These notions, especially last two, are cultural. Obviously it's very subjective for example what color comes to mind when you smell a fragrance or if some scent is gothic or, say, arsitocratic. I appreciate what for example foetidus have done, every one of his 2500 reviews are excellent and very accurate to say they don't count for much is in my opinion just not right.

One can't derive from this that it's all subjective. Smelling any scent is very private, we can't point a finger at a note, and we don't have very accurate vocabulary either. Differences in opinions like is there, say, oakmoss note in base of a given scent can be explained for example by noting that some noses are more trained than others, some are more able to differentiate certain notes, some people are better in discribing what they smell, there also might be huge differences in what words like soft, dry or balsamic means to people. It's a sensible starting point that we smell approximately similarly, some exceptions does not change this basic fact. Good reviewer can also appreciate quality or balance of a fragrance even though he or she wouldn't actually like it all that much. When a good reviewer describes what notes he or she smells in a fragrance, I can usually pick up the same things.

Claim that how we smell a given fragrance is very subjective can be read on basenotes very often. Reviews would not count for much if they would be only about liking or not liking a fragrance, they certainly are not.

Luca turin reviews