Top 40 Most Reviewed Fragrances on Basenotes with Overall Ratings

[thebeck]

Good job. It's always nice to see an overview of different things.

 

[Schnitter]

Now that is a great job man! I'll take a look one by one. Hope I don't get too tempted on buying more frgrances as I've spent too much in the last 3 months already.

 

[Indoril Nerevar]

Interesting.....surprised to see Encre Noire so high up the list

 

[CapriDog]

Bootylicious - I am liking the 3 separate lists as I think they are more useful. Thank you for taking your time and interest in creating the lists :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:.

 

[Zilpha]

I did not realize that the Creeds -MI, VIW, & SMW - were considered unisex. I haven't heard of any women wearing them.

 

[CapriDog]

I did not realize that the Creeds -MI, VIW, & SMW - were considered unisex. I haven't heard of any women wearing them.

Zilpha - According to Creed website/marketing, they are unisex (under Creed universal fragrances).

 

[gneoh]

That's amazing! thanks for the hard work! The lists just gave me a clearer idea of what i (newbie) should try first!

 

[Lewy]

Stunning, I can't imagine how much time you spent on this.

You seem to miss some top-notch colognes though. L'Instant de Guerlain pour Homme e.g. has 127 pos, 24 neutral, 9 neg reviews. I guess that would be very far up the list no? Or what about Dior Homme Intense (86/12/11) or especially LIDGE (69/7/3), which has the best pos-neutral-neg-ratio of all here on Basenotes. They lack the minimum required review number?

I also wonder where something like Patou pour Homme (41/4/1) would come out if more popular.
Anyway, great work!

Just for the fun of it - here are the best-reviewed perfumes of the German fragrance community. Some similarities, but overall very different. Taken from parfumo.de.

 

[Bootylicious]

Good job. It's always nice to see an overview of different things.

Now that is a great job man! I'll take a look one by one. Hope I don't get too tempted on buying more frgrances as I've spent too much in the last 3 months already.

Thanks :^D

Interesting.....surprised to see Encre Noire so high up the list

Why surprised? Also, I myself would place more emphasis on the overall ratings of the fragrances than the order in which they appear on the list. Numerically, there is very little difference between the fragrances that have an overall rating of 100% (overall ratings rounded to the nearest 1%). I would even extend this to say that very little difference exists between the fragrances in the 95% to 100% range.

Bootylicious - I am liking the 3 separate lists as I think they are more useful. Thank you for taking your time and interest in creating the lists :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:.

You are very welcome. And thank you for your observation that you posted earlier. Having seperate lists was an excellent idea!

That's amazing! thanks for the hard work! The lists just gave me a clearer idea of what i (newbie) should try first!

You're welcome :^D.

Stunning, I can't imagine how much time you spent on this.

You seem to miss some top-notch colognes though. L'Instant de Guerlain pour Homme e.g. has 127 pos, 24 neutral, 9 neg reviews. I guess that would be very far up the list no? Or what about Dior Homme Intense (86/12/11) or especially LIDGE (69/7/3), which has the best pos-neutral-neg-ratio of all here on Basenotes. They lack the minimum required review number?

I also wonder where something like Patou pour Homme (41/4/1) would come out if more popular.
Anyway, great work!

Just for the fun of it - here are the best-reviewed perfumes of the German fragrance community. Some similarities, but overall very different. Taken from parfumo.de.

View attachment 33391

View attachment 33392

Yes. Many top-notch fragrances didn't make the list because they were not in the top 40 most reviewed for either masculine, unisex or feminine categories. I wanted to keep the lists relatively short (less work for me) and focus my efforts on the fragrances having a large number of reviews (more stable overall ratings). But just for the fun of it :^D:


Additional Masculine Fragrances on Basenotes with Overall Ratings

Fragrance	House	Year	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Overall
L'Instant de Guerlain pour Homme	Guerlain	2004	122	24	9	100%
Dior Homme Intense	Christian Dior	2007	80	11	6	100%
L'Instant de Guerlain pour Homme Extreme	Guerlain	2005	60	7	3	100%
Patou pour Homme (original)	Jean Patou	1980	39	4	1	100%

Thanks for the parfumo screens. Didn't realize they had their own top 100 lists. They even have percentages :^D.

 

[DuNezDeBuzier]

Hey bootylicious can I trouble you for further explanation?
What does the 'overall' column percentages represent? Azzaro pH is at 100% Overall and Kouros is at 1% Overall... 100% of what? 1% of what?

 

[Bootylicious]

Hey bootylicious can I trouble you for further explanation?
What does the 'overall' column percentages represent? Azzaro pH is at 100% Overall and Kouros is at 1% Overall... 100% of what? 1% of what?

The overall rating is a percentage value that reflects the relative strength of the reviews given to a fragrance. I won't go into the mathematics of it, but what this essentially means is that if Azzaro pour Homme has an overall rating of 100% and Kouros has a overall rating of 1%, then the strength of the reviews given to Azzaro pour Homme are 100 times the strength of the reviews given to Kouros.

 

[gtsb]

The overall rating is a percentage value that reflects the relative strength of the reviews given to a fragrance. I won't go into the mathematics of it, but what this essentially means is that if Azzaro pour Homme has an overall rating of 100% and Kouros has a overall rating of 1%, then the strength of the reviews given to Azzaro pour Homme are 100 times the strength of the reviews given to Kouros.

Thanks for your hard work--but I still don't understand this! What does it mean that Bleu de Chanel has 0% overall? And how are you translating qualitative characteristics (strength of the reviews) into quantitative stats, or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "strength of the reviews"?

 

[DuNezDeBuzier]

The overall rating is a percentage value that reflects the relative strength of the reviews given to a fragrance. I won't go into the mathematics of it, but what this essentially means is that if Azzaro pour Homme has an overall rating of 100% and Kouros has a overall rating of 1%, then the strength of the reviews given to Azzaro pour Homme are 100 times the strength of the reviews given to Kouros.

I don't understand this 'strength of the reviews' bit. Why not come full-disclosure on your methodology. In the spirit of a good science/math exercise, why not lay it all out on the line and let others provide constructive criticism? Your data would be more helpful, perhaps, to me at least.

 

[Nosey49]

Thanks for all the work you put into developing the list. It is very informative.

An observation - and not a criticism - since more basenoters buy and rate designer frags, the list is biased against niche. Nothing you can do about that. IMHO, designer fragrances are purchased much more than niche and therefore rated much more often. The list really doesn't reveal what is best - just what is the highest rated of those that were rated.

Again, no criticism. it's a valuable exercise.

 

[dougczar]

Yeah, like others, I am not sure what you use to determine your "overall".

Coco	Chanel	1984	92	9	3	100%
Sycomore (new)	Chanel	2008	74	7	3	100%
Shalimar	Guerlain	1925	165	15	22	100%
Bandit	Robert Piguet	1944	66	18	8	100%

If 92-9-3 = 100% (Coco) .... then how does 66-18-8 = 100% (Bandit)?

I am guessing you used some "non-math" criteria (i.e. what you like the best, bottle preference, etc.)?

 

[Bootylicious]

Thanks for your hard work--but I still don't understand this! What does it mean that Bleu de Chanel has 0% overall? And how are you translating qualitative characteristics (strength of the reviews) into quantitative stats, or am I misunderstanding what you mean by "strength of the reviews"?

I don't understand this 'strength of the reviews' bit. Why not come full-disclosure on your methodology. In the spirit of a good science/math exercise, why not lay it all out on the line and let others provide constructive criticism? Your data would be more helpful, perhaps, to me at least.

Yeah, like others, I am not sure what you use to determine your "overall".

Fragrance	House	Year	Positive	Neutral	Negative	Overall
Coco	Chanel	1984	92	9	3	100%
Sycomore (new)	Chanel	2008	74	7	3	100%
Shalimar	Guerlain	1925	165	15	22	100%
Bandit	Robert Piguet	1944	66	18	8	100%

If 92-9-3 = 100% (Coco) .... then how does 66-18-8 = 100% (Bandit)?

I am guessing you used some "non-math" criteria (i.e. what you like the best, bottle preference, etc.)?

As I have previously posted, I'd rather not divulge the specifics of these calculations at this point in time. I apologize to those of you wanting answers or wanting to provide constructive criticism regarding this matter.

Thanks for all the work you put into developing the list. It is very informative.

An observation - and not a criticism - since more basenoters buy and rate designer frags, the list is biased against niche. Nothing you can do about that. IMHO, designer fragrances are purchased much more than niche and therefore rated much more often. The list really doesn't reveal what is best - just what is the highest rated of those that were rated.

Again, no criticism. it's a valuable exercise.

Appreciate the thanks, and you're very welcome.

Correct. These lists only include fragrances that are in the top 40 most reviewed for either masculine, unisex or feminine categories. Many more strongly reviewed fragrances, specifically niche fragrances, would come to surface had figures been calculated for fragrances having fewer reviews.

 

[Birdboy48]

As I have previously posted, I'd rather not divulge the specifics of these calculations at this point in time. I apologize to those of you wanting answers or wanting to provide constructive criticism regarding this matter.

I suspect math folks are the same as others, as far as wanting to keep the details of their formulations close to their chest. It's where the creativity is, and I think all of us can appreciate that part.

Still, since the "Overall" figure seems to be the final outcome of these calculations, I'll have to join with the others in wondering exactly what we are to take the "Overall" score to mean. From the standpoint of a stranger, who might wonder about the general consensus among the membership here I mean.

If I were that stranger, I might be lead to think that our membership would rate, Sycomore 100 times higher than Black Orchid, when in my experience the overall preferences here, while distinct, would probably not shake out quite to that degree.

Still, systems like these are always quite interesting, and are clearly the result of much thought and effort, so when the time seems proper, I'll be interested in hearing a bit more about how one might be expected to interpret these results.

My assumption is that there are some particular sorts of statistical weightings involved in these calculations which exert a selectively heavy influence on the "Overall" rating but which are not clear to us here at this time.

 

[DuNezDeBuzier]

As I have previously posted, I'd rather not divulge the specifics of these calculations at this point in time. I apologize to those of you wanting answers or wanting to provide constructive criticism regarding this matter.

That’s certainly your prerogative. Hopefully you won’t mind if I attempt to carry the conversation forward…

I’ve always been interested in the review numbers. When the hobby bug bit I knew I’d have to organize things in order to maximize my enjoyment. With that in mind, I constructed an exel spreadsheet with all kinds of info on it, including BN review numbers (totals – positives/neutrals/negatives). It was but one variable of info I used to assess what I wanted to sample next. This was four to five years back.

This thread got me thinking about a few things reviews-related, so I went ahead and updated my data to include all fragrances in the BN database with over 50 reviews. Plus, the ‘strength of reviews’ thingy is simply upsetting to my chi.:wink:


First off, though, let’s talk about BN reviews.

1. WHO VOTES? All members can review. Some take time to get through as they undergo an administrative review before they are displayed to all. But as far as I know, pretty much all of them are accepted. For instance, there’s this positive review written in 2009 for Kouros, of questionable taste and use, but nevertheless…”Smells like bigfoot’s dick. That’s not a bad thing.” Which leads to the next topic…
2. QUALITY? Some reviews are more useful / helpful than others. Remember in school, you’d have to show all your work in order to get partial credit if you came to the wrong answer? Well here, albeit where we’re arguably dealing with something that has no right or wrong answer, the content within a review is still important to some, me included. Telling me only that you like it, it’s strong, it reminds you of your daddy when you were a kid, or smells like bigfoot’s appendage… does nothing to relate what it smell like. If you wanna say smells like ‘a barnyard’ or ‘a urinal cake’, well at least I can relate to those smells, regardless whether or not I agree. Also, from a pragmatic perspective, all BN reviewers are not equal. There are some that put a lot of time and effort into it and show a real knack for it. Should extra weighting be given to their reviews based on some criteria such as number of reviews, post count, start date, inventory count, participation such as split hosting, BN plus memberships, occupation, etc.? Sure, one could argue that any one aspect does not guarantee a quality review/reviewer, but across the board I'd say that the better reviews come from those reviewers that review alot and/or have been around for awhile and/or are relatively more active BN participants.
3. MOTIVATION? What does it take to motivate a review? While it does seem there are professional-type reviewers that seemingly smell then review anything and everything they get their nose on, what does it take to get the average BNr to submit a review? Is the average guy/gal more likely to submit a review after a good reaction or does it take a great reaction? Or, conversely, is it a particularly bad or terrible experience that will generate a review submission? Some people simply don’t care to dwell on being negative about things and perhaps this reduces the number of negatives.
4. POPULARITY CONTEST? If all you care about is popularity, then up/down/neutral is arguably all that matters. Throw the content out and the neutrals as well. You can assess the positives and negatives straight up without any weighting. The most popular would be the one with the most net positive votes. However, under circumstances, for instance, where you’re convinced there is a bias against negative reviewers getting up the motivation to submit a negative review… you could always weight the negatives, let’s say twice as much, if you thought it twice as unlikely that an average BN would be motivated to submit a negative on any given fragrance relative to a positive on any given fragrance.
5. BIASES? As mentioned by others in this thread… a) BN has more male members and is biased toward men’s fragrance, b) Designer fragrances are generally cost less, more accessible, and have been smelled by more people – i.e. more coverage means more reviews, c) fragrances that’ve been around longer generally have more coverage meaning more reviews.
6. THE BESTEST? Even though I find the ‘what is the best…’ type threads figuratively unanswerable from an individualistic perspective, arguably the crowd (as a whole) does have an answer at any point in time. Over time, the crowd possibly provides the answer to the question. Think of it in terms of a popularity contest where each voter is afforded an up or down vote on each contestant that he/she is familiar with. Whereas the winner or the most popular would usually be the contestant with the most net positives or ups, oftentimes this one is controversial, with many positive votes and yet a significant number of negative votes, perhaps many more negative votes as most of the other contestants received. A fragrance with 400 positive and 250 negative reviews might very well be considered the most popular with a net of 150 positive. Controversial as well. But can this fragrance be labeled better than say a fragrance with only 100 reviews, but 80 of those positive? Arguably, the latter could be called better or deemed better by the review reading audience, no? Well, I, for one, think so.​

Comments?

With all that out of the way, and as purely an academic exercise, in ensuing posts I'll show some listings alongside what bootylicious came up for comparison/contrast.

 

[DuNezDeBuzier]

Second, let's talk about the universe. From the Reviews area of BN we see the following (as rounded):
Total Fragrances: 11,600
Total Reviews: 114,000
Total Positives: 72,000
Total Neutrals: 25,000
Total Negatives: 17,000

This breaks down to:
- an average of just about 10 reviews per fragrance, just for a little perspective.
- 63% of all reviews are positives
- 22% of all reviews are neutrals
- 15% of all reviews are negatives

As stated before, I recently updated some numbers I keep for all fragrances having at least 50 reviews. This breaks down to:
- 406 fragrances (248 mens / 79 uni / 79 womens)
- 3.5% of the BN fragrance universe
- represents 35% of all reviews
- represents 36% of all positives
- represents 31% of all neutrals
- represents 38% of all negatives
- of this 3.5%, 65% are positives / 19% are neutrals / 16% are negatives (comparable to the universe: 63%/22/15)

 

[DuNezDeBuzier]

This listing represents Men's fragrances in the BN directory with >50 reviews - ranked by percentage of positive reviews to the total reviews submitted for that particular fragrance.


By Man 91%
Nobile 89%
Escada Homme 88%
L'Instant pH Extreme 87%
Polo Modern Reserve 87%
Pour Lui - OdlR 87%
Ambre Precieux 87%
Vintage Tabarome 86%
Havana 86%
Pour Monsieur Concentree 84%
Edition 83%
Dior Homme Intense 83%
Dunhill 1934 82%
Old Spice 82%
Derby 82%
Tabac Original 82%
Horizon 81%
Baie de Genievre 81%
Azzaro pH 81%
Zino Davidoff 80%
Coriolan 80%
Aramis 900 80%
Rive Gauche pH 80%
Equipage 79%
L'Instant pH 79%
Antaeus 79%
Cacharel Pour L'Homme 79%
Cuiron 79%
M7 Fresh 79%
Heritage 79%
Ungaro III 78%
Bogart pH 78%
Pure Havane 77%
Jubilation XXV 77%
Monsieur de Givenchy 77%
Santal Noble 77%
Body Kouros 77%
Very Sexy for Him 76%
Egoiste 76%
Rochas Man 76%
Versace l'Homme 76%
Vetiver Extraordinaire 76%
L'Eau Bleu D'Issey pH 76%
Live Jazz 75%
YSL pH 75%
Encre Noire 75%
JHL 75%
Corduroy 75%
Gentleman 74%
Gucci pH I 74%
Eau des Baux 74%
Minotaure 74%
Tuscany 74%
Bois du Portugal 74%
Eau Sauvage 73%
Polo 73%
Jaipur Homme 73%
Quorum 73%
Michael for Men 73%
Paco Rabanne pH 72%
Bulgar pH Extreme 72%
Brut 72%
Nightflight 72%
Aramis 72%
3rd Man 72%
Gucci pH II 72%
Envy 72%
Halston Z-14 72%
VC&A pH 71%
Chic for Men 71%
Pour Monsieur 71%
Safari for Men 71%
Rochsas Lui 71%
Insense 70%
London 70%
M7 70%
Must de Cartier pH 70%
Fahrenheit 70%
Bulgari pH 69%
L'Anarchiste 69%
Guerlain Vetiver 69%
Route du Vetiver 69%
Boss Bottled 69%
Lapidus pH 69%
John Varvatos 69%
Visit 68%
Aventus 68%
Giorgio for Men 68%
Allure 68%
English Leather 68%
Sables 68%
Grey Flannel 67%
Hammam Bouquet 67%
Jules 67%
Blenheim Bouquet 67%
Salvador Dali pH 67%
Rose 31 67%
Pour un Homme 67%
Habit Rouge 67%
2 Man 67%
Bel Ami 67%
Xerys Rouge 67%
Versace Man 67%
Lalique pH 67%
Pasha 67%
Green Irish Tweed 66%
Knize Ten 66%
Lagerfeld Classis 66%
Dreamer 66%
Jazz 66%
Emporio Armani He 66%
H.M. 66%
Lolita Lempicka Au Masculine 66%
Terre d'Hermes 66%
Allure Homme Edition Blanch 66%
Allure Homme Sport 66%
Eau Noire Cologne 66%
L'Eau D'Issey pH 65%
B*Men 65%
Royal English Leather 65%
L'Eau D'Issey pH Intense 65%
Himalaya 65%
Dirty English 65%
Arpege pH 65%
Le Male 64%
XS pH 64%
Doce & Gabbana pH 64%
Dior Homme 64%
Opium pH 64%
Idole de Lubin 64%
Boss No. 1 64%
Dune pH 64%
Kenzo pH 64%
Silver Black Onyx 64%
Declaration 64%
French Lover 63%
Obsession for Men 63%
Pino Silvestre 63%
Polo Double Black 63%
Kouros 63%
Happy for Men 63%
Voyage - Nautica 63%
Menchant Loup 63%
Green Valley 63%
Sung Homme 62%
Erolfa 62%
Original Vetiver 62%
Style in Play 62%
Armani Eau pH 62%
Platinum Egoiste 61%
Herrera for Men 61%
Curve for Men 61%
Rush for Men 61%
Roadster 61%
La Nuit de L'Homme 61%
Acier Aluminum 60%
Boucheron pH 60%
Brit 60%
Blue Jeans 60%
Code 60%
Bois d'Argent Cologne 60%
Vintage 59%
The One for Men 59%
Touch for Men 59%
YSL L'Homme 59%
Rocobar 59%
Narciso Rodiguez for Him 59%
212 Men 59%
Prada Amber pH 58%
Very Irresistible for Men 58%
Obsession Night for Men 58%
Bulgari Aqua pH 58%
Burberry for Men 58%
Tommy 58%
Dunhill 58%
Aspen for Men 57%
Infusion d'Homme 57%
A*men 57%
Spicebomb 57%
Lacoste pH 57%
Bleu de Chanel 57%
Magnetism for Men 56%
Versace pH 56%
Black XS 56%
Kenzoair 56%
AdP Colonia Intensa 56%
Desire for a Man 55%
Escape for Men 55%
Kenzo Power 55%
Fleur du Male 55%
Buglari pH Soir 55%
Drakkar Noir 55%
Love and Luck for Men 55%
Aqua di Gio 54%
Armani Mania 54%
Cool Water 54%
Fierce for Men 54%
Neroli Sauvage 54%
Pi 54%
Mark Jacobs for Men 54%
L'Eau par Kenzo pH 53%
Hypnose Homme 53%
Polo Explorer 53%
Versace Man Eau Fraiche 52%
Salvator Ferragamo pH 52%
Givenchy pH 52%
Boss in Motion 51%
1 Million 50%
Fahrenheit 32 50%
Ice*Men 50%
Chrome 49%
Dior Homme Sport 49%
Black - Kenneth Cole 49%
Kenneth Cole - Black 49%
Tabarome Millesime 49%
Artisan 48%
Bang 48%
Original Santal 48%
Weekend for Men 47%
Armani Attitude 47%
Blu pH 47%
Emporio Armani Diamonds 47%
Hugo 46%
Polo Blue 46%
Blu Notte pH 45%
D&G Masculine 45%
Essential 45%
Burberrry the Beat for Men 45%
Burberry the Beat 45%
Joop Homme 45%
Calvin Klein Man 44%
Bulgari Aqua pH Marine 43%
Gold Man 43%
Guerlain Homme 42%
Fuel for Life pH 42%
Unforgiveable 41%
Eternity for Men 40%
Euphoria Men 39%
DKNY Be Delicious Men 38%
Polo Sport 38%
212 Sexy Men 36%
Beyond Paradise for Men 36%
Gucci by Gucci pH 36%
Crave 35%
Reaction for Men 35%
Polo Black 34%
Echo 31%
Light Blue pH 25%