How to get perfume samples

By definition, I should think, the true perfumista wants to try everything, or at least, very nearly everything. If you're lucky (much luckier than I) you can afford to just buy all the latest perfumes unsniffed, but the rest of us have to make do with samples. Here are a few tips for getting your hands on samples of the latest fragrances:

Beg at brick 'n mortar stores
For many fragrances, especially new mainstream releases, about the only way to get a sample is to go to a store in-person and ask for one. Nordstrom and Sephora top my list of the absolute best foraging grounds: both stores will happily give you a carded sample (i.e., a sample from the manufacturer, usually attached to a card or folded enclosure) if they have one; if they don't, they will happily decant a sample for you. Nordstrom uses little glass vials; Sephora uses plastic atomizers. Being given a sample on demand makes me inordinately happy; if I was the sort of person willing to pay full price for a bottle of fragrance, I would do all my perfume-buying at Nordstrom and Sephora. As I am most emphatically not the sort of person willing to pay full price for perfume when I don't have to, I try to buy all my other makeup and beauty things at those stores.

Unfortunately, the "free samples on demand" policy is pretty much limited to those two stores; nobody else comes even close to that level of customer service. Bloomingdales and Neiman Marcus (at least, my local stores) will usually give a carded sample if they have one, but of course, they don’t always have them. I have never managed to cadge a single carded sample out of Macy's or Lord & Taylor.

If you have no shame (and why have shame?) you can carry empty glass vials with you and ask if the store will allow you to make your own sample. This is rather hit or miss, but in general, I find the higher-end stores are much more likely to give permission than the lower-end stores. Bergdorf Goodman has allowed me to make samples any number of times, so have Saks, Neiman Marcus, Barneys, Takashimaya and Bloomingdales. Once, and once only, I was given permission to make samples at my local Macy's, and within minutes a manager materialized from out of nowhere and very nearly threw my friend and I out of the store. Thanks, Macy’s!

Smaller stores, again, are hit or miss. The Coach boutique I visited last month was passing out samples of their new fragrance to anyone who asked. Hermès is generally very nice about samples when they have them, especially at the flagship store in New York. L’Occitane gives them out when they have them, but they almost never do have them.


Beg or buy directly from the manufacturer
Another option, if the company has a website, is to write and ask if they will send you a sample. Some will, some won’t, but it is always worth a try. Some of the larger companies post free sample offers online right around the time a fragrance is launched. Unfortunately, they often take 4-6 weeks to mail them, and when they do, what you get is frequently one of those little liquid “bubbles” on a card or a pre-moistened towelette. I find either very nearly as useless as a magazine scent strip.

Another tip: if you find a website specifically devoted to an upcoming fragrance release, take the time to enter your name and address if there is a place to do so. When Hermès launched Terre d’Hermès, their teaser website allowed you to enter a name and address (and it was not at all clear what for), if you did, you received a 10 ml miniature bottle of the fragrance after it was released.

Some of the niche lines sell samples of their products online.
A no doubt far-from-complete list: Abinoam, Aftelier, Amouage, Antonia's Flowers, Anya's Garden, Apothia, AromaM, Art of Perfumery, Ava Luxe, Ayala Moriel, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, CB I Hate Perfume, Creative Scentualization, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Eadward, Ebba, Fresh Scents by Terri, Ineke, Lagniappe Oaks, La Via del Profumo, Les Nez, Liz Zorn, Miller Harris, Miriam Mirani (Aqaba), Ormonde Jayne, Penhaligons, Rich Hippie, Sonoma Scent Studio, Strange Invisible Perfumes, Tauer Perfumes.

Buy samples from online boutiques
There are very few online stores selling samples of mainstream scents, but check Beauty Encounter and Parfums Raffy (Raffy also carries some niche brands). Both of these stores sell carded samples only.

If it’s niche fragrances you’re after, you’re in luck – there are lots of great online boutiques with sample programs: try Aedes (7 samples for $15), Beauty Cafe (5 samples for $5, but only with an order), Beautyhabit (6 samples for $11), First-in-Fragrance (Germany, individually priced), La Crème Beauty (8 samples for $15), Les Senteurs (London, 6 samples for £15), Luckyscent (samples individually priced). All of these stores will send carded samples when they have them in stock, when they don’t, they’ll send you a decanted sample vial if they can. Most of these stores ask that you provide one or two alternates in case they don't have all of the fragrances you're looking for.

Buy them on ebay
There are any number of ebay sellers and stores devoted to selling decants and samples of fragrances, both niche and mainstream. You won't find everything on ebay, but you'll find a pretty decent selection ranging from the latest celebrity launches to the hard-to-find exclusives from Serge Lutens. If they don't have the fragrance you want, try entering a "Favorite Search" so that ebay will send you an email when your item comes up for sale.

I have had very good luck on ebay, but I am sure some stores/sellers are better than others. Checking a seller’s feedback is one obvious way to make sure you’re dealing with someone reputable; another is to post a query on one of the fragrance forums.

How to apply perfume

It shouldn’t take rocket science to figure out how to put on perfume. You just spritz it on your wrists, rub them on each other and behind your ears, and you’re good to go, right? Maybe. But since you’ve spent almost a hundred dollars for that fabulous bottle of Guerlain Chamade or Chanel Eau Première, you may as well do a little research on how to wear it well.

Cloud of scent or targeted sprays? Some people spray a mist of perfume in the air and then walk through it. They say that the scent then disperses evenly over their bodies. (I first saw this technique used by Holly Hunter’s character in the movie Broadcast News.) When I’ve tried it, I’ve never felt satisfied by the concentration of the scent. Plus, if you walk through the cloud of scent clothed, not much perfume lands on skin where it can warm and develop.

I like targeting sprays of perfume. I mostly wear dresses and skirts, so I tend to spray once behind each knee. The scent then warms and rises so that it leaves a quiet trail. If the fragrance is subtle, or if I’m especially in love with it, I’ll spray once between my breasts, too, so that the scent is closer to my nose.

I do scent my wrists sometimes so that I can lift my wrist to my nose and get to know a perfume better. Another place I like to dab scent if I’m testing it is on the fleshy part of the back of my hand, between my thumb and index finger.

Spray clothing or not? “Of course not!” you might say to yourself, “Everyone knows perfume on fabric is a bad idea.” It’s true that perfume can stain some fabrics and probably dries out hair. I’ve also heard that perfume can deaden rhinestones, taking the sparkle right out of them. On the other hand, Chanel said that one of the benefits of a signature scent is that you can always identify your own coat. (This is useless advice for people like me who have a few dozen signature scents. Get a more distinctive coat, I say.)

Caron sprays its customer’s scarves so they can live with a perfume before deciding to buy it. Diaghilev sprayed his curtains with Guerlain Mitsouko. I spray my sheets with scent and haven’t stained them yet. Why not scent your scarf or woolen gloves if you feel like it?

Rub or let dry? Perfume folk wisdom says not to rub your wrists together when you apply perfume because you’ll crush its molecules. I’m not a physicist and I don’t know what it takes to crush a molecule (although I hear that splitting atoms takes special equipment and sometimes a treaty). I always let my perfume dry without rubbing my wrists together because I like how it smells when it’s sprayed rather than dabbed, and to me rubbing it on skin is too much like dabbing it.

What about splash bottles? Bottles of extrait most often come in splash bottles — that is, bottles without a sprayer. Many Eaux de Toilette do, too. As I said, I like how perfume smells when it’s sprayed, so I like to decant Eau de Toilette into an atomizer. Sprayed extrait can be wonderful, too — I fell head over heels for Guerlain Vol de Nuit and Chamade when I smelled the parfum after it was sprayed on my skin. But for a quarter-ounce bottle of precious extrait, a cheap atomizer feels wrong. So I dab it.

The problem with dabbing is that if you dab by uncapping the bottle and turning it directly on your skin or your finger, when you right the bottle you’ve swished oil and even flakes of skin into the scent. You can end up spoiling the fragrance before its time. One solution is to dip a clean Q-tip into the scent and use that to dab perfume. I tried this method for a while, but I felt like the Q-tip held too much of the valuable extrait even when I’d squeezed it dry. Now I turn the bottle upside down to moisten the stopper, dab perfume on my skin with the stopper, then wipe the stopper on a handy cloth (usually my blouse or the skirt of my dress).

When to reapply? As much as I love a perfume, I’m happy when it fades because I can apply a different perfume. But if you want to boost your scent, for the truest fragrance make sure that the first application has disappeared from your skin. Perfume won’t show its true character if it is layered — even if it’s layered over itself. A scent is designed to unfurl on naked skin from its topnotes through the final whisper of its drydown. If you interrupt and complicate this progress by reapplying scent, you won’t smell the full story of the perfume.

In the end, though the best advice I’ve heard about applying perfume was to “Be extravagant with perfume and with love.” I wish I could remember who wrote it.

Frequently asked questions about perfume

Why do perfumes smell different on different people?
Your own body chemistry affects how differerent notes react on your skin. Anything that affects the "natural" smell of your skin, such as stress, hormonal changes, your current diet or medications, might change how a perfume smells on you. For a more detailed explanation, see here.

How can I make my perfume last longer on my skin?
All other things being equal, perfumes evaporate more rapidly from dry skin, so the best way to make fragrance last longer is to use a relatively heavy body lotion or cream. Some people like to buy the "matching" cream for their fragrance, but you can also use an unscented cream like Cetaphil, or try petroleum jelly or jojoba oil. You might also try a light mist to your hair, which is said to hold scent longer than skin.

What are Eau De Toilette, Eau De Parfum, etc?
These terms refer to the strength of the fragrance, or more specifically, to how much high grade alcohol and/or water has been added to the fragrance oils. Parfum (generally the most concentrated form you can buy) has 15-25% perfume oil dissolved in alcohol. Any mixture with a lower proportion of oil to alcohol is an eau (water).

Eau Fraiche (Usually 3% or less perfume oil)
Eau de cologne (2 - 5% perfume oil)
Eau de Toilette (4 - 10% perfume oil)
Eau de parfum (8 - 15% perfume oil)
Soie de Parfum (15 - 18% perfume oil)
PARFUM or Perfume (15 - 25% -- also sometimes referred to as extract or extrait)
Perfume oil (15-30% perfume oil in an oil rather than alcohol base)

You may also see the term Parfum de Toilette. Most companies use this term to describe a concentration that is either the same as Eau De Parfum, or between Eau De Parfum and Parfum. Other companies use the term to describe an Eau De Toilette concentration.

To further confuse matters, some companies use different notes, or different proportions of notes, in the different forms of fragrance they offer. In addition, some companies reserve costly fragrance oils for their parfum, and use synthetic substitutes in lighter concentrations.

What are top, middle, and base notes?
Top notes provide the first scent impression of a fragrance once it has been applied to the skin. They are usually lighter, more volatile aromas that evaporate readily. Their scent usually lingers for between 5 and 30 minutes. Middle notes, sometimes referred to as “heart notes”, make up the body of the blend. They may be evident from the start, but will usually take 10-30 minutes to fully develop on the skin. They are the notes that classify the fragrance family (floral, oriental, chypre, etc, see below). Base Notes are those with the greatest molecular weight. They last the longest, and are also important as fixatives, that is, they help slow down the evaporation rates of the lighter notes, giving the fragrance holding power. Common base notes include oakmoss, patchouli, woods, musk and vanilla.

A fragrance which does not have traditional top, middle and base notes is usually described as "linear".


What are the "fragrance families"?
These are "aroma groupings" of related scents. There is more than one classification system in use, but many list 7 major families: Greens, Florals, Aldehydics, Chypre, Oriental, Fougère & Tobacco/Leather. Some listings of the major fragrance families can be found at:

Fragrance Families (pdf at Leffingwell)
Parfums Raffy Fragrance Guide
Fragrances of the World 2000 (at Art et Parfum)

How long can I keep my perfume before it "turns"?
Some industry experts say that perfume should be replaced every year, but properly stored, perfumes should last much longer. Most perfumes will keep several years, some will keep many more years than that.

To store perfume properly, keep it away from heat and light. A dark closet or a covered box is best. Also avoid direct exposure to air. Splash bottles, which expose the fragrance to air every time they are opened, are problematic. Consider decanting into a smaller atomizer for regular use. If you apply perfume directly from a bottle stopper, wipe the stopper with a clean, lint free cloth before replacing it in the bottle.

How many milliliters are in an ounce?
Here is a quick conversion chart:

100 ml = 3.3 or 3.4 oz
50 ml = 1.7 oz
30 ml = 1 oz
15 ml = 1/2 oz
10 ml = 1/3 oz
7.5 ml = 1/4 oz
5 ml = 1/6 oz
3.7 ml = 1/8 oz = 1 dram

Note that all of these are approximate; strictly speaking, 1/2 oz is 14.787 ml.

A standard perfume sample is in a 1/32 oz (1 ml) vial. You can see a picture showing sizes of standard perfume bottles in the article on decanting (scroll down).

What is the difference between essential oil and perfume oil?
Essential oils are volatile, fragrant liquids extracted from plant leaves, bark, wood, stems, flowers, seeds, buds, roots, resins and petals, usually through steam distillation. In other words, they are raw materials that can be used to create perfumes. They are highly concentrated and apart from a few exceptions, should not be used directly on the skin, although they can be diluted in a carrier oil, such as jojoba, for such use.

Perfume oils are fragrance components, natural or synthetic, in an oily base rather than an alcohol base, and can be used directly on the skin.

How to remove fragrance from skin

The Murphy's Law of fragrance sampling says quite simply that the more you like a scent, the quicker it will disappear. It follows, of course, that a fragrance that you detest beyond all understanding will cling to your skin like glue, and lingering traces will remain on your wool coat even after several dry-cleanings.

Over the years I have read about and tried any number of perfume-removal methods. Wiping with alcohol is frequently recommended, but rarely removes hardcore offenders, and scrubs, well, sometimes even removing the top layer of skin isn't enough. Here is my own personal routine:

1. Apply unscented deodorant.

2. After a few minutes, wash off with a heavy-duty laundry detergent. I like Liquid Tide, although I must note that some versions of Tide are so highly scented that you've simply replaced one problem with another. Tide Free, if you can find it, is the best.

If you're planning a heavy day of fragrance shopping, individually wrapped alcohol swabs (you can find them at most pharmacies) are better than nothing, and I also like Dickinson's Witch Hazel pads.

My favorite shower gel for removing fragrance: Santa Maria Novella Hamamelis (Witch Hazel), but it isn't cheap and I've been meaning to look for an alternative.

How to decant perfume

I suppose I should actually start with why you might want to decant perfume. Well, there are any number of possible reasons. Perhaps you want to start swapping (swapping article coming up soon!), or selling on ebay, or perhaps you just want to share fragrances with your friends or split a bottle of something you can't afford to buy full-sized. Or maybe you'd like to have some travel sizes of your favorite scents?

Decanting Supplies
To start with, you'll need some empty bottles, atomizers and/or vials. I personally use 2 sources for empty bottles, pilotvials and madinaonline, but you might want to post a query on one of the fragrance forums to see what suppliers are popular at the moment; I don't order often enough these days to know which suppliers are considered "reputable". If you're planning to start swapping, you'll probably want to have some small glass vials (the "standard" small vial is 1/32 oz), and then an assortment of larger sized bottles. I am partial to 1/8th oz decants — just enough to make up your mind about the fragrance one way or another — but I'm guessing most swappers prefer a slightly larger size, perhaps 1/4 to 1/3 oz. For bottle splits, you might need 1/2 or even 1 oz containers.

You will have to choose between splash, roll-on and spray bottles. Personally, I prefer splash except for travel (see below), largely because they are cheaper than the spray. Some people prefer roll-on, but I do not like the idea of having the fragrance contaminated with every use. I used to remove the roll-on mechanism from any such bottle I received (you can pry it out with a tiny screwdriver, like the kind that are sold to mend eyeglasses), but with many roll-on bottles, that mechanism is what creates a tight seal with the cap; if you remove it, you risk evaporation unless you move the juice to another container.

For travel, 1/3 oz atomizers are perfect. The biggest problem with travel atomizers is that they are prone to leakage. I have been very happy with the 1/3 oz atomizers from pilotvials, but again, you might want to ask around on the boards before you choose.

Glass is generally preferable to plastic. Other supplies that may be helpful: a stainless steel funnel, small plastic pipettes (check lab supply or hobby stores), clean straws (McDonalds!), small clear plastic baggies to hold the vials (I use 2 inch by 3 inch ziploc baggies, which you can buy quite cheaply on ebay) and labels.

A question that pops up frequently is "I've used up a decant, how can I clean the bottle and reuse it", and the answer is quite simple: don't. You can easily enough remove all traces of the fragrance from a glass bottle, but the caps and the spray mechanism, if any, are usually made from plastic, and there is virtually no way to clean them adequately.

How to decant from a splash bottle
If your fragrance is in a splash bottle, you can, of course, simply pour it into the new container. This can be risky depending on the size, but I've done it often enough when I've been in a hurry. A stainless steel funnel will help to avoid spillage, and I also find it helpful to stick the empty bottle into a wedge of clay or styrofoam so that it won't get knocked over while I'm working. If you don't have a funnel, you can fashion one out of tin foil. Avoid plastic funnels, as it is nearly impossible to remove all traces of scent once they've been used.

If you're trying to make a small sample vial from a splash bottle, disposable plastic pipettes are perfect. If you don't have one handy (and who does?) using a clean straw as a siphon usually works quite well. Again, it helps to stabilize the vial in a wedge of clay or styrofoam so that you don't spill.

How to decant from a spray bottle
Start by seeing if the top unscrews easily, but most are crimped on and cannot be removed without breaking the spray mechanism. In that case, the best method is usually to spray directly into the new container by holding the nozzle right up to the opening. This usually works well even with small containers, like sample vials, but some atomizers are much better than others. A very strong stream can make things difficult when you're trying to fill smaller containers (most of the fragrance just splashes out again). If you have trouble, again, a stainless steel funnel, or one fashioned out of tin foil, is helpful.

On splitting bottles
For those of us who already have large perfume collections, arranging bottle splits is the perfect way to get something new without having to take on another 100 ml of something you'll never manage to use up during your life time. A few words to the wise: always pre-measure the amount of liquid that fits into each empty container, in other words, don't assume that a 10 ml container only holds 10 ml. For the casual swapper, a difference of 1-2 ml is not a big deal, but it will make all the difference in the world if you're splitting a 50 ml bottle between 5 people and you are left with only a few drops after you've decanted the other 4 portions.