yeah, to a mall.

Dan:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay so you mentioned that creed smelled great in there, and on our most recent episode I made this point, which I I absolutely swear by is never, ever buy anything in one of those stores, and the reason being everything smells great in there because you've got like this massive sensory overload. Exactly like nice smelling stuff, yes, but you don't know what the fuck it is. You sprayed that smells good.

Ryan:

I mean, no one has a clue honestly, I'm glad you've kind of like double stamped that, because ever since we've started this podcast, we learned that very early on, like in season one, because there's a place about two hours uh, west of us called the scent room.

Myke:

It's like a, I would guess, a high-end it's a niche and indie type store where you go in. You're not going to find it in your designer shops in the mall or anything. These are like stuff that you know they've got the kajals and the essentials and the house of a note or whatever that type of stuff.

Ryan:

And we would go there and smell all the stuff and we'd go, oh, we love this, we love that. But then and he even bought a couple of things that are like actual full bottles. But we would literally get back here and be like what the fuck? It doesn't smell like what I smelled in there.

Ryan:

Absolutely so we so we've been preaching that for the longest time of like seriously whatever you smell in there, like take it home with you, at least in a decanter or something, and like smell it and then see if you really like it or not. You know.

Dan:

Yeah, basically bad decisions are made Exactly.

Myke:

Impulsive decisions are made, yeah.

Ryan:

Well, really quick, two things Again. Tell our listeners what the discount code was that you're offering.

Dan:

Yeah, no, I should. Listeners, what the discount code was that you're offering? Yeah, no, I should. I I said I'd do that and then I didn't tell you what it was, which is a very elegant way of me promising something and then welching on it um, discount?

Dan:

I don't remember that, oh yes, um, so, uh, cologne 15. Uh, cologne 15 will get you 15 off and I will go ahead and set that up before this show airs and I'll leave that there until sort of the new year, I guess. And so anyone listening to this or catching up and people do, people do catch up because I had a message. This is brilliant. I had a message today, in fact, asking about 100ml bottles of Insidious oh Saying look, I just listened to the Cologne podcast and the owner of Insider said they're releasing these for Black Friday and I had to reply yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was last year, buddy Takes a little longer for people to find our podcast.

Dan:

Well, they do, they do so anyway, it will be there until the end of December 2024. There we go, we'll be listening later.

Ryan:

Brilliant. My other thing was and maybe Mike can show it if he wants to, but seriously, this is the wildest atomizer that I have seen on a fragrance.

Myke:

Let's see if the camera can catch this. I mean, it's crazy.

Ryan:

You're right in my eyes.

Dan:

We just yeah, we're pretty happy with that. So the bottles were easy to choose, but the atomizer we got sent maybe 50 atomizers and we just spent a lot of time pissing around spraying stuff with them and it's quite easy to spot a cheap atomizer and stuff. But uh, but we just this one. We just tried it. I'm like fuck, that's the one. I think it just gives this huge kind of cloud and it's yeah, I don't know, it's funny. So this is. This is how sad and indoctrinated my kids have become. I showed my eldest daughter but I said look, this is the fully packaged insider product, what do you think? And she sort of opened it up and she was going nice, nice and sprayed it and she went, oh nice, atomizer there we go.

Myke:

It's hard to sell the kids on something that you're passionate about. So if they're impressed, you know you did good. Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. When we first started the podcast, my kids would go like who am I? Everyone guess who I am, and then they'll do this.

Dan:

It's like just me walking around smelling whatever fragrance we sprayed that day on the episode, so most of the time they're just trolling us, but yeah, well, I mean, uh, normally I have at least three fragrances on each arm, you know, uh different. So back of the hand, forearm and upper arm are just always three completely different things. So I find myself kind of walking around trying to smell different body parts and remember what I'd sprayed on them and stuff. Yeah, my kids think I'm an idiot you're not alone.

Ryan:

Our kids think you know. They think we're dumb too.

Myke:

So speaking of idiots. By the way, there's 101 different ways you can respond to somebody on frey grantica. But I came across one of your responses to somebody on fred grantica. But I came across one of your responses to somebody on fred grantica and I felt like you handled it like so well and we've had this critique with companies before and after reading your response I was like damn, we're idiots.

Myke:

But the the comment was like you know, fucking 10 releases in this amount of time and, uh, this is bullshit, blah, blah, blah. And you just responded with, like I can see why you feel that way, but keep in mind we've been working on this shit for like two years, yeah, you know, and you kind of broke it down and you could have been defensive, you could have been an asshole, yeah, but you handled it in a way that was one professional. You probably got to do that with your business, but also, like it's, it's just hard to take that type of criticism and then turn back and then still just like throw out I mean, I'll be honest, I, I have to, I have to bite my tongue.

Dan:

It's, yeah, but he's not a saint. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no. It's not like I sort of live on some higher plane of consciousness where this doesn't affect me, of course it affects me and, to be honest, that's you know, I don't know if I said this last time, but it's one of the reasons I never did YouTube, because I just I feel like people who do YouTube get so much abuse and stuff, Absolutely.

Dan:

I just never wanted that. I just the juice isn't worth the squeeze for me. But what I have sort of learned over the years I think it's a British idiom but you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Oh yeah, yeah, it's easier, it's better to be nice in the long run, even if that's difficult. So I usually you, you know once I have this sort of monkey brain response like how fucking do you say that?

Dan:

I know not to write anything and then, I go away and I think about it and I write something nice. And you know, someone sent me an email to insiders saying, yeah, your products are fucking ridiculously overpriced. I was like, yeah, no, I know they're expensive. Honestly, I wish I could make them cheaper, but I do stand by the quality. So maybe you know, if price is an issue, you might want to pick up a travel atomizer, because we do the travel atomizers now. That's great. So we're discovering the brand. And they eventually bought one which was like yes, and they said they loved it.

Ryan:

So cool. I'm happy with that. That kind of falls into a question I think I was going to ask.

Dan:

We had a listener that was asking if y'all made discovery sets, or is that something y'all plan on doing? Yes and no. The one thing that was important to me was that we'd put the discovery atomizers in the 10 mil ones. Right, because we can produce them and sell them for a fair price and they're a good way of people discovering stuff without spending an absolute fortune, right. But what we can't do is produce 2ml samples and then sell them because it's just not economically viable, especially when you've got well, we've got like 21 or 22 fragrances.

Dan:

Now the plan is to try and add at least kind of six a year. So pretty quickly you get to the point where you can't produce a pack of 26 or 27, whatever 2ml samples. I've seen brands do it, but I mean it's madness, right, yeah, and then you can't sell them and it's just, it's a, it's a complete faff. So what we are doing is going to start putting 2ml samples of forthcoming releases in for free with bottle purchases, so you can't buy them, uh, but it's a way, hopefully, of getting people to try the new releases before they're out and then when they are released, they can go oh yeah, and I tried that, I like it, I can buy it, or it wasn't for me, whatever.

Myke:

I love that. That's a great idea. That's a seriously good idea. Honestly, for me, the travel atomizers is good enough because if you're looking for a more affordable option to a fragrance you already love, it's not much of a risk just to get 10 mil and try it out, wear it, see what you think of it and if you really like it yeah, honestly, and then you can get the bottle absolutely, um, and quite a lot of people we found are ordering like five, six, you know as many, as I think one person ordered 12 wow, discovery atomizers.

Dan:

You know um, which for us is is great because you know we make some money on that. It's worth us to absorb some of the loss on the shipping. I mentioned our shipping to the States. We're actually losing money when we ship to the States because DHL are absolutely fucking us off. Hopefully we will get that fixed. But you know, when someone orders eight travel atomizers, it's like great, that's a perfect order for us because we're not then losing money on anything and they get to try loads of different stuff and hopefully they buy a bottle and if they don't, well, that's okay, because we didn't lose money on what we sold them in the first place.

Ryan:

Right, well, let me ask you I'm going to kind of ask you a couple of questions that we've had asked and I think some of them have been kind of answered. Nothing crazy. They want to know, like, how many cents are you looking to have in the catalog? They're also kind of asking where your plans are to grow the brand, and I feel like you kind of somewhat answered it, because you seem to say that the states over here, like this is kind of your biggest market. And then the last one, what are some, since you've tried that you haven't come out yet that you may be thinking of putting with the brand.

Myke:

Well, they're trying to get some inside scoop from insider okay, um, I should say that's good, that is good.

Dan:

um, I should have written down all the questions. So, uh, make sure I answer all of this. But uh, what I'll do is is I'll ramble on and then kick me if it's wrong. So at the moment we got, as I say, something like 21, 22 fragrances. We have currently about five in development, of which I would say two I'm definitely happy with and we're definitely launching A two I'm definitely happy with and we're definitely launching. So what we're definitely happy with is a Roger Dove, amber Oud oh okay, which is a personal favorite and a Henri Jacques Blue Vanille. So Henri Jacques is obviously this.

Dan:

You know, in the UK you can only buy Henri Jacques in Harrods. They've got this sort of oak-panelled boutique. If you want to try something, you know, a Parisian steps forward and dabs one drop of oil on your wrist. It's all very wonderful, and then they rinse you like sort of 700 quid for 15 mil of perfume oil, which and they are amazing quality, they smell fucking fabulous. Right, there's no getting away from that. But there is no way on earth most people will get to smell blue vanilla, which is a shame because it's a beautiful, beautiful vanilla fragrance, vanilla fragrance and it's got a sort of bluish shower gel sort of aspect fused with this quite sweet but but full-bodied vanilla that is just unbelievably grown up and and seductive. I fucking love it. It's one of the best fragrances you'll ever try and I am absolutely delighted with the quality of our perfume. Uh, that imitates it, so that one will be coming very soon.

Dan:

And then you asked about growing the brand. I mean, at the moment we're going for the organic growth stuff, right, so we are hoping that people will tell their friends about it, that they will write reviews on Trustpilot or Fragrantica. We're going to have to get into paid Google adverts, I'm sure, because there's a certain scale that we have to get to in order to be able to access better shipping and to be more economically viable. Because I'm you know, I'm not I'm certainly not pleading that I'm on the breadline or anything. The business makes it Well, but the fact is I do have a job right. I've gone and taken a day job. I work in cybersecurity during the day and it's very exciting and I love my job. In case my boss is listening, but you know, the reality is I'd love it if Insider and Soma, as brands, were able to. You know, support me, but they're not. Yeah, we would, maybe one day they should.

Myke:

It's kind of few and far between that. You run into things like this, where it actually the quality matters, the experience for the consumer matters. This much you know you're you're doing what a lot of them don't do, which is creating access. It's not just about peddling goods Like you're trying to make things more attainable and that's what we've searched for this whole time with sampling and decanting and stuff like that, because we've been preaching that for forever. Like guys, don't buy the bottles, you don't have to just to experience a great fragrance. This is another way to do that and it's like I would feel so confident just recommending somebody go and even buy just the 10 mil or whatever, because you care so much about the quality and we've experienced enough to where we could go. You know what. You may not have seven, 800 bucks to drop on this one, but I'm pretty sure this would be damn close and we know it's going to be good.

Dan:

Yeah, so you just said a word there which I think is fantastic, which is about obtainable, and just a little story I shared with a marketing friend marketing friend, but a friend who's in marketing this idea behind the brand that I said I wanted it to be around the concept of unobtainium right, the things that you can't get and he told me it was a fucking terrible idea. Do not use the word unobtainium. He said Really, I like it, I like the word.

Myke:

So it was nice to hear Some sort of you know thing that the bones of wolverines made out of or something Exactly.

Dan:

He said it sounds fucking stupid sounds like.

Myke:

It sounds like sci-fi. You got a comic book on your hands. I love that, but yeah, that's it, man, trying to get access to these amazing things. It's about the experience people who really do love fragrance and really just love interaction with it, the experience of it. Making that accessible to people is a huge thing, and this is one more way to do it and you're killing it, man. We absolutely love it. You sent us a couple more that were inspired by Royal.

Ryan:

Yeah, there was one that was like Crown Royal Prince. Yeah, yeah. But, what's the?

Myke:

ring.

Dan:

Crown Prince is what do they? Royal Crown Sultan? Yes, so Royal Crown are this sort of quite niche Italian house. They charge primo money, mental money for their products the fragrances themselves are quite simple, but really nicely done, yeah, and I thought well, no one else is doing that one, let's do that one.

Myke:

The funny thing about that brand is I remember the first time I interacted with it because I do photography, so occasionally if I'm really desperate for money, I'll second shoot a wedding for another photographer. I hate shooting weddings, but I will do it if I'm broke.

Dan:

Everyone does.

Myke:

So I saw this and this was right after we had started the podcast and I sent Ryan a picture. I was holding it, the groom had got it the fragrance and I took a picture of it. I sent it to Ryan. I'm like look at this wild ass fragrance. And so I asked the groom. I say, hey man, what made you get this fragrance to wear? And he goes I just went into the store and asked for the most expensive fragrance they had.

Dan:

Well, I mean, you've got to admire the honesty right. I saw him coming.

Myke:

Yeah, whoever was like oh baby, here we go.

Dan:

Well, sir, I've got just the thing for you.

Myke:

This one's got a crown on it. Exactly, what about S somo? How's that going, man? Um, so it's going pretty well.

Dan:

Uh, I mean, it's um slow and steady. I would say we are working on a rebrand, not the way it's actually not going to be a rebrand, but at least an overhaul to the website to make it a bit more professional. You know, hopefully next year most of the energy has been taken up with. Insider is the reality.

Dan:

So I don't expect any sympathy, but you have the idea how much effort goes into producing that many fragrances and launching simultaneously. Um, you know, if I had a huge team, I'm sure it would be much easier, but it's basically me and a mate and the perfumer, and so everything just takes a fucking age. I personally filled and labeled and capped and boxed something like two and a half thousand bottles. It's all I did. It's literally all I did every day, and boxed something like two and a half thousand bottles. It's all I did. It's literally all I did every day for about four weeks. It is the most unbelievable slow process. Good, so that's taken up all my time and now I'm going back to work, to do a proper job rather than things.

Myke:

Yeah, to take a sabbatical just to do all that boxing, yeah, exactly. Well, with Soma, I'm obsessed with that.

Dan:

Halcyon Oud, that is so good oh great, yeah, that is now our bestseller, actually Halcyon Oud. By some way, halcyon Oud has eclipsed Halcyon and we also. We previously discontinued one called. I always feel slightly nauseous when I say oh, the inspiration for my perfume.

Dan:

The inspiration is a sort of holiday lazing by the pool kind of thing. And the blonde was not a reference to blonde hair, it was like a reference to blonde woods. So blonde woods, blue pool, that kind of thing, and it's very fresh and zippy. We relaunched that actually because we got quite a lot of demand for it, so that's doing quite well. Halcyon Halcyon does well, and then the rest of them just sort of tick by, which is cool. But we've also launched the same travel discovery atomizers for Soma oh, cool. Again, it's been a good way of kind of getting people to be able to access the brand without committing to a full bottle.

Myke:

Yeah, because, god, god, a lot of them are good. You kind of want to smell quite a few of them because, yeah, and we know for real, like when you because you sent us samples and it was like, yeah, which ones do we want? I think you sent ryan and I each one.

Ryan:

Then I bought two more bottles because I was like god, this shit is so good and then after he after he got got his stuff right and I had the verdict, you gave me the verdict, redox, and oh, that's it. Yeah, man, he smells that every time.

Myke:

He's just like I should have got this. Oh man, it's so. We, him and I just how old we are, we're just old men. We went to bingo night and yes so we go to bingo and I'm like I know ryan is gonna wear something loud, so I'm like I gotta wear a loud fragrance, yeah, and all I can smell is what he's wearing. I kept going like what the fuck are you?

Myke:

wearing it's like it's so good I'm obsessed with. I could, I couldn't stop talking about him. Finally he was like you don't know what this is and I was like I can't put my finger on it. But I was like god, it smells so good. And he goes it's the uh, yeah, it's the soma.

Ryan:

And I was like god, I every, I second guessed myself they're so good, so your fragrance that you created has traveled across ocean water landed in a small east texas town and made it to bingo night. It's a bingo night with a bunch of like 90 year old people and I'm not and I'm not ashamed to say that I freaking sprayed the hell out of it and he won that night, probably because of that can I just check?

Dan:

the bingo in the usa is the same as bingo here. It's basically a bunch of numbers and someone yes, yeah, okay so we are talking about the same thing, yeah it does surprise me just a little bit that you two guys are avid bingo uh every saturday night.

Ryan:

Well it's. It's more so for the kids. Yeah, it's like super cheap.

Ryan:

This is like in a really like uh older area, so it's more so for the kids. It's like super cheap. This is like in a really like older area, so it's like super cheap. It's like literally like $2 a card and like some of the payouts are like swear to God. Some of the payouts are like $10, $15. Right, but at the end of the night they do a. Everybody puts you know all the cards you buy. They count the money up in the biggest jackpots like a hundred and something bucks usually. But the kids get excited and it's cheap, easy food and they have cakes and stuff.

Myke:

So you know us.

Ryan:

It's all to support our volunteer fire department basically, I should have started with that, okay, yeah.

Myke:

So it's all just like but people are bringing like They'll home, make pies and stuff like that, and then you go in you and you pay really cheap a buck and they'll give you a piece of pie or something and they like it's all been donated. So they're just raising money. But yeah, the kids go out and they're just excited because they're like what if I win a hundred dollars? You know, I can play so much fortnight, you know. So we bring them out and do that.

Dan:

I really have to visit you guys. That sounds, I mean, that just sounds so cool. I is very, very different to a saturday night in manchester, okay seriously, the invitation was already sent out.

Ryan:

We've got an extra bed. It's a king size. Nobody's been in it. You got your own private bathroom. You're good dude. That's it, yeah. The rest of it's just a bunch of studio stuff. I'm gonna have to do it.

Myke:

You've got an open invite. Whenever you want, Just bring us a bottle of you know something that's good, Excellent. I think that's a great way to kind of close it out. Is there any closing remarks other than Cologne 15 that you want our listeners to know you want to tell us?

Dan:

The only thing I'd say is if people want to talk about this crap with me, just drop me an email at insider. So it's like team at insiderparfumscom. I answer all the emails myself, mostly because there's no one else to do it. But if people want to ask questions about it, just just ask away. You know this. You know we're not a big business, right? I don't have a fleet of clerical people dealing with our social media and all that sort of shit. It is literally me. And if people would like to get in touch and talk about this crap, I am always happy to talk about perfume. You don't have to commit to buying anything or anything like that. If you want to drop me an email and just talk shit about perfume, I'm here for it. That's awesome.

Myke:

He loves it, we love it. You got a podcast. We got a podcast. We can't stop talking about it, guys. We can't, you know. But honestly, if you're listening and you're really excited about fragrances and you actually want to get behind people who love fragrances and are trying to do something meaningful they're not just trying to make a buck off of you it's good to get behind businesses like this. It's the reason why we get so excited about it, Because it's not just another company, but it's a person. It's Dan over there that cares enough about fragrances and he wants you guys to experience the things that you can't get your hands on.

Ryan:

Absolutely, man. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. For sure, thank you for giving us a spot which is going to go to one of our patrons.

Myke:

So I didn't want it to he he put me on the spot on an episode, and I was just like well, I'll tell you.

Dan:

I'll tell you what let's. Let's do that slightly differently. You keep that one, and if you send me the address of your Patreon, winner.

Myke:

I will send out a bottle to them directly. Yes, I knew, if I whined about it, the universe would open up something to me perfect.

Dan:

You hear that, so, uh, you manifested the shit out of that one absolutely well, that just made my night cool, so awesome.

Myke:

We'll, uh uh, one of our lucky patreons. We'll be linking you up with dan and you'll get your own 50 mil bottle of Insidious Absolute.

Ryan:

Dan, thank you, thank you so much, and guys, we appreciate you guys for listening and until next time, spray it up y'all.