For journalists and editors
Benjamin Malek, known as TheBennScented, is a fragrance critic and creative director covering perfumery across the United States, the Middle East and Europe.
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Quick reference
- Full name
- Benjamin Malek
- Known as
- TheBennScented
- Role
- Fragrance critic and creative director
- Audience
- more than 250,000 across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
- Subject
- Fragrance only, niche and designer, Western and Middle Eastern
- Based
- United States and Saudi Arabia
- Languages
- English, German, Spanish, French, Romanian, Italian
- Covers
- Beautyworld Middle East, TFWA Cannes, ScentXplore
Two lengths, both ready to run
Short
Benjamin Malek, known as TheBennScented, is a fragrance critic and creative director. He reviews houses, perfumers and the business behind them for an audience of more than 250,000 across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and works with fragrance houses on the development side. He covers perfumery from both the United States and Saudi Arabia, which makes him one of the few reviewers reading the Western and Middle Eastern markets in the same voice.
Long
Benjamin Malek is a fragrance critic and creative director who publishes as TheBennScented. His work is fragrance only. He reviews niche and designer houses, the perfumers behind them and the commercial decisions that shape what reaches a shelf, for an audience of more than 250,000 across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
He works between the United States and Saudi Arabia and covers both markets in the same voice, at a point when houses that were regional a decade ago are exporting into Europe and the US. Alongside the criticism he is commissioned by fragrance houses as a creative and strategic director, so he reads the industry from the development side as well as from the outside. He speaks English, German, Spanish, French, Romanian and Italian.
What he can speak to without research
These are subjects he works in rather than subjects he would read up on. For anything else, ask.
American against Middle Eastern fragrance culture
He works between both markets rather than reporting on one from the other, and the two evaluate a fragrance on different terms.
Why Gulf consumers judge performance differently
Projection and longevity carry weight in the Gulf that they do not carry in the US market, and it shapes what houses formulate for the region.
Arab perfumery going global
Houses that were regional a decade ago now export into Europe and the US, and the pricing and positioning are moving with them.
The economics of fragrance creation
What brands actually pay for, what a creator is really selling, and where gifting stops and commissioned work starts.
What creators see before it reaches retail
Launch cycles reach creators months before shelves, which makes a reviewer an early read on where a category is going.
Creator to creative director
He is commissioned by houses on the development side as well as reviewing their work, which is a route that barely existed five years ago.
Photographs and logo
Cleared for editorial use with a credit to TheBennScented. Right click to save, or write to the press address for the full resolution files.
