Never in my entire scented life have I been close to reaching a status of a perfume addict. Once in a while I observe those Facebook groups and there are some people who share their news of another perfume purchase every other day. Do they really LOVE so many perfume? Maybe they do, but even if they borrowed 9 lives from a cat, they wouldn’t have enough time to fully enjoy all of them. But I’m not here to judge. They can do whatever they want to. Personally I think of myself as a perfume enthusiast, a passionate who is far from addiction. I love perfume & anything related to it. I can talk about fragrance for hours and I love to hear about it too. Not to mention that I adore smelling it.
Since the whole journey to the Perfumeland (a.k.a down the rabbit hole) started for me I always wanted to keep my perfume collection reasonably sized, more modest yet with wide variety of choices. It was partially dictated by the fact that I always had to keep my budget in mind. Still I don’t see a point in owning +100 bottles of perfume, a part of which you’re going to forget and won’t spend enough time wearing. Of course there are many fragrances that get my attention but I don’t feel like I should own every single one of them. In fact the longer I am a part of the perfume community the more picky I become when it comes to finding a new scent that I think should join my wardrobe.
Can you guess how many flacons I bought in 2017? There were 5 of them & each one ended as a split, with me keeping 20-30 ml of the original size. This year I already bought one – Grandiflora Queen of the Night. I got it two weeks ago when I learned the brand is now available in Poland and this perfume has been following me since Pitti. It was also my first purchase since September 2017. I might get another one to celebrate my birthday next month. But first I need to find something desirable. For the time being I’m still excited to try many new fragrances this year & to tell you about them. And final thought from Angela at NST – A perfume that sits in its bottle is dead. So true!
Chemist in the Bottle 
Wise words ….
Thank you
Totally agree. No perfume purchases or very limited ones for me from now on. The amount I own which is ridiculous, a difficult personal situation that I am facing since last December, Angela’s post and your recents comments about it have made me realized that I need to enjoy and share what I already have, give away what it does not get enough love from me anymore and save money that can be used for many other things. I know I can achive that goal.
That’s why I like forums/groups/whatever else where you can swap things because you can swap away the perfume you don’t wear enough and get something in exchange that you know you’ll be wearing more often.
When my budget says no and yet I am tempted I always tell myself there will be another beatiful scent next time. I could never be a signature scent person though, that would be like only ever drinking one kind of wine or one type of chocolate. Need some variety.
That’s the way of thinking that I like. At the pace new perfumes are being released you are almost guaranteed that another one to love will come your way
I hear you! My full bottle purchases sit on my wish list for months while I drain every last drop from the sample or small decant and hem and haw until I decide I can’t live without it. I watched a few “my collection” videos on YouTube once and was at the same time fascinated and repelled at the sight of hundreds and hundreds of bottles. How one can even remember what that many perfumes smells like is beyond me. (And every one of those expensive bottles is the most AMAZING thing out there—- I wonder if it really is, or the purchase just needs public justification?) My sister in law owns and wears two perfumes – one for warm seasons, one for cold. I don’t understand that, either!
I could not settle on what two!
It would be a tough decision
I was amazed to see how many of those super expensive perfumes like Roja Dove people buy. It’s insane!? I think people feel better when they can show others what they got (it’s a bit like bragging, don’t you think?)
I used to wear only 1 perfume for over a year when at the beginning of university my only perfume was Prada Amber Pour Homme.
Well Lucas, since you started complaining about Roja Dove… i’ve seen him on video and he just seems so smug and annoying – sorry to all of his fans – but it does take away from the allure of the fragrance to me!
I’ve heard from someone that he doesn’t even make perfumes in his line anymore. Though that’s an unconfirmed rumour
Theoretically I agree with you completely, but from a personal standpoint I do like having lots of choice.
I am one of those people who does have 200+ bottles; I’d say 2/3s I bought for the bottle, so I am not worried about using it up and they weren’t those over-the-top expensive brands. They’re mainly kitschy things like Juicy Couture, Marc Jacobs Dot, the VC & A Feeries, etc that I get at the discount sites on clearance, or TJMaxx or Marshalls when I see them. Those I consider a collection in the sense that some people collect, say Lladro figurines or something.
I’d say there are 30-40 perfumes that I wear regularly. I tend to get in a groove with a fragrance and wear it exclusively for a week or so, then switch to something else. Among those 40 are probably 10-15 (20?!) that I wear on a regular basis, the ones that most of you mean when you say you’d like to get down to only having what you really love.
But I look at it like I do my music and books; My husband and I have hundreds of books, albums and CDs. No, I don’t listen to The Ring Cycle regularly, but when I feel like hearing it, nothing else will do. Home is not home if Anne-with-an-e, Jo March and Georgette Heyer are not here with me.
Of course I know that books and music won’t go bad, but on those particular nights when the moon is waxing gibbous and the winds are howling in the west and I am feeling petulant and feral, what would I do if I didn’t have Papillon’s Annubis to pace the floors with me?
Hi Tammy!
Wow, I can’t imagine owning +200 perfume. And knowing my attitude I would never buy a perfume only for the sake of owning a bottle. For me the juice is the most important, if I only liked the bottle that wouldn’t feel right for me. Maybe I would try to hunt empty bottle among friends.
But everyone has their own way, so let it be that way
At this stage of my life my perfume purchases are limited by economy and financial considerations only: we cannot afford to buy a bigger house on the top of the market, and my current one can hardly hold too many additional bottles 😉
On a serious note, I try to limit my perfume purchases because I have so many great perfumes already. Since I heavily rotate my perfumes (I rarely wear the same one even twice in any 30 days), many of them get my skin time at one time or the other, so I do not neglect them completely. Now I need to figure out how to give some of my favorites more wear (they are not office-friendly).
When I have this choice, I go rather for a brand’s travel bottles (5 – 15 ml), and I bought 5 of those in 2017. I split 4 full bottles, so the amount I have left is close to the desired travel size. A back-up bottle of my favorite Ginger Ciao I bought for 1/3 of the price – just because I have less than a quarter of the first bottle left, and I hope to have more chances to wear it this year. And I bough several full bottles – as “souvenirs” from my European vacation and “just because.”
But with everything I bought – including samples, shipping of swaps and decanting supplies, I still stayed significantly under my self-imposed perfume budget for 2017 – so I’m content with all my choices.
My perfume purchase choices were always dictated by economy. In Poland where we don’t use euro as currency, any perfume not available here multiplies its price by over 4 times due to currency exchange rate. So if something costs 200 euro, it will be close to 1000 PLN for me, which is massive for me. That’s why I split.
I wear the same perfume few times a month so I can’t say I neglect any of them. But there are a few that I regretted buying because later I realized they are not my type. I will eventually swap or sell them.
Glad to hear your budget for perfume wasn’t depleted in 2017
Yes, budget is a huge consideration for me now; I should have mentioned in my previous reply that I have not bought simply because I liked the bottle since I lost my job several years ago. And I no longer blind-buy, regardless of how enticing you wonderful bloggers make things sound! :o)
Perfume pricing is just ridiculous any more; is there anything under two or three hundred anymore? I can’t imagine having to quadruple that. And I frankly do not believe that any ingredients really justify such pricing. I fear that most companies are strictly trying to make themselves into so-called luxury brands just by setting their prices so high.
Maybe I need to dwell on this long enough to make myself too angry to buy any more!
Price of a perfume no longer is equal to its quality sadly. It’s mostly just to add prestigious character to the pricing level I think.
Nobody should do any blind buys over 5 ml regardless of their work situation (and I’m very sorry that you had to go through that unpleasant experience). As to the perfume prices… There are many good and affordable perfumes, so we should concentrate on finding gems among those – if we’re not prepared to pay luxury prices, justified or not.
I wish the manufacturers sold minis of the parfum. I see them on eBay – but I never see them for sale there so I’m assuming they’re all vintage. My mom told me when she was young in the 60s she could buy partial ounces of perfumes, but she would never be able to afford a full bottle. Then, you could have several quality favorites, but use them up in your own life time, and feel that then when they were done you could try different things. But for whatever reasons we’ve moved on to sprays and a glut of choices.
Of course – we can all buy samples and splits but it’s not retail – and there is something nice about having an original bottle – to me.
I wish all brands were making minis or 5-10 ml travel sprays that will let you to wear it a couple of Times before deciding if you want to commit to a bottle or not
I go through perfume buying spurts several times a year. I always prefer to own a bottle instead of a decant but have also participated in and hosted splits. While it’s true that I have to borrow nine cats’ nine lives each and still have enough for ninety-nine more cats (if they use perfume sparingly) and still not run out of perfume, buying perfumes with a theoretical budget is a luxury I chose to partake in without me having to sacrifice something (if I do, it means I cannot afford to buy perfume). As you have seen me mention several times, I donate an equal or greater amount to charity whatever I spend on perfumes, no exceptions. I have also swapped away perfumes in exchange for the recipient donating to a charity of their choice. All these being said, if I can get a smaller size perfume bottle, that’s what I would go for unless I am planning to host a split (hello Guerlain Baiser de Russie in the bee bottle..gorgeous green juice almost the color of my bedroom walls).
You are super generous, and encourage the rest of us to do the same – I treasure my decant of Black Perfecto and was happy to make a charitable donation for it (although I still covet that bottle, but I knew I wouldn’t wear it enough to justify- maybe someday I will find an empty on eBay!!). I don’t begrudge anyone who buys thoughtfully, but I am in a Facebook group where the buying pace is so rapid that it’s truly hard to imagine that anything has been sampled or thought through- acquisition for acquisition’s sake. (And the unlimited budget boggles because these aren’t TJMaxx buys!). I could be wrong and I don’t want to be too judge-y. I have to bite my tongue when the posts come up “now that I’ve discovered niche my designer/mainstream frags are so boring”. That to me is sad- like trying to convince one’s self that because it’s more expensive it’s obviously better. There is good, bad and boring at all price points.