Four categories from the same protocol, spanning the loudest and the quietest price responses of the series — and one category that was measured but doesn't appear, on purpose.

September spans the whole dynamic range of this series in one month. Fragrances sit at the loud end — women's at 1.11, the strongest cut response measured so far, men's at 1.00 with the first segment order to survive a band check. Beard oils and hand soaps sit at the quiet end, where hand soaps respond at roughly a fifth of the fragrance rate and beard oils leave a whole direction undemonstrated. Both fragrance sets separate demonstrably from hand soaps in both directions, and women's fragrances separate from beard oils on the cut side; the two quiet categories overlap each other.

August ended with a hypothesis: what stays on the skin answers price, what rinses off doesn't. September half-confirms it. Fragrances — the ultimate leave-on — are the loudest categories yet, and hand soaps — the ultimate rinse-off — are the quietest. But beard oils spoil the clean story: they stay on the skin all day and still barely answer. What the loud and quiet ends actually share is market temperature — fragrances saw 145 entrants in 24 months and same-day price moves on six cuts in ten, while the two niches answer in five days and admit a handful of newcomers a year. Whether price sensitivity follows the product or the crowd is now the open question of this series.

As usual: four more categories refine a pattern, they don't settle one. The Q3 Quarterly will put all twelve on one axis.