Good thing I love it so much (as close to a signature as I'm ever going to get). Strange seeming that only 12 months ago perfume meant nothing to me. Ive got 75 fragrances in my haul, and approximately 2 bottles of each. You betcha I practice what I preach. So maybe a year? Like a dedicated room with umpteen chests of drawers? Same as folks who visit the same restaurant every time they go out for dinner they know what they like, dammit! Even when I'm hagged-out on my day off, wearing rags for housework, no makeup (gasp!) I can tell you that I used a bit over half a 10ml bottle of Solstice Scents' Sycamore chai in about a year's time. I must say that your vicious cycle of perfume infatuation sounds in some ways like my distant romantic past. I was like you, buying new perfumes, shiny as you say because it was new. Right now he has an Axe mentality but I'm hoping that smooths out in time I'm thinking Givenchy Vetiver (one hopes). I have to say, I do love those smaller bottles, though. Press J to jump to the feed. Okay, so my old fridge (which DOES vibrate) is NOT the best option then. and bring extra clothing with me to spritz before I leave! Is THAT why you wore Polo and beat your chest at Duty Free?see, never make me imagine what happened!). I am so NOT a numbers cruncher But the fact that you did the measuring and tables for all of us? clinique Well, I don't know how it used to be, as I have just discovered it, but it smells pretty all right to me and I have knowingly bought a tester with the top missing! Great article! Thanks for risking serious injury to your sprayer finger.. carpel finger?? I wonder if American's buy larger sizes of perfume overall? Maybe the Japanese lady is also a great lover of perfumes..? I end up giving away the scents I don't use up in order to make room for new scents. I'm glad to know there are lots of us out there, and that's why I love the blogs. (Needless to say that I incinerated my T-shirt the next day instead of sending it to be laundered. May I just say, Kevin, that your partner is the cat's pajamas! Not thrilled with the results at the time, I went back to playing with essential oil blends. Mine: Gucci Envy. Remember, what goes round comes round perhaps some other perfume will come into your life as a result! Glad to see I'm not the only OVER THE TOP collector around here. Perfume people are an interesting group that psychologists should study as to why some wear a signature and some use only fragrances in one category. Thanks for the article! Exist: I need to find more perfumista friends! And it can lead us astray, as Nam described with her story. Am I wrong, or will perfume, properly stored, last indefinately? Ahhhh! (or have a heel fall off, or get a big scratch on the leather on the first wear, or give you blisters). Those AG blends have been sitting in my bottom bathroom drawer all this time. I can't even remember the last time I used a perfume bottle in its entirety, either, before it either went bad, or before it becomes banned into the depths of my closet, never to be seen again. Never understood WHY that would bebut the world is full of mysteries I guess. I only have four bottles, true, but my favorite scent is a 100 ml bottle, and I only use ONE spray per day which means that it alone will last me 4 years. Clearly language leads us to the counter (or the online samples seller). but there are so many mainstreams, amour, paloma Picasso, and addict that it seems silly to get the expensive ones. If I were a writer I would use that for a story. Celestia: what a charming ideaour choice of PERFUME HOUSE in the skies if we've been good little perfumistas! Copyright © 2005-2022 Now Smell This. Patiently building my stash. Drink up! I must be the exception to the rule re perfume bottle size. Oh, yeah, with one caveat. use the leftover bottles to enliven your cremationthat's what I'D like: the snap, crackle, pop and sizzle of perfumes on the pyre. Yeah it is shocking, but at the same time I love perfume, I love it, I enjoy it. Thanks for your hard work, it is very illuminating! You can always look at the Feedback to see what these guys are up to, so that helps; actually, that guy was starting to get some got a dupe comments just as I had won my bottle, so it doesn't take long to tarnish a rep. This figure does not include the hundreds of samples I will wear (each sample takes up one full day) or the contents of minis and decants in my collection. I may be broke and crazy, but at least I smell amazing! i'm so surprised and excited but also afraid if i'm buying something fake or not. Have there been NO special-enough occasions since 2002?? mahgwet: I'm imagining the oils will do fine as well as long as they are stored in a cool dark place with TIGHT caps. I keep essential oils in glass b/c it breaks down plastic. Ive got a collection of 60 different fragrances, most of which are the largest bottles I could get for any one fragrance. I love the idea of you leaving offerings for others to find thats a perfect solution and would certainly make someones day. believe me, after spraying those bottles empty my index finger hurt and I had a cramp betwixt that finger and my thumb. Just wait until I purchase Salvatore Ferragamo Pour Femme. I keep telling myself that one month I am only going to wear one perfume, then next month another for the whole month, for however long until all my perfumes are gone; But I can't even stick with a month, how can I use them all up?! Choose not to believe that and live happy is my suggestionHA! No, it's been there awhile, I just moved it to a better spot because no, it's not new, I've had it for at least a week now, and I did move it from the shopping bag to my nightstand, which is a better spot for spraying. I decided to figure out the life expectancy of my own, much smaller, perfume collection and the results are shocking. I'd say a few months. I don't even count my bottles I'm in my forties and with over 100 of them (make that 200, most likely), even if I live as long as my grandmothers (well over 90), I think there'll be enough left over to embalm me. I'm with you regarding music, though I need to take more time to explore the newest stuff. C: was about to write you to make sure you saw this! Looks like its time to call it quits on perfume buying. Later, I saw that he'd had his privileges revoked and was no longer selling; clearly I wasn't the only one who smelled a rat! If other forum members were less passionate and eloquent about the ones they know and like, my collection would be a fraction of what it is, for I live in a very olfactorily deprived part of BritainNo regrets though, for as someone has observed, this habit is cheaper than a designer shoe fetish. Interesting conversation. However, I was shocked to realize I have enough perfume to last years and years. Am curious to check it out for I like Bulgari Femme! that's awesome that you've managed to get fragrances to last so long. 12+ year-old Champagne!! As for your partner's comment: HE IS RIGHT ON! It's not easy, believe me. Oh to be that streamlined and focused! how did you work how much juice you had ?? Hi! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Loved your story of leaving perfume orphans in public places, like foundlings on doorsteps. Can it be true? Having said that though, I have become utterly ruthless about my scent purchasing that I now own three full bottles, one decant, and I love them and wear them often. In fact, in my fridge is a big ziplock freezer baggie filled with about half a dozen full bottles still in their boxes of fragrances i already own at least half a bottle of!!! wow!! I am also in the process of giving away all my duplicate samples, eg ones I have mistakenly ordered twice (! but the ones that dissapear half way through the day or before I spray about 4 or 5 times, and then take it out with me to reapply. If I can't pay my bills next month, I'm placing the blame squarely where it belongs: on the eloquent writings of Robin, Angela, Kevin, and the other contributers here (grin). We have a new addition to our household a little boxer-pit mix that El O found stranded in the middle of the highway. Give him a hug for meI got a pit bull calendar this year for the kitchen and just love those dogs' looks. If a 50ml bottle provides you with 5 sprays for each of 147 days, what's the cost per wearing? If I had a half-empty bottle hiding at the back of a drawer, I could do it! (Always keep a sample for you to sniff later if you get nostalgic!) As long as the extra bottles remain in their original unopened packaging, theyll probably be worth a bit in another 50 years. That's incredible! There ARE some fragrances I put on more than once per daybut they are in the minority. Actually, I think you may have something there.A mini fridge! It really depends on the perfume. My collection has to be one of the most massive out there. The average number of sprays in a 50 ml bottle is 735 (double that figure for a 100 ml bottle of fragrance). And it's reassuring knowing that I'll never run out! SFLizbeth: I was shocked myselfto the point of wondering if I should wear one perfume on my legs, another on my torso, another on my arms and one on my neckall in the same day. Oh! I think it was on Possets' site I was reading about 1mL samples and it said there was enough for 4 uses. Wow! Mschem: I can honestly say after 20 years of perfume craziness, I've never had to toss out a bottle of fragrance because it went bad. My storage methods (coolness/complete darkness) are strictly followed. divinemama: see note above about old fridges. That makes me feel a lot better. I LOVE the SAs that fill the sample bottle all the way up to the top. Many times I thought about just chucking them all, while my hubby grumbled about the lack of storage space, but TG I didn't. That is such a great idea! I live in the Bay Area which rarely gets too hot and we use AC when it does. We have the Osmotheque for recreating long gone scents so why not use up what you've got? i'm very new when talking about buying perfume online and would like to ask for your advise: is it safe to buy perfume in ebay. I ddn't *really* want to know this, but at least I have a chance of outliving them. Thanks for the morning giggle. Many are minis, but a lot of them are 30-100ml (though not too many 100mls). I just did the maths too based on an estimated 1000ml collection and 5 sprays a day. Seriously humorous article, Kevin! Thus we are freed to indulge our intellectual and sensual curiosities when it comes to personal style. Spray a bit of Rochas Femme on him for me! And there are those who choose the same boring desperate housewife bra-in-a box for a lifetime. You can keep the trophies, but after a few years, most perfumes are unwearable. I believe perfume is a living thing and should be WORN, not kept in a bottle and admired from afar. A nice thought and a good way to maybe get ride of my Azzaro Chrome that I'm realizing I do NOT need 50ml of (a mini will suffice for many years). and yet, when making a purchase of less than 100ml of a new frag, one gets dirty looks! One one of my numerous trips to Sephora recently to procure some free samples, the SA said something like, you can come back and get more samples until you find the ONE you like. I sometimes spray perfume on my curtains / linenlove it! the happiest thing after reading your post is that i can justify myself to buy a bottle of Un Jardin apre la Mousson! Kevin thanks for the great article! Perhaps we simply have more imagination than our friends who don't experiment! Stay out of this argument! What if you would leave another bottle in that very same place.. ~~trophy perfumes, sometimes look back at the abandoned bottle as I flee the scene~~. I had no idea how many sprays I'd get with one bottle. Can't win! Kevin, a super post again..:-) !! Thank you so much for breaking this down. For me, the strength of the fragrance determines how much I spray onno matter the season. don't ask). Different strokes folks! ha ha ha ha! I should tell hubby so he realizes I'm not so bad :~). and yes, we always waste our money somewhereit's human nature i suppose? So, I have a great collection with ladies and men fragrances, old as brand new , kashaya: I'm too lazy for eBay! Crap. If the perfume is an LE that I stand no chance of getting more of, I am really careful with how much I use and try to make it last as long as possible. . So no giving away! I read this article about two years ago about the time I started collecting and so, although I have gone totally whacked out and have about 15 mostly full bottles now, the majority of them, about 9, are 30mls each. Is it vintage, i.e., is there a year on the bottle somewhere? At least it was 50ml. I, too, almost always buy 100mls. LOL! Let's put it this way: If my nieces and nephews won't grow up into raging perfumistas (which I have every intention to encourage and enable), they're going to have one heck of an estate sale after I've gone to the great perfume counter in the sky. Is that new? Oh, that? These people! Robin, the creator of this blog, has written many times: my perfume collection will outlive me. Come to find out, shes probably right; or at least her current collection will see her into grandmother-hood (keep in mind her child is only 9 years old) and the receipt of her first Social Security check. Youll be surprised at how many 1 ml samples are far, far less than that amount (especially decanted samples sold by perfume stores). Do you have any information on how long a splash bottle of extrait will take to use? 3 is the maximumeven for the lightest scent! I LOVE the idea of leaving bottles in public places for someone else to discover! Now I'm considering a bottle count! I use it as deodorant AND cologne during my travels. Or, in some cases, a normal sized one. This article forced me to sit down and do some math. Do you keep them in their boxes while in the fridge? Also, have you had it in the fridge since you've owned it, and how long has that been? I have a 10 ml rollerball that I used every day during the summer (4 mo?) I pulled one out this morning just to give it a try and found out it still smells good. 1ml ~ 20 drops- if I use 1-2 drops of the same perfume every day, anywhere from 2-3 months. divinemama: since you are experiencing a moment of happinessDON'T figure out how long your perfumes will last, at least don't figure it out TODAY! IrisNobile: the power of our minds when faced with such truthsI think perfume has made me give more money to charity. And now, Im fixed to 3 essential fragrances. And instead of abandonning your bottles at the restaurants, why dont you resell them on eBay, even on lot ??? But now, darn it, this fragrance has settled down and I'm finding some real beauty in it. I've been working my way through a 5ml bottle for the past 2 months. Good advice, Kevin. ha! I know how to save money when it comes to other things in my life, other than perfume of course. I used to have a shoe fetish before my current perfume addiction and then figured out it's much less expensive to buy a bottle of quality perfume than a pair of designer shoes. I have been adding to it with wild abandon this summer, with samples, decants and FBs. Time will tell. (Not all champagne is vintage; most, in fact, is/are blended from various years). R: It's a big ole bottle of Veuve Cliquot from the mid-90s that's been in the fridge since I got it around 2002been roosting in the fridge forever. When I was younger, I would have hated the smell of Bvlgari but the day when I discovered it, I was certainly ready to change My second one is Helmut Lang Cuiron. Indeed. I say we should always let the fragrance prevail. sure, after the 2 year mark your perfume will be wearable, but you may notice it smelling a little different. That could take a few test sprays. E: I'm sure the German laundress would have been thankful if she (he?) and even the perfumista i know only use 3-4 sprays max is that one of the differences between the habit of using perfume in asia and the US + europe? wow! Some of my sprays are in fact little dabs from those dipper vials though. Hi Vanessa and all! Lots of things affect the number of sprays you get from a bottle: the size of the plastic tube in the spray bottle, the fine or forceful mist you get from a nozzle, etc. And drink a toast to that sublime fragrance house in the sky. . You will win some money to buy new perfumes !!! I also spray my scarves in winter. AND strictly speaking, your perfume collection might very well not outlive you, with that many bottles youll never drain them all. Im the type who has fast and furious perfume affairs. First time commenter here. Lizzi: A+ for bravery in facing those bottles and doing the math. Others go to a new place each year and realize they may not like it as much as the little town in Thailand they visited years ago. The calculations totally appeal to my OCD tendencies, the philosophical bent appeals to my rationalizing addict's mind. But it's a pain in the arse to open a box if you have less than 20 bottles going at one time. I hardly ever buy jewelry, I shop for clothes at higher-end stores as well as discounted places. What a relief that isAnd practical thinking, mind you because you can rationalize that your impulsive purchase was not a (total) waste of money since you used it all. Many of us buy bottles only to regret it later, so I say, go for decants in the online fragrance communities (Facebook and base notes are good places to start). On the up side, the one I like to switch it up with is a 30 ml, which I spray twice- that'll last me only 7.2 months. I wonder if I have the nerve to figure out how long my supply will last? 't was a white Hanes darlin' and there's plen'y testosterone here baybee. I think we should start a lobby: perfume addicts for 15 and 30 ml bottles. True, the occasional person could fell a smalll army at twenty paces, but most people don't use enough. (at least, not for the next 20 years). Nam: of course we're not lost souls! So many comments look fwd to reading them, Kevin. Kevin, this is a TERRIFIC column!!! Pitties don't deserve the evil rep they get. Today I'm trying Luten's Iris Silver Mist for the first time, and I must say that the opening pretty much frightened me. I didnt manage to find a perfume I really love to wear. It must have been nice to have some closure there. 190 + bottles? Of course, most of us wear more than one spray of scent; if you wear two sprays a day, every day, from a 50 ml bottle of perfume, that single bottle will last a year. lol! Shiny, new, and mostly full, trophy perfumes line my shelvesignored for months at a time. hi robin and all of you! Rochas Femme a rumpled peach satin teddy how can I not try that too? I need to buy a marketing report on US fragranceshould be interesting to read. I would *so* attend that party! Ha! I'm definitely of the sensualist group in everything in my life, and I feel the richer for it. Very amusing. Don't subscribe ONE?!? And my vintage Bandit is is EXCELLENT condition, thank you very much!!! Are you serious? Then again, I could continue on my decadent path and buy a new fridge just for my scentsgiggles. But I can promise myself that I'm gonna stop buying fragrances rsrsrs. L'eau Par Kenzo. Friends absolutely adore playing with my perfumes, It always cracks me up when they worry about spraying too much as they don't want to waste it! Stand back, wildlife! As far as safety goes, as long as you do it by PayPal, you're good to go. Now, when I have close to 20 (and wont stop to increase my lot) I settled to 50 ml or 30 ml bottles, because I wear different fragrance every day. Speaking of which, I just got my bottle of Bois de Paradis in the mail and am swooooooning over it as I'm typing. Here's a question: Which is more persuasive, language or fragrance? When you think about it, monogamy is the cultural norm in relationships, but why stick with just one perfume for donkey's years when there is no obligation to do so? How many dabs one gets out of the bottle? Not counting all the minis, samples, decants, anything 25 ml and under, or the full bottles I put down in the basement because we have company right now and I was embarrassed. You could give out fragrances you no longer love as door prizes or party favours! I guess I have about 5000 ml, using 2ml each day would be 2500 days, or 6/7 years.. 2ml is about 20 spritzes. Ive had thoughts of getting a mini-fridge just to store the perfumes. how can we buy safely in ebay? Don't let it go bad. WOW! The labels are colour-coded as well: green for contemporary Euro (French and Italian in the main), yellow for American, pink for classic houses (Guerlain, Caron, et al). Otherwise, you have the right attitudethough most of your perfumes must wait over a year for their wearing!. Ill long since be dead, so maybe I should slow down a bit on additional purchases. This thread prompted me to do some math myself. Well, with about 500 bottles, you can imagine how long that supply will last far into eternity! I usually only use a drop for each inner arm, my clavicle, and two on either side of my neck. I'm only 18 and already in just 12 months I have purchased 15 perfumes, sometimes I'd buy two at once. My 100mls of Parfumerie Generale l'Oiseau de Nuit has been the fastest to go so far; I'm just blasting through it. I agree that our perfume wardrobes would be much leaner if we stayed away from the blogs. If it were true, then a sample of 1-1,5 ml would last 2- 3 days with 10 sprays a day and I think you know and said in this article that one sample lasts 1 day if you spray more than 1-2 sprays. Just thinking aloud (giggle). An average 50ml bottle probably costs about $60, so that's about .41 per 5-sprays. HA! We all know there are 365 days in a year, so a 50 ml bottle of fragrance will provide a person (who wears that fragrance every day and sprays once) TWO years worth of perfume. But I'm not going to run out and purchase another bottle. Fragrance is just one thing although it's up there in my Top Five, I think!!! Ha! Period! I was recently talked into buying a bottle of Andy Warhol Silver Factory, against my gut feeling (I wanted Chinatown). Kevin, I like what you say about words opening our minds. MW: I'd love to have a camera to see WHO takes each bottleonce I put out a bottle of CSP Vetiver Haiti in a lunch room of a building I worked in, and an elderly Japanese lady who worked there all of a sudden started smelling of Vetiver Haitiwe'd share an elevator often and it smelled better on her. So no more guilt methinks. Fragrance is our crack! That's all that'll fit. I guess to equate to the spray volume Kevin is working with, I need to use a 1ml vial up in 14.7 days. I want to know names of perfumes which can last for more than three months when used onced. Sevenjoy, that's a good question. I know people buy vintage bottles on Ebay that are 20 years old. Don't like to mention this, with your OCD tendencies and all!, but I've heard several perfumers say a fridge is OK if a cool cabinet or cool basement is not to be had IF the fridge is NEW. so itll be a bit difficult to work out my perfumes lifespan. Ha, indeed! Do you think perfumes should be dispensed in smaller bottles, so we can add more variety to life? We are comfortable being ourselves, mostly for ourselves. About 15 years ago, I went crazy with AG scents and being an amatuer (and naive) aromatherapy perfume blender, I pretty much mixed the different scents together hoping to make new and improved scents (big eye roll). I took me about 24 hours to realize what a grave mistake I had made. To start, I used three empty 50 ml perfume bottles, by three different perfume companies, and filled the bottles with water and sprayed till they were empty. I have some really great scents that I enjoy wearingand I'll never wear them if I don't stop scouting out new fragrances. And of the scent is an edp, they last foreeever. I spray legs, abdomen, chest, hair, throat, wrists, sometimes even my back. However, hardly ANYTHING is a 3-spritz fragrance for me: 5-7 sprays average, and I often take the bottle with me so I can refresh a little through the day. Blimunda: I admire your restraint!!!!! Posted by Kevin on 19 August 2008 180 Comments. '~). I'm on my third or fourth bottle of a select few. Sheeesh and double sheesh! (Sorry can't help getting all obsessive about exactness). Language gets me to the counter, and then from there it's all about the fragrance, if I like it or not.