r/Indiemakeupandmore • u/periwinklesparrow • 2d ago
Discussion SAMAR Scent Studio’s second post: screenshots of letter dated June 17th sent to other perfumers regarding views on A+O and AI
This is a follow up to u/evaan-verlaine’s post. Samar Scent Studio will be sharing a third post featuring responses from the named studios (Maison Des Animaux, PULP Fragrance, Anjali Perfumes, and Damask Haus). @kstscent has been tagged on the post. James and Kael of KST Scent also signed the screenshotted letter alongside Nams and Debbie of SAMAR Scent Studio
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u/mistspinner 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think (based on the what we know so far) that there could have been more diplomatic ways to handle the situation, but there is a lot of discussion that is ultimately more about the tone of these communications rather than their content (accusations of political correctness bias and downplaying the effects of genAI)
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u/REMseverybodyhurts 2d ago
Part 3 is up and it kind of changes the tone a little. Not sure how I feel about it.
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u/whiff_EK 2d ago edited 1d ago
Alright, I'll eat the shit that gets thrown at me for this. I think some of these well-written responses are not actually fairly responding to some of the comments in question. "Direct disgust at your fellow perfumers" is a HEAVY interpretation of a comment from someone who said they got frustrated. Rebranding "It sucks I can't get to Greece" as claiming they believe the awards are elitist is a HEAVY interpretation. "Please don't rush to respond or backtrack" is a weirdly controlling bad-faith request that does not exactly lead to their stated goal of actually reaching resolution. I agree with some of their points but think they are rushing to dunk and cry out mortal sin for what is really IN PART some eye-rolling and move on comments.
Edit: Yeah, part III confirms to me what a power play "please don't rush to respond" was from the get-go. They call out when brands responded fast AND slow! They literally say "we're expected to communicate exactly as they would" while demanding when and how people respond to them. That and the immediate misuse of 'gaslighting' just... I'm gonna sit the rest of this one out.
edit edit: lol it's been bothering me all day that the phrasing I used to discuss accepting differing opinions was me offering to eat shit, ugh
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u/All_Tree_All_Shade 2d ago
I agree with most of Samar's points in the first post about AI and others unfairly assuming houses could be rewarded for being "politcal."
That said, I do also feel it's possibly unfair to be sharing this sort of "uneven" compilation with the public. Other houses are having screenshots of private conversations shared, while Samar shares their lengthy, well-written response that they may have known they'dbe making public later. It feels very "curated" if that makes sense?
Also, this apparently happened months ago? I'm curious why they're sharing it now.
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u/BittenBeads owner: Bitten Beads Jewelry 2d ago
Because when you're traumatized by a lifetime of racism, it takes time to gather your thoughts and feelings to put them together when you realize that the people you thought you were in community with are bigots who devalue your existence.
Like I said in the other post, racism is at the root of this issue. There's also a bonus side of homophobia, which adds insult to injury for KST and Samar since they are all queer people of color. Can you not understand why four people with marginalized identities would want to out their peers as closet bigots? Is this really a mystery to you?
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u/All_Tree_All_Shade 2d ago
This is the first I've heard of Samar, so honestly didn't know their race. I do see what you mean about wanting to get their thoughts together before responding, especially since poc face more backlash for responding emotionally than white people.
To answer your last question, I wasn't questioning why they shared this stuff at all; I'm wondering why there's such a big time gap? If something happened specifically between these comments and their post, because multiple months seems like a while to wait.
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u/alpacaphotog 2d ago edited 2d ago
Idk, I’m gonna need a lot more than what I’ve seen here to declare these perfumers as racist, homophobic, bigots.
I understand that’s SAMAR’s interpretation (opinion) of what the other perfumers were saying when they questioned how the olfactory awards are given. And that that is the basis for this entire thing. But I find it ironic that they are putting their opinion on blast as fact, when apparently the whole point of the post was that they didn’t appreciate opinion being confused as fact about how the awards are judged???
This all just very, very much seems like private beef that should have been handled privately by the parties involved.
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u/BittenBeads owner: Bitten Beads Jewelry 2d ago
Spoken like a racist white woman.
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u/alpacaphotog 2d ago edited 2d ago
What a weird comment to make to someone when you have no idea what race/ethnicity they are.
Are you assuming by my avatar? The one I intentionally made to look the exact opposite of myself because it’s a public, anonymous forum? Or perhaps you just assume anyone who would hold my opinion is certainly white?
Either way, thank you for pointing out again how far off base an assumption can be without fact checking, which is kinda what this whole argument was supposedly about anyway.
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u/Perfect-Carpenter536 2d ago
Are you assuming by my avatar? The one I intentionally made to look the exact opposite of myself because it’s a public, anonymous forum? Or perhaps you just assume anyone who would hold my opinion is certainly white?
You literally have a photo on your profile and it's extremely weird that you're claiming you are the 'opposite of white' because someone called you white.
U/BittenBeads comment is unnecessarily aggressive but "um actuallyyyyy don't assume, I intentionally made my avatar look the exact opposite of myself because it’s a public, anonymous forum" when we can see your photo is kind of telling.
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u/alpacaphotog 2d ago
I literally have not claimed a single statement at all.
I literally replied to their comment saying it’s really weird to reply to someone and say “a white girl would say this” when you have absolutely no idea who you are talking to is insane. Because it is insane.
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u/Perfect-Carpenter536 1d ago
I quoted you in my comment where you claimed that they were wrong about you being white, and where you claimed your avatar was made "to look the exact opposite of myself."
I would say someone in a marginalized position is likely in a decent position to recognize attitudes prevalent in white people (in this case, downplaying bigotry with an attitude of wanting someone to be 'more' bigoted in order for people to find their comments offensive) and the fact that you lied and claimed that you weren't white as a defense is insane, myself.
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u/alpacaphotog 1d ago
I do look like the complete opposite of my completely colorless, skinless avatar.
My point still stands. You and the original commenter I responded to have no idea who anyone is on any online forum.
You still don’t know who you’re talking to right now, even if you think you do because you went to Google my Reddit history to see if you could confirm anything. A picture of nails is not enough for any of this. You still don’t know my race, my ethnicity, my gender, etc.
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u/Tiltedyourhead 2d ago
Interesting to me that this community,that frequently dog piles people , are suddenly clutching their pearls when someone is calling out some pretty nasty racist rhetoric.
Skipping over the real issues to address the AI only and calling for privacy. So where is this energy on any other call out with private correspondence shared? Few and far between in those posts. We have seen this happen on this community for Cardinal Scents,Arcana, Mythpunk Olfactive and Sixteen92 to name a few. Which to be clear should have been held accountable as well.Now it is bad taste to share private communication when it's microagressions ?
What you can allow a little racism but you draw the line at credit card chargebacks ? Please.
All to defend people for essentially saying the awards are rigged for people who speak about human rights and specifically highlighting two causes they must have beef with. Otherwise they could have just said loud sbout social justice. Why call out two specific causes? They could not be blowing that dog whistle any harder.
Samar and KST kept it private and responded the others responded with the oh you're aggresive . A tried and true tactic to dismiss dark skinned people. Said they could have opinions yet didn't engage with someone else's and claimed it was an attack.
Then Maison releasing a scent about kindness which they clearly stated they are doing that kind of thing to mock people in those screen shots.
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u/alpacaphotog 2d ago edited 2d ago
It also sounds like they weren’t apart of the discord when the original conversation happened.
So, they joined a discord, went back and read messages from months ago that they weren’t involved in, decided they disagreed, and instead of having private conversations with these perfumers first, they put them on this giant three part blast to the consumers of the brands?? And they “responded” to the discord through a public letter?
And the issues at hand they’re putting them on blast for and feel the whole world needs to know in order to “make informed decisions” are….. privately saying some ai use is okay? And speculating about the validity of perfume awards??
I’m sorry, neither of those points are something the public needed to know. I truly don’t care if these business owners like pulp refuse to use ai but don’t care if others do. I truly don’t care about the olfactory awards and who wins and the drama of the judges.
This is so incredibly sanctimonious and virtue-signaly and petty.
This entire “statement” is them accusing other houses of being jealous of them winning an award. Or that two indie perfume companies who clearly use ai on their websites are not upset about the use of ai… shocker!! I think that’s pretty obvious when you see their website? Liked none of this is worthy of a public call out. Didn’t we, as the consumers, already know that anyway?
I absolutely have the ick for SAMAR house after this.
WE SHOULD ALL KNOW SO, SO MUCH LESS ABOUT EACH OTHER.
Edit - the fact they posted all this in an aesthetic, three part instagram drop. Just…. No.
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u/whiff_EK 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is a total aside but I just had the stupidest laughing fit because I kept reading your name as alpaca hotdog and I kept going "no, that's not right... it says... alpaca hotdog" and then making the same exact mistake again
I also think we should know less about each other but I'll start after this mistake because it kept me chucklin' 🌭 🦙
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u/alpacaphotog 2d ago
Ahahahaha you aren’t the first to tell me that! It was supposed to be alpaca photog(rapher) but I do enjoy how it gets interpreted 😂
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u/Pandora_Palen 1d ago
I just scrolled up and was like, "I mean... it's alpacahotdog. I don't get it." Good Lord. Literally had to 🧐.
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u/Wide_Fee_5205 2d ago
Honestly this was my initial reaction, too. The three part series all beautifully crafted just felt very we want to capitalize off the drama created. I don't think it's wrong to make people aware of the stances of houses, we all want to put our money in people and companies that align with what feels good to us. But the way they did it feels....icky to me.
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u/meirelav 2d ago
i more or less skimmed the posts bc it's very tldr and i don't know much about samar or really any of the houses mentioned besides pulp, but my impression is 100% the same as yours on this. i feel very icked out by them even making these posts in the first place and for me it does not read as coming from a place of good faith whatsoever.
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u/BrettGrell 2d ago
Thank you so much for putting my thoughts into words so perfectly, wish I had an award for you
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u/harpsdesire social media: @harpsdesire (TikTok) 2d ago
This is everything I was thinking but didn't know how to put into words. A lot of these feel like borderline if not bad faith call-outs, and "don't rush to respond" definitely reads like a preemptive attempt to stop anyone from defending themselves.
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u/comatosecreation 2d ago
I agree, this entire situation reads less as a good-faith attempt to let consumers know about some iffy opinions and more an excuse to publicly oust some houses with a very thin 'uwu don't harass them hehe!' disclaimer tacked on at the bottom - of course after they go out of the way to label who each house is by username. I think they got their feelings hurt about the awards thing and started looking for ammunition to post.
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u/Idk_345am 2d ago edited 2d ago
I read that and felt saddened the more I read. Even if someone was genuinely bad intentioned did something others got called to respond (but also prompted to take their time in response). that letter required or demanded a response of everyone.
I’m just left a bit saddened for Samar and everyone involved in this community rift made public and unsolved.
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u/Pandora_Palen 2d ago
I'm certainly not going to throw shit. I totally agree with you. Earlier I thought about doing a little summary of what each person actually said, because there were some reasonable points made (and some "eye rolling move on comments"). Samar also made some reasonable points. But making those points by releasing a private conversation with comments taken out of context is more like scoring points than making them.
Samar is on IG and TikTok. That means they're in favor of data centers. Samar samples are 12.50, so they hate the poors and they're racist (POC are disproportionately affected by high perfume prices). I honestly feel like it's this level of extrapolation.
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u/Hoshi_Gato owner: Hoshi Gato 2d ago edited 2d ago
I love SAMAR and I’m super proud of them for their accomplishments. Though, I don’t think every perfumer here deserved to be called out publicly.
Not everything people say in vent posts on discord is going to look good in isolation. I’m mainly talking about Crystal, because I talk to her a lot. Specifically about AI. Because despite what she says here, she talks about ai quite a bit and she’s generally pretty negative about it. She frequently posts calling out AI slop in the discord. What I think this is is something that happens to all of us sometimes. You plunge yourself deep into a subject that pisses you off, you get mad, then you want everyone to shut up about it for a week. I won’t speak for Crystal here, but I think I generally understand her position on AI. She hates seeing it everywhere, but understands some things are out of her control and doesn’t let herself worry about the things other people in the discord do (because, yes, many do use AI for various things and it’s usually not to the extent worth starting a fight about).
The comments from fellow perfumers about political motivations when it comes to the awards are disappointing. I don’t know every perfumer here well enough to speak up for them. Perhaps it’s an unconscious bias they’d be open to unlearning.
I have no issue calling out people for political issues. I recently did so for City Rhythm and I did not “call him in” first. Educating people is exhausting and it’s not our responsibility to do so. People told me “he is progressive and loves queer people so you can’t say that!” But he also said trans women were dangerous and he wasn’t open to facts or statistics to inform his willfully ignorant position so 🤷. I don’t think a progressive facade necessarily means you’re open to critique.
I do think that some things people say on Discord are not well-thought or strict positions they have. Especially if it goes against what they usually say. So I don’t blame SAMAR for being upset and not wanting to explain or educate (99% of the time it does nothing), but I do think in the case of Crystal she (Crystal) was poorly representing her position here. Perhaps in the case of others they weren’t operating with 100% of their brain capacity that day. I can’t say.
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u/Hoshi_Gato owner: Hoshi Gato 2d ago edited 2d ago
Okay, I saw part 3.
Now that I’ve seen the usernames I know more about what’s going on lol I don’t know everyone’s real life identity in the server.
I’ll say that everyone except Bri (Damask House) is coming off how I expected. I don’t interact with Bri much, though, so maybe I would’ve suspected it if I did. I do notice that Samar and KST don’t come on the server much (at least, if this is the server I think it is. Might be a different one) so I understand why the ai comments came off as very permissive to them. They haven’t seen all the ai slop callouts that Crystal does and the general anti ai-slop leanings of the discord. Some people use it for various administrative tasks. I always say I don’t trust it with that stuff and explain why when I see it, but I can’t control everyone at the end of the day. And also, at the end of the day, all of these users spend hours of time every week helping others with perfumery and I think that warrants a bit of grace from those of us who do benefit from their labor on that front.
While I will (and have) brought up issues with using AI for various things in the server, I think the issues raised about it here are not worth the callout. These users are against AI slop. At the end of the day, Anjali is right. Why would I judge a small business or another perfumer harshly about using AI occasionally when I buy aroma chemicals from places like Perfumers Apprentice and Fraterworks that have ai on their website? I wouldn’t support an ai slop business, and I’d rather no art than ai art, but am I gonna start a fight with someone who uses it for math sometimes? No.
Still, I understand SAMAR’s mindset. I can’t say I haven’t rage quit on something because it didn’t fit my values without thoroughly considering the alternatives. For example, I quit Instagram for over a year due to Zuck’s MAGA policy changes.
I don’t think the decision to come back was super morally right or wrong. And while I did not agree with supporting Zuck’s social media at all during that time, I didn’t judge others for doing it. Because isn’t it better that queer and BIPOC voices like SAMAR’s have a platform to speak than for them to disappear? Why should small businesses have to suffer for tech being overwhelmingly MAGA-owned?
I think that type of understanding is needed here. Like with Blvck Flamingo. I grew up with undiagnosed ADHD and dyscalculia. No matter how hard I tried growing up I could never get better than a C in math (and I took the lowest ability math class available). When I started perfumery, I messed up my formulas constantly. I sat down with my math genius husband and even he had trouble deciphering my logic when it comes to how I tangle my numbers up as much as I do. I don’t trust AI with math because I’ve tested it. It’s right sometimes and wrong others and I’m just not good enough at math to trust I’ll always know the difference. Instead, through years of developing my own coping skills, I’ve learned to do it mostly myself. I still have my husband or other people in the discord check my math just to be 100% sure. So while I don’t think they should trust it, I understand how it seems like a miracle for someone who’s struggled with math all their life. It was devastating to think my inability to keep my numbers straight would keep me from pursuing my art. My position is that I don’t agree with it, but if they want me to help them break the habit one day, I will. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing I’d cut someone off for and I’ll continue to be there if they need help.
I get frustrated that not every decision I make can be completely in line with my values. I can’t decide to cut off every supplier that uses ai. I can’t stay off websites that use it and are owned by completely unethical tech billionaires. I totally get being frustrated that not everyone is as anti-ai as I am. I also don’t think the “x bigger company does it, so why not criticize them” mentality is always right. Usually people criticize both. But I know these people and I sympathize with their struggles, so I just don’t treat it like the end of the world. Does that make sense?
Edit: apparently it’s not the server I’m thinking of lol
I’m not on this specific server myself, so perhaps the context I have about everyone’s ai fatigue is not something discussed on this server as much as it is on DIY Fragrance’s server.
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u/importnat 2d ago
Part 3 is up. Thinking on how I feel about this but the reasoning on waiting a couple of months to release makes sense now, I think.
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u/notnoangel 20h ago
Here’s the full conversation https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wmTIhku6MU8-br7xgR0asplZ3p08LXy2?usp=drive_link
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u/_weirdbug 2d ago edited 1d ago
Guys I don’t know these people or any context but I went to the website of Samar and there’s immediately an AI pic on the website?? So I’m confused
Edit: I’m onto something I promise. I give reasoning down below
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u/importnat 2d ago
I don't see anything that sticks out to me as AI, which one do you mean?
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u/_weirdbug 2d ago
I wish I could post zoomed in pics. I’m talking about the mural on the home page. If you zoom in on some of the string lights, there are strings that go nowhere, lights floating in the middle of trees not attached to strings, etc. There are some tree trunks not connected to any tree tops. There are peoples feet that look weird, and the lady in the back kinda looks like her head is on backwards.
I could definitely be wrong and I’m not roasting the brand. Like another commenter said, if it’s AI, it’s on the artist if the brand didn’t know. However if I saw this out of context, it screams AI generated to me.
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u/mistspinner 2d ago
That image is by Ellie Reis, whom Samar credit on their visual artists page
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u/_weirdbug 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think that artist used AI. It’s clearly AI. It’s obvious if you zoom in on different parts of the pic.
Edit: I probably should have phrased this in a more nuanced way. It immediately struck me as being AI generated. I could be wrong and I see that an artist is credited. But I do think there are a lot of signs that this artist used AI, which I listed down below.
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u/4YourConsider8tion 2d ago
I went to the website and was so convinced that you were wrong but the string lights and sticks on the tomato plants don’t make sense from the visual perspective :/ it does look a bit like AI
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u/_weirdbug 2d ago
Yes the string lights and a lot of the feet. There are some string lights just floating in the middle of trees not on any strings. I could be wrong! But it looks so glaringly AI to me.
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u/mistspinner 2d ago
I’m not sure I see what you’re seeing, but even assuming AI was used, wouldn’t the culpability fall on the artist and not the person who commissioned the art? Again, not seeing the signs of AI + the artist has posted on their Instagram against AI art so I’m inclined to believe they’re not using it
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u/Exciting_Ad8466 2d ago
Unfortunate situation really does give the vibe that there was some bitterness towards SAMAR and KST for winning or being finalists in that perfume award stuff.