Have you ever experienced a product that is so nuanced and complex that you wonder how the people behind that product have managed to craft such a marvel in the first place? Fragrances are, in essence, no greater than the sum of its parts. You see, there’s a reason as to why perfumers are willing to pay a certain amount of money to obtain the materials that they desire. This is because perfumers know that the better the ingredients that they’ve chosen, the better the end-product will be. The same can be said about the smartphone industry, an industry that, throughout the past few years, have grown more and more conscious that the parts that make up the phone are just as important as the brand itself.
That’s not the entire story though. The better the ingredients are, the better chances you’ll have to craft a great product, but it’s not to say that ingredients are everything and is the deciding factor in determining how great something is. in recent years, again, we’ve seen how the smartphone has grown to such an extent where virtually every phone on the market are made with more or less the same parts, the same chips, and the same glass, but they’re still not the same. This must mean that there’s an X factor that separates one product from another, right? It’s the same case with cars, and, to a certain extent, music. There’s a reason why the cliche of only needing to know 4 chords for you to be able to write a hit song since virtually every top-charting pop song of the decade has been written with the same 4 chords, yet every song is different.
What separates one song, fragrance, and phone from one another isn’t the parts that they’re made of. It’s their character.
Every product has its own character, this is something that comes from its quirks, and to some extent, their flaws. This isn’t inherently bad as these things are something that can actually elevate a certain product to newer heights. Character doesn’t just come from flaws, however, it can be anything from just how the product looks, down to how you’ve treated the product. Taking it back to fragrances, every bottle of perfume has its own character, and it’s not something new. This is why you’ve always liked a certain bottle of perfume from a certain brand and not others.
It’s no big secret that the components that make something up are important, but some products, like perfumes, are greater than the sum of its parts. Though, indeed, using the best ingredients that you can get your hands on is important, treating the product as well as you can is also important. Ultimately though, as long as you pay attention to the minute details, and treat the ingredients you’re working with with the level of respect that it deserves, you’re sure to come up with a product that will be even greater than the sum of its parts.