If you missed it, you might want to take a look at Things I wish I'd known as a newbie perfumista, part 1 for an introduction to today's subject, and many of today's points expand on comments from that post so huge thanks to everyone who took the time to share their experiences.
Don't pay full price if you don't have to. If money is not an issue, buy where you like, but for the rest of us, shopping around is worth the time and effort, and the product you'll get from a reputable discounter (assuming you can find what you want at a reputable discounter) is every bit as good as what you'll get in a department store. You may, however, have to wait another month or two after a fragrance launches before you can find it at a discounter. Want to know if a discounter is reputable? Do a search at the fragrance board at MakeupAlley.
And no, there's nothing wrong with buying testers (the juice is exactly the same, despite any rumors you might hear to the contrary), although if you care about things like outer boxes and caps, make sure they're included in the deal.
Don't buy anything you haven't worn at least 3 times. Rules are meant to be broken, and I break this rule every so often myself. Still, it is worth trying to live up to — first appearances can be deceiving, and it is better to get to know a fragrance, and give serious consideration to whether or not it will work in your collection, before you decide to buy a full bottle. My collection would be much smaller than it is if I'd stuck to this rule more stringently. An even better rule, if you've more patience than I do: don't buy a full bottle until you've used up a sample or decant.
If you're on a budget but really want to try everything, start swapping now. Swapping has its drawbacks, but short of spending an awful lot of money buying samples or full bottles, it is the cheapest way to smell everything on your "to try" list. Before you start swapping, you might want to learn how to get fragrance samples and how to decant perfume.
Niche not always better, expensive is not always better. When I first discovered niche fragrances, I was so enthralled I ignored everything else. It's easy to get carried away. But keep in mind that while there are lots of great niche lines, but there are also lots of overpriced, overhyped niche lines, and there is also some really wonderful stuff happening in the mainstream sector. Keep an open mind and try everything you can.
Don't worry about what everyone else thinks. Your favorite fragrance is a much-maligned little number from Target? Who cares! Wear what makes you happy.
Before you adopt a sample storage system, consider how it will scale as your collection expands. When I started collecting samples, I threw them in a basket. When I wanted to find something, I dumped the basket on the floor and rifled around in the pile. All of that is fine when you have, say, 20 or 30 samples, but when your collection gets too big for the basket, think twice before you just get a bigger basket: ask yourself how you will want your samples organized when you've got 1000 of them, and design your system accordingly. You can read about my search for a sample organization system here and here.
Note: the image a reward for doing nothing (perfume samples) is via iluvrhinestones at flickr, some rights reserved.
“Don't buy anything you haven't worn 3 times” is a great general rule, but there's an exception: if the price is ridiculously low, and you think there's a good chance you'll like it, or at least be able to swap it away if you don't, then buy it. Sometimes I'll buy something at a discounter that's $10 or so, and it's usually worth the risk, and twice now I've ordered massive quantities of Demeter scents: the minis are $5 each, so even if there are a few duds in the shipment, it's still well worth the price. (Think of them as really big samples or decants.)
“Wear what makes you happy” is not only a great rule, it should really be the only rule. If you love something that's super-cheap, or that's a men's scent when you're a woman or vice versa, well, why not? Love it, wear it.
Uh, yeah — Demeter minis do NOT count as “bottles” but as “samples” and you can buy as many as you like unsniffed, LOL…we mustn't go overboard, after all.
And agree on the $10, but personally I have to watch those $19.99 bottles at TJ Maxx, they're often a mistake, and a few of those mistakes adds up to a decent bottle of perfume.
right now my samples are in a ceramic egg carton from Anthropologie. It's cute, but there are too many of them now.
While I agree with your info/advice re discounters I must say that I'm also a huge fan of establishing relationships with a couple of good SAs. I realize that this usually only works in larger markets, especially if you're interested in niche scents but those relationships can be fostered long distance, too. A good SA can translate into some great samples. For example I have several 15 ML Hermes samps not usually available because I've developed a long term relationship (20 years!) with my SA . Gave me plenty of opportunity to decide if I wanted to buy FB (I don't but I found something else from that rep's lines that I wanted so everyone went away happy). I still buy discount from time to time but as I've grown to perfumista status I realized that I actually came out ahead if I spent that extra money with my SA.
And I second (or third:-) the 'wear what makes youhappy' rule. I love Coty L'Aimant and it unnerves my snobby friends when they fall over all over themselves, loving the scent…only to find it's $14.99 @ Walgreens!
I've been down that road… but it was all part of my education, and I did get Ivoire and Jolie Madame at TJ's, so I can't complain. What I can complain about is that our a/c here at work just died!
I had no idea Coty still makes L'Aimant. That brings back happy memories of my childhood. My father's sisters and his aunt all loved Coty perfumes, and L'Aimant was one of their favorites. Reminds me of Christmas and family gatherings.
Those are good buys! I've bought some things that were really just a waste of $$.
And hope your work has given up & closed for the day by now…I just went by my library, and they closed early because of a/c issues too.
I second the “wear what makes you happy” many times I find an inexpensive frag, (like Body Time's Egyptian Musk), which is cheap and smells great! And also the establishing a relationship with a SA, it is so very helpful!
Mamabear, I have a hard time on the “establishing relationships” front because I'm usually too cheap to pay full price. Every so often, yes, but probably not often enough to impress anybody. But it can work out well if you're willing!
Coty L'Aimant is a classic! I was thinking more of $9.99 sugary things from the drugstore, LOL…
Yep! I wish they'd up the price a bit and use better materials, but you can still buy it.
Hey, that does sound cute, and at least you can sort them a bit that way…beats a basket!
I love Body Time Egyptian Musk too — and it's a huge bargain.
All great advice! Nice piece.
I would add one more: Don't overlook used partial-bottles on online auctions. They are some of the greatest bargains I've found.. It seems a little weird to use someone else's bottle at first, but I've gotten a half bottle of SL Cedre for about $40, and recently a barely-used 50ml Jardin Sur le Nil for less than $20. But don't go crazy and overbid; for some people the anxiety is too much, especially when you have a few experiences where you get outbid by only a dollar or two. Today's bargain at $89 might be had for only $37 next month.
I also should stick to the “don't buy until you've worn 3 times” rule, but some bargains have been too good to resist, and I consider it part of my learning experience — especially if the price ends up not much more than a medium-sized decant. I've been willing to try most anything by L'Artisan or Different Company and the like, but I'd be less likely to buy “mass market” or fashion house scents unsniffed.
Very good point about partial bottles — after they took decants off ebay, I sort of stopped going there as frequently. I wonder if there are fewer perfume shoppers now so maybe more bargains? But probably not.
Sometimes you come late to the game and what you discover you like either has or will be discontinued, or has been reformulated. I was that way with vintage Diorella. I had the re-issue and happened to stumble upon the vintage when I got a group of old vials on eBay. I didn't need to wear it 3 times to know I loved it and NEEDED a bottle!!
Where do you shop that you've found a SA that's been around 20 years? Not in Ohio. LOL
I love “wear what makes you happy”! And you know what? I found out that my peeps think I “always smell good”. I wear some pretty cheap stuff (a fair amount of BBW – did I hear “semi-annual sale”?lol) and a lot of scented lotions in general. Well, since starting all… this, I have been wearing plain lotion and various samples, but the lotions will not languish for long.
I love Demeter! I got 7 minis, plus a free bottle of rather scary Bananas Flambe (note to self – order when free bottle is something you want). I wound up really liking more than half of them.
Thinking hard about the sample storage…
So true…and eBay is still the best place to find vintage other than lucky breaks at garage sales…
Demeter is awesome, and has gone way up in my estimation since starting the cheap minis…they're great. Have a feeling I could live w/o Bananas Flambe myself though!
Sample storage: Go to the dollar store and look in the food storage aisle. they have odd-size containers, big and small. I'm a colored pencil artist, so I finally cut a thin dowel to the length of a colored pencil and dropped it in my purse. I measure the containers to make sure they fit. And look for stacking ones.
Write the name of the sample group (floral, Serge only, colored perfumes–whatever classification you use) on a piece of drafting tape (looks like masking tape, but no goop or ripped tape when you pull it off) and put it on at least two sides. Not the lid. You'll pull off all the lids and . . .then what?
Avoid vague labels. I actually labeled a whole bunch “Hate it” only to change mind about some of them.
Prowl yard sales (or Michaels) for plastic boxes that people use for storing embroidery floss wound on pieces of cardboard. These often have adjustable slots in them, perfect for storing oodles of samples.
Save the plastic clamshells that raspberries and blueberries come in. Recycle while you sniff! They don't stack well, but fit perfectly in Amazon boxes.
8-oz yogurt containers with lids stack and contain a good number of samples. They aren't see-through, but that really doesn't matter, does it?
OK, I'll admit to this just once. I purchased a number of hardbacks on topics I wasn't interested in. 300 pages is about right. I cut an index-card size hole in the last 200 pages (with a box cutter, a few pages at a time), then glued them together. This made a convenient well, covered by the first 100 pages. I painted over the first 10 pages or so with gesso, then wrote my impressions of the perfume samples I stored in the cut out part. I then made a label for the spine. Voila! Notes and samples stored conveniently, just like the library.
In regard to buying tester bottles, as new perfumistas, we are told to keep our fragrances in a dark cool place. A tester bottle is subjected to multiple environments/people, is there an issue of quality? Or are they still relatively new? Or is the dark, cool place thing over-rated?
Ok, the books thing is ingenious but ACK! Defacing books! I can't help it, I am conditioned to revere the printed word and can't take it. Ignore me.
A tester bottle from an online discounter has not had any more exposure to people or environments than any other bottle they sell — it has never been used. So, strictly speaking, it has had less environmental exposure than a bottle you've bought off the shelf at Sephora, which has been baking under hot lights for who knows how long.
Thank you for posting these articles! As a newbie it's priceless to get all this information!
i fell in love with demeter salt air, the perfect summer fragrance! and they're quite cheap, lovely
Glad they are helpful
I'm in Chicago but I'm also old(er) and have had the same SAs going back to the days when Saks still had elevator operators, in their white gloves!. Cosmetics SAs of a 'certain age' tend to not move around a lot and their clientele is of the generation that really believed in loyalty – their customers, in general, don't use the Internet to shop, they come in or call (especially if it's winter and they are in Boca). My SA at Saks has a client book the size of the Gutenberg Bible, LOL!
Once they retire, though, it is unlikely that trend will continue, either with the newer SAs or their customers.
I had exactly the same reaction to defacing books that you did. But one day, when I was at a library book sale, I realized that the books that weren't bought would be taken to the dump. And then I realized that if I turned them into alternative art, they would get revered and honored. And then I could do it. But still, the books I use are either foreign languages or books on topics I don't understand. It makes it all easier, still.
Oh, I know it's true. And for entirely perverse reasons I'd rather see them dumped than see them sold by the yard to interior decorators. So was not meaning to criticize…just not sure I could take an exacto knife to a book without breaking out in hives.
I'll have to try that one!
I am in complete agreement. DO NOT DEFACE!!
Books are art to me, especially perfume books, and the thought of them being contaminated by ink or graphite makes me ill. Seriously.
What a nice memory to have, I think that type of “service” is sadly, disappearing.
I have similar shopping memories, I also remember lunching after shopping, always a nice experience too…
It is a very personal thing, no? When I was in college, I could hardly stand to look when people were highlighting their textbooks.
I second the thank you. I'm now officially hooked on your blog.
You guys are very nice!
I'll have to try that on e- I am always on the prowl for the perfect “beach” sense-memory-arousing scent.