What great tip do you still cherish?
What was the most important information you ever got about perfume?
What advice helped you the most?
My Answer:
The advice I think about most often and try to heed is the simple: Take your time!
Take your time smelling and assessing something, take your time before buying, take your time collecting, take your time to think what you want and what you need.
Do I always follow those wise words? No, sometimes it feels good to throw caution and good advice to the wind and just follow your impulse. But most of the time, it is a great feeling to indeed follow the adage to take your time. In the long run, it has brought me more contentment with my collection, gave me more satisfaction, and made a lot more financial sense than the impulsive approach.
What is your inner motto to live by, when it comes to your fragrant hobby?
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I think you just gave me the best advice.
🙂
My best advice I’ve got was from PG itself via Facebook, I told him which scents I like most from his collection, and regarding this information, he suggested me several perfumes of his brand, I could also like….and guess what, he was right!
Of course he was! 🙂
But as great as PG’s perfumes are, I have a slight suspicion he could have suggested air freshener and we would happily take his advice… 😉
Might be true, might be true:-)
😀
Even dish water would smell marvelous on his advice:-)
I can’t really remember ever getting a third-party-advice (parfum-wise, that is) – but my own advice was “take your time – for smelling, for buying, for ditching”. But unfortunately, I quite often ignore it : I test and ditch hastily, and sometimes the act of buying is rather similar to a hunt …
Oh, yes, but don’t we loooove the hunt! 😉
Taking time would save a lot of money. I say would, because I fail too heed that advice a lot of the time. 😦
Good advice you give but I’m not one that can stick to that particular one. 😉
The one I stick with is saving the samples for future refereences (and that I noticed does happen). I only give away the samples I have in doubles or those that I really don’t like and don’t ever wish to smell again.
That is something I adhere to as well, I had re re-buy many a sample I had given away prematurely, and some of perfumes that are among my firm favorites now. So you really never know…
I probably should stop giving away my samples too, there have been times when I’ve wanted to revisit something but can’t.
The best advice I got was to test new samples three times. I think it came from Robin at NST. Countless times it has stopped me buying something on first sniff that I decided I wasn’t so keen on by the third. Conversely, sometimes a perfume will grow on you that you might have dismissed straight away.
Very good advice, indeed. It is astonishing how much perception can change between wearings.
There are two for me:
Don’t write off a note: firstly because taste changes – my taste has changed dramatically in 18 months, goodness knows what will happen in the next 10 years, and secondly because you might like it mixed in a different way: I thought I disliked rose, but I have developed a huge soft spot for spicy roses. (I suppose this sits quite nicely with don’t discard samples)
The second piece of advice I actually only read quite recently but loved and that was to drench yourself in a sample before you finally decide to buy it. If I really like a sample I tend to hoard it and to try and make it last, while I make up my mind; over-dosing on something is definitely an easy way of finding out whether it is true love or a passing fancy!
The drenching is a great piece of advice, a full wearing is so much more effective that several “tiny dabs”.
And there are so many notes I have come around to, I daren’t dimiss anything anymore.
(Okay, maybe aquatics…) 🙂
Lots of great advice here, I must try the “drenching” as I tend to be very conservative with samples. The best advice I have to give is from my mother and my friend who is a perfume SA – Always try on skin before you buy, and try not to sample more than one at a time. I am afraid that I ignore the latter advice all the time…..
Me too, just one – can’t do it. 🙂
Pay attention to how a perfume affects your mood. If it makes you feel good/happy, chances are you will wear it more. If it doesn’t make you happy, well… I find l’Heure bleu beautiful but terribly sad, so 5ml is more than enough.
Great advice, thank you!
This is years ago: a blogger (I think it was Erin from Now Smell This) was commenting at the Perfume Posse about Frederic Malle Le Parfum de Therese, saying to people to give it time and revisit it. I’m so glad that I did because I went from not liking LPdT at all to totally loving it. So revisiting perfumes is definitely good advice, but I would agree with you that the very best advice of all is just to slow down and enjoy the ride (mainly to avoid making snap purchases that you regret later; I’m grateful not to have made many of those, but I made a few in my early days of collecting).
I think I was driven to revisit (and subsequently fall in love with) LPdT by this post as well. You never know… 🙂
My most useful advice thus far is “drain a sample, buy a decant, drain a decant, buy a bottle.” It’s a great mantra for slowing down. Also, I just got some great advice from Mals, to invest in some EOs and perfumery raw materials to recognize notes easier. If you ask this question a year from now, that may be my new answer.
I wish I had always taken that advice seriously, but when the “I want it now!!!” impulse strikes, it is too easy to give in… 😦
There is a lot of great advice out there: sample first, go slow, keep samples for re-visiting (one that has been especially useful to me), but the best advice I’ve ever gotten, I think, was Tania’s advice in PTG: “if you love it, buy it…”
Seems like it should be easy advice to follow, but for whatever reason, I’ve bought many “really likes” over time, and not as many loves. Once I started buying Loves (no matter the cost), I started spending less money overall, and felt more satisfaction with my collection. 🙂
That is so good to hear, Dee! I think that one expensive great love is much better than five cheap likes.
I agree with all of the advice already mentioned, especially about going slow and revisiting scents because tastes change – “never say never” if you will.
And “if you love it, buy it” is also a wise axiom. If I had followed that, I would have bought Plus Que Jamais, now wouldn’t I? : – )
Ah, indeed, you would have. 😦 One day you’ll find you bottle of PQJ, I’m sure of it. (It might have to involve illegal organ trafficking though…)
If it makes you feel physically good, at home in your own skin, then it’ll work. If it doesn’t, or it makes you slightly sick, then forget it, whatever it is, it’ll never work. You’ll get used to things faster if you use them as body lotion-that’s another trick.
I have a problem of listening the advice. Since I was a child ;-). Or I just listen and very often do the opposite. I’m so god damn curious.
You sound a lot like my son. 🙂
I can’t say I’ve gotten advice, but I’ve gotten a few compliments. Someone told me that my perfumes smell weird and musky in the bottle, but good on. And my boyfriend told me he doesn’t like perfume much, but he likes it on me because I don’t pour it on or wear the same sickly sweet cheap crap that other girls do. I guess advice can be taken from that.
It sure can. Lovely compliments, Joan. 🙂
There is some great advice in this thread!
The best advice I ever got was to not blind buy, although it wasn’t advice that I listened to at first and I have made my fair share of mistakes because of this, but it was great advice nonetheless.
But it can be such a thrill to blind buy… okay, sorry. It is great advice of course. 😉
The only advice I’ve heard before I came to the same conclusion on my own was “Do not buy perfumes unsniffed”. Well… I’m trying to follow it. One unsniffed bottle last year, one (so far) this year…
I agree with most of the advices I read above and I think “yours” is a really good one… But damn those limited edition or discontinued bottles! Try taking more time, draining decants, etc. with something that will be gone within months.
That is so true, thanks for bringing it up. How can we be expected to drain samples and decants when it is now or never? I have limited releases, but they definitely work from a business standpoint.