Happy New Year!
Is that a pile of rumpled sequins in the corner? I hope you had a good night out with great friends, something delicious to eat, and lots of dancing.
Or, maybe you’re more like me and refused to leave home on New Year’s Eve. As has become my tradition, I made a fire and had a few friends over on their way out to parties, then I watched Doris Day movies and ate clams casino. I’ve stopped pretending I like to brave the crowds only to wake up with a headache and hoarse voice and mascara caked on the pillowcase.
On New Year’s Eve, I also thought about the year to come. I won’t bore you with my resolutions about health and friends and tidiness (although we can talk about resolutions in the comments, if you’d like), but here are a few thoughts about perfume:
Use it up. I have more perfume than I’ll be able to use up in my lifetime — 100+ bottles (I’m afraid to count). Sure, I wear fragrance every day, but that’s not enough. I need to splash on my rarest vintage fragrances in decadent palmfuls. Related to this….
Share the love. This year I’ll buy 5- and 10-ml atomizers and fill them up with good things and pass them out. A perfume that sits in its bottle is dead. A perfume that’s worn is doing what it was meant to do: it inspires emotion, including joy. Sharing fragrance is wonderful for the giver, too. People have been astonishingly generous with me, and I’d like to continue to spread the love.
Be adventurous. I admit that I stick to my favorite perfume families. Vintage fragrance fires up my imagination, and I love chypres, leather, orientals and iris scents. I’d like to venture into operatic florals and maybe even wear something edgy, with attitude I’d normally dismiss as pushy and simplistic. Not just sample and review it, but really give it a hardcore wearing and see how it meshes — or not — with my personality.
Organize. I did better this year by bringing home what I think will be my Forever Perfume Cabinet and roughly sorting my bottles into categories. I still want to assemble monthly perfume trays, as I learned from Brooke in an Inside the Perfume Cabinet interview.
Learn. As a perfume blogger, I see myself as a proxy for the average perfume shopper and not as an expert by any stretch. I can’t tell you the names of various perfume materials, and I don’t follow all the hullaballoo of the perfume industry. In my reviews, I simply aim to describe my reaction to a fragrance as the perfume lover — but not expert — that I am. This year, I want to learn more about the people who compose fragrance. What inspires them? How does perfume relate to other art?
And that’s it for my Deep Thoughts. What about you? Do you have any resolutions that relate to fragrance? Or any resolutions in particular you’d like to throw out there? I'm listening.
Note: top image is planner for 2018 year, coffee and marzipan cookies. top view [cropped] by Marco Verch at flickr; some rights reserved.
Happy new year! My perfume resolutions:
1. I have actually bought some decant bottles and have started to share some of my larger bottles;
2. I will try to respect my wish list, instead of letting whims get in the way of the fragrances I really want;
3. I will organise and use my samples. I no longer know exactly what I have but some are real beauties waiting to be used.
I have definitely been guilty of letting my whims get in the way of the bottles I’ve long had on my “buy” list! (Why does that happen, anyway?) Using up samples is a great idea, too.
Happy New Year, Angela!
I love your fragrance resolutions and am inspired by them. I might borrow a few, if you don’t mind.
My fragrance resolution for this year is to only purchase FB’s on a perfumer or house that I have never tried before (not blind buys). I notice that all my FB’s are on things that I always have had. I need to start a whole new collection. I will only get decants of the fragrances that are usually staples in my collection. May sound crazy to some, but I need to branch out. Looking back at some of my old posts, its always the same fragrances. Time to change it up and broaden my scent horizons.
I have decided that I am done with setting “life resolutions”. I feel I set myself up for failure by setting unrealistic goals. So, I am going to start having yearly mantras instead of resolutions. My “mantra” for 2018 is: No resolutions, just results!
“No resolutions, just results” sounds almost higher pressure than simply making resolutions! I love the idea of aiming for results, though. I hope this year brings lots of out-of-left-field inspiration.
Happy 2018 Robin!
I refused to leave home on New Year’s Eve. I watched Disney’s Sing and Kung Foo Panda 3, then at midnight I just leaped to the balcony to see some fireworks and that was it.
Love your fragrance resolutions. Once you find a source of elegantly looking atomisers / bottles you can even start giving them out to your friends as gifts.
I’ll gladly help you with being adventurous by sending you some samples of fragrances that I’ll manage to get.
Fingers crossed that in December you’ll be able to mark all of them as ‘completed’
It’s Angela on this post–although, of course, I’m always flattered to be confused with Robin!
It sounds like we share the idea of what makes a wonderful New Year’s Eve. Here’s to a Happy New Year!
Why did I wrote Robin when I meant Angela.
Oh well, Happy 2018 to EVERYONE
Thank you! 2018 will have some happy surprises in store for us, I’m sure.
Use it up!! I’m with you on that one. I need to accept that I’ll forever be several years behind in new releases, and let that go. I have hundreds of samples I need to test and then pass along either through swap or freebies. I like the idea of sharing decants, although my collection is probably comparatively boring, but I assume there are other relative newcomers out there who would enjoy some small decants of things I have! Happy New Year!!
Happy New year to you, too!
I’m way behind on new releases, too, and I know I’ll never catch up. I’ve thrown in the towel on that one.
No plans and no resolutions. I have enough guilt to last a lifetime thanks to Catholic school and my mother????
I will TRY to not buy a bottle without offloading a bottle since space is quite limited. Still eyeing Naja and Onda VdE, but so far, I haven’t buckled.
Happy New Year! Thanks for all your great posts over the past year????
I haven’t even sampled Naja yet, and Vero Profumo is one of my favorite lines, so you see how behind I am!
Deva, are you sure we’re not sisters? I have plenty of guilt thanks to Sister Mary Frances and my mother. ????
I’ve been unloading one bottle for every bottle I buy (and I still have too much perfume) but I still need to organize what I have. There’s a resolution I’ll undoubtedly not follow!
Organizing always sounds so fun–and is, for about half an hour. By then I’m usually ready to move on.
I like to organize things, and organize my perfumes on a pretty regular basis. It wasn’t a resolution, but about a year ago, my samples got to a place where they felt unmanageable, and it made me feel very anxious. I offloaded most of them, didn’t buy more, and since then I’ve kept my collection at a manageable level.
I am that person who actually knows where all her bottles and samples are, but that’s because I winnow on a regular basis, and have a collection that’s small enough to keep organized.
Maybe it should be a motto: Wear or winnow. I admire you!
I also went to Catholic school although we had no nuns, just 3 priests who ruled the roost: the principal who was always smiling and the figurehead whom the parents go to to get their kid out of whatever mess they got themselves into; the disciplinarian who patroled the hallways during the day, eyes straight abead (or so we thought), hands clasped behind his back – I swear he must have a naughtiness radar because he knew when you were up to no good; the parish priest who handles most of the church-related activities.
All the above to say no resolutions for me either!
A Catholic school without nuns? That’s so hard to imagine. It sounds like the priests picked up the slack, though.
All the best to Angela – and NSTer’s all!
I want to follow your example and use up some of the incredible decants that I have purchased. This is a significant challenge as I have built my own little library here!! Next I will group some samples together and distribute to friends, nieces & nephews for their birthdays.
I will NOT purchase anything new and want only 1 bottle this year, either during a fabulous sale or for my birthday.
I will get smart and be able to recognize 5 new scent ingredients that I know nothing about. Wish me luck- your words are true – perfume in a bottle is dead, it needs to be worn, alive evocative! Well said !!
Have you already figured out which bottle you want? That will be the challenge! And I love your plan to get to know five new scent materials! I could use a plan like that, too.
I love your resolutions, I am going to copy them!
Resolutions? No, but a few goals!
1) Try at least 2 of my over abundant samples per week.
2) Don’t purchase any new samples!
3) Finish at least 1 bottle (1/3 full 30 ml WSSS, I’m pretty sure that will be you…).
4) Only buy a new bottle if it’s associated with something really special. For 2018, my focus will be on buying a souvenir if I am more than a 2 hour drive from my home, the perfume is absolutely divine and if the perfume isn’t locally available.
5) Keep enjoying the pleasure in smelling beautiful perfumes and other scents, and not get caught up in the newest hype.
Not getting caught up in the newest hype can be a challenge! When I hear people start to rave about something, suddenly I need to smell it, too (although most of the time I don’t actually end up sampling it).
Very thoughtful list, Angela! As for your paragraph “learn”, for years I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed your posts. I’ve never felt like anything was lacking. You write well and your topics are interesting. Now that you mention it though, I do like the idea of reading about the people who create perfume and what inspires them. Enjoy your journey! All the best in the new year!
Thank you so much! I have so much to learn. Also, there’s a lot I’ve chosen to ignore so that I can be true to my own style of perfume blogging and leave the technical stuff to someone else. And Happy New Year to you, too!
I’m gonna keep it simple with just one resolution: to finish one bottle, for the first time! (I think it’s gonna be this half full 30ml New York Intense.)
I know you can do it! I hope you’re starting on that today.
My main resolution is to continue to use up what I have, especially samples and decants. In 2017 I used up 43 decants, 46 samples, 2 mini bottles, and 4 full size bottles. To be fair, 3 of the bottles I used up were used as room spray.
I want to not purchase a bottle until I’ve used up the sample or decant of it. I’ll make an exception for those perfumes that are rare, discontinued, etc. But those are exceptions!
I want to be more selective and thoughtful of the decants I buy from Facebook groups and instead buy samples of only those new releases that seem up my alley or get lots of positive feedback. I have way too many unloved 5 and 10ml decants.
Whoa!! I am REALLY impressed by your usage! I don’t think I finished more than 5 samples in 2017 (and no decants or bottles).
I’m really impressed therabbitsflower kept such amazing records!
Well, I only kept track of what I emptied, not every day use. I also tracked skin and hair care that way. It helps me remember what I liked and didn’t. I’ve been doing it for a year and a half, and it’s working well.
Good for you!
It sounds like you’re really aware of what you use and don’t use, which is the best first step!
What a great post, Angela. Thank you. I started organising /re-organising my collection just an hour or so ago, and then I stopped and read your post, and though, “yes! A perfume in its bottle really is a dead perfume; Angela’s quite right.” So as a result of my efforts this morning, I’m going to give away Chergui to the mother of one of my team. I don’t wear it very often, and she has just discovered it. It deserves love. And if I can find homes for some of my newly-bottom-shelf perfumes, that will be excellent.
For the rest, I may buy more, but only if it’s twoo love. We’re travelling this year, and I will maybe buy some things I find or have found unforgettable —Pélargonium, for instance— but no more random additions. That said, I did go and get that sample set of Bruno Fazzolari, but that was before I read your article, so perhaps it doesn’t count…
Thanks again for this and all your reviews. Your thoughts are inspiring and timely.
I’m so glad you were inspired! The person getting Chergui is lucky indeed, and you’re creating a lot of joy by giving it to her. Next stop: Pelargonium.
hi Angela, I always enjoy your perfumed thoughts. I feel a lot of these ideas bubbling up in my own brain.
Use it up is an excellent goal. I habitually enjoy a few dabs of a sample, one or two sprays from a bottle. But over the past few months, especially when I’m at home for the day or evening, I use many spritzes on myself, on clothes (carefully), on linens, and around the house.
A few months ago I acquired a box of 5 ml spray vials and filled a few to carry in my purse. They held up well so I will use them to share perfume in the future. Sending perfume by mail can make me nervous (will it leak? or get lost?), but it’s fun and worth the effort.
Yes to adventure! A sample of an Areej le Dore oud is waiting patiently on this cologne-girl’s desk.
Last goal, or a reminder to myself really, is No Guilt. This scented life is a happy life.
“No guilt. This scented life is a happy life”–I love that, thanks!
Years ago, I made a New Year’s resolution not to make any more New Year’s resolutions, and I have kept it faithfully ever since. So no New Year’s resolutions for me, perfume-related or otherwise. I do, however, make plans, and I plan to make a serious effort to work through the dozens of neglected samples I have accumulated.
I seem to be defying the trend when it comes to celebrating NYE. When I was young, I didn’t go out to parties to celebrate it, for a number of reasons , but now that I am older, I am enjoying taking in some of the various NYE parties in the Houston/Galveston area. We only go to those that are held at hotels, so we can get a room for the night and go home the next day after everyone is sobered up or sleeping it off. Last night was at the San Luis in Galveston. The food was delicious, the hotel was gorgeous with all the Christmas decorations, the atmosphere was festive, and it gave me an excuse to get dressed up (and to make my husband do the same).
I love your idea of celebrating in a hotel! Then it’s a short walk to bed, and it would feel like a vacation.
HAPPY NEW YEAR NST!
Resolution:Wear more Buy less….yeah right hahahahahahaha!!
Good resolution,but let’s see…
Have an awesome week people!
X
You have a good way of boiling down to the essentials!
well said!
Happy New Year Angela! I so love your posts, especially the beautiful and visceral descriptions of the scent. After reading this post and thinking about resolutions, I realized that I haven’t bought a sample since 2016! I am guilty of blind buying a few decants this year. ???? My ongoing goal will be no more blind buying. Wish me luck!???? I love sharing my perfume loves with others. It makes me happy. Now, if only I could share some of my gazillion lippies with them as well….
Blind buying decants isn’t so bad. After all, it’s more like “extended sampling” than “committing.” It’s the blind bought bottles that can be trouble!
I know what you mean about lipstick, too. Somehow I think if I found the perfect lipstick, everything would change.
Thank you for this post, Angela.
For as long as I can travel, I plan to celebrate New Year’s in another country or state. There are many different traditions across the globe that are worth experiencing. For instance, I celebrated in Barcelona this year!
As for resolutions, I’m with Deva and Apartachick – none, because lifetime of guilt from Catholic school. I do like goal setting to achieve results instead of resolving not to do something.
Barcelona–I love it! Now that’s a New Year’s resolution (or goal) to keep!
Happy New Year Angela, and everyone on NST!
I have very similar goals regarding perfume – use up, share, organize.
For January and as long as I can do it afterwards, I am only wearing sample vials. Hopefully I will finish some, and accumulate a nice ‘share’ pile
About twice a year I reach into my piles of samples for something, then end up harvesting a bunch that have soured or that I want to use up right away. It’s such a good idea to go through those samples once in a while!
Happy New Year! I’ve been catching up on my cataloging and spent an insane amount of time this weekend updating my Excel sheet and my Basenotes wardrobe. One thing this made me notice is how I have some things I truly love, and many things I just kinda like. My plans for this year are all about moving from like to love, in two ways:
1. Swap/sell/give away things I just like as opposed to love.
2. Save my perfume budget by not spending on small impulse things (fewer vintage minis! damn you ebay) and instead buy a few things that I really love.
“Like” to “love” is perfect! Kind of good guidance for a lot of things, really.
I like your 2018 plans!
Your #1 has been my approach to buying clothing for the past few years. It really took a conscious effort to stop buying things because they’re on sale or cheap, and only buying items I love and am excited to see in my closet. If I have doubts, it gets returned. And if I don’t love it anymore, it goes to the thrift or consignment store (and the $ I make on consignment goes to my perfume budget.)
I do the same with samples, decants, blind buys/swaps that I don’t love. I have an ongoing “out” box that pile up until the next swap or freebiemeet.
As to #2, I became aware that the vast majority of my perfume spending was going to decanting services and – yes – buying minis on impulse. I’m not really sure how, but I stopped doing both. I also have a lot of bargain-priced bottles that were easy to justify buying since they were cheap. I’ve stopped doing that, too.
It seems to be all about balance. We still need to test and try new things, buy what we love (and hope we’ll have a long-term relationship with,) but be judicious about what we spend our money on. It’s not easy to find that balance!
You’re so right, it is hard to find the balance. Plus, I think about the things I’ve given away, then regretted. Sometimes I’m not sure if I love something until a few years later! This is ridiculous, I know…..
Not ridiculous at all. It’s impossible to know what we’ll fall in or out of love with. The upside to all of it is that there’s almost always someone who’ll love that bottle one is no longer smitten with, and a way to get more of that perfume one dispensed with too hastily! No regrets and all that…
True!
No resolutions for me. I decided two months ago that I will buy no FB’s of perfume unless it is something I have sampled and fell head over heels for…which does not happen that often recently. I try to use something different every day because I don’t want my bottles to turn and would like to enjoy them. In 2017 I gave several friends a bag containing 5-6 of my perfumes. I will probably do that again sometime this year.
It sounds like it’s time to pare down and focus on “love” for you. That’s inspiring!
Thanks for your thoughts, Angela. I hope to read some articles here about your learning process, and also have a lot of curiosity about what goes into perfume-making, in the sense of the artist making art.
At the end of 2016 I tallied all of my discretionary purchases for the year – not just perfume, but also clothing/shoes, and skincare/makeup. I was both astounded and horrified by how much money I’d spent. It made me rethink my consumer habits, and I decided to be more conscientious about my buying and spending.
I started keeping an ongoing “Donatella” spreadsheet, tracking my monthly and quarterly spending, which forced me to be accountable on a regular basis. I knew what my perfume-buying pitfalls were, and stopped buying decants and minis – or when I did, slowed down and did it more thoughtfully. I did buy bottles, mostly vintage and/or used, but tried to keep it to classic fragrances I hoped I’d enjoy year-in and year-out (though only time will tell on that one.)
I also tried to cover a large portion of purchases with “free” money. That is, $ and GCs earned through cashback programs (topcashback, ebates, microsoft rewards, ebay bucks) and as I mentioned above, $ from selling clothing and other items via consignment. To satisfy my urge to try new things, I participated in a lot of swaps.
Mostly I exercised a lot of patience and restraint, and now it’s become sort of habitual. I cut my spending by 75% compared to 2016, and my goal is to cut it by 50% again this year.
One change I’m pondering these days is how to acquire small(er) amounts of perfumes when I actually want them. I have finally learned that with very few exceptions, 7.5-15 ml is just the right size for me. So that’s an idea I’ll be exploring this year. I’m also thinking about ways to self-fund my hobby, and really admire people who are able to do this.
This is so admirable! I’ve done a little of this myself, but not with your level of analysis and organization. For instance, one of my budget weaknesses is buying books. These days, if I want a new book (I cut myself leeway for used books) that I can’t find at the library or want to own (a cookbook, for instance), I bring in a stack of used books to sell to help fund the new book.
With swap groups and decants, it’s easier than ever to share perfume and try new things.
I’ve done that with books, too, and have been surprised by how much $ they can fetch. I now no longer keep much of a collection. I started applying your thoughts on “dead” perfume to books years ago. Once I’ve read something (unless it’s a reference book) it goes back out the door so someone else can enjoy it. It’s not serving its purpose sitting neglected on a shelf!
(I also read a book on feng shui about 15 years ago that was quite critical of book collections and emphasized making [emotional and literal] space for new things by getting rid of old things [and attachments.] Once I started thinking about book collections in a different way I realized I didn’t want one.)
I love resolutions!
I love your list Angela, and I am stealing all of your resolutions. And, what good is being an expert if you are not a good writer – and you are an excellent writer!
I kept a spreadsheet this year since my habit started May 2017, and I am horrified by the results. I have a good amount of perfume that I have not smelled, and perfume that I just “like” but not “love”, so I am in the “wear more, spend less” camp.
I am going to become a minimalist – in the sense that I am going to determine my priorities and align my time, attention and money to what is germane. Or get closer to that. I do have kids, and job and a lot of junk. And I’m American.
With the amount of $$ I spent on perfume, I could have mostly paid for a trip to Paris!!!
It’s always eye-opening to think about what you might have spent on something, and then compare that to the cost of plane tickets and vacations! Your resolution is terrific. The idea of opening the perfume cabinet and LOVING everything in it is wonderful.
My resolutions for this year are to properly organize my perfumes so I can see and easily reach for everything. I did that for the San Diego collection yesterday and will do the same in Montreal this spring.
I plan to buy no more than 1 bottle per quarter. No blind buying. Very, very restrained sample/decant buying – I am overwhelmed with samples and decants, will hopefully unload some in the freebiemeet, as well as a couple of bottles. And I am going to document every purchase, as I tend to forget what I’ve already bought and go over budget.
I finished 5 bottles this past year and hope to finish a few more in 2018.
I know my weaknesses (discounts, new hyped scents) and will do my best to avoid my buying triggers. But I’m not going to beat myself up. Like Tiffanie said, no guilt! Perfume is supposed to be fun. I have a ton of beautiful scents and want to enjoy them, not feel bad about buying them. And this year that means minimal additions and lots of wearing what I already have.
Great resolutions! I’m impressed you were able to use up five bottles. Good work. Here’s to a 2018 with four gorgeous new fragrances in it for you.