Hello,
after a long weekend in the country (from Thursday to Sunday, lucky me!), I am back for the last week before school is out for the summer and life’s routines are out the window… 😉
So today we are off to one more peacefully normal Monday and another Monday Question.
Ae you afraid for your perfume collection in the summer heat?
Do you store your perfumes in the same space year-round or do you have weather-related emergency procedures in place?
Do you approve of fragrance refrigeration?
My Answer:
I do worry a bit about the possibility of my perfumes going off in summertime. But I do not move them into cooler quarters (they are in the coolest room of the house to begin with, protected behind closed closet doors). I fear that the high humidity in a fridge would damage the labels of some bottles, which would drive me crazy.
I recently fretted a lot when my bottle of Eau de Magnolia was on its way to me from Germany in 37 C, it arrived hot as a good cup of tea, but still seemed as pretty (and refreshing!) as it should. In my defence when I ordered it, it was still a balmy 22C. Still, a horrifying experience for a perfume lover. No more impulse buys in the heat of summer!
Olfactoria's Travels 
Hey Birgit,
I don’t tend to seasonalise my stuff as much as you guys in climates with more variation. What happens is the stuff I’m LOVING is on the bureau in the bedroom or on my desk in the office. Everything else gets put in the frag cupboard or I also have some boxes tucked away. The frag fridge has been retired, I found that going from cool to warm I would lose a lot of the opening notes in a flurry, then I turned the fridge off and it became a yucky looking cupboard in our bedroom that held my dearest vintages till I woke up one morning and thought, ‘Time To Go”.
Portia xx
Very interesting about your fridge experience, thanks for sharing. I think Vanessa also retired her two fridges, if I am not mistaken… glad you found a good solution for yourself now.
I mostly store my perfumes in our summer bedroom, in a wooden cabinet, in drawers. The temperature seems pretty constant in there, no matter how warm the room gets, perhaps because it’s against an exposed east wall. I did think about putting cold packs in with them in very hot weather, but we don’t get much of that in Normandy! In winter, the temperature in that room is between 8 and 14 degrees Centigrade, so it’s not an issue: I move a few perfumes into our winter bedroom when we decamp and close off the top floor of the house, but that room is only about 16 degrees, so not too warm there either. Nearly every perfume I own still has its card packaging too, which I think helps protect it a bit.
Oh, I’d love your climate!!! It sounds wondefully balmy and nice on this 30C day in the muggy city.
It sounds as if you put way more effort in than I ever have. I have always kept perfume on the dresser in the bedroom or under the sink in the bathroom. I have never had any special protocol for it or even considered it actually. Of course, on average, if it costs more than 60 to 75 a bottle, I buy used off ebay. So that is a key note about my perspective. If I were spending more than it might be a practical concern. I would love a makeup wardrobe for that purpose but it’s not practical for me.
Hello mycoignofvantage,
you seem perfectly happy with your storage solution and that is what it is all about, it should work well for you!
I think it’s very girly and chic to make time for such things though. Imagination is valuable and should create positivity whenever possible.
Well put!
Ha! I would worry about my perfume traveling in such heat as well.
I don’t store them differently (I just rotate the summer/winter ones) – like you said, they are already stored at the coolest closet so there isn’t much more I am prepared to do.
No refrigerating for me either. 🙂
We are on the same page here, Ines!
We are on the same page here, Ines!
Ooooh – looking forward to reading others responses. I keep mine in a cupboard in the darkest and coolest room in the flat. I rotate the fragrances as the seasons come and go.
It gets quite hot over time in the apartment, especially as summer progresses. 😦
I keep mine in wooden boxes in a cool room. I considered the fridge a while ago, but as australianperfumejunkie mentions, that messes up top notes because of the change in temperature, which I suppose makes the perfume evaporate when opened. Consistency seems to to be the thing..
That is true, concsistency is key. I wish the weather would adhere to that principle! 😉
I love this question! I always keep the perfume bottles in its own box. After that, I put them in big pretty boxes, to storage them. Others are in cabinets for beauty stuff, so they are away from dust, warm weather, humidity etc. furthermore, living in Barcelona, I have cool air condition, which helps to keep them fresh (me too).
About fridge, I only keep fresh stuff by Lush, which is recommended by the own brand, as well as some cosmetics. No perfumes there.
Fragrances need to be in fresh, dark, humidity free places.
Thanks for this Birgit. Have you all a great week.
Love, Silvia
Hi Silvia,
glad you shared your way of storing perfumes. The humidity scares me too.
Have a lovely week too!
Like you, I just store my perfumes in a cupboard far from the direct sun. A friend has promised me her small wine refrigerator, and in there I might keep my most fragile perfumes, or back-ups, when I get it. In that case it would probably be all year round though 🙂
Let me know how that works out for you, Asali!
No special storage for me. I find that if I would put a perfume in a cabinet, I typically will want it the next day. All of mine are stored out of the sun in a cool dark location so hopefully they’ll last for years!
It is true, as soon as something is stored away, I can be shure to crave it the next day. 🙂
I don’t like the idea of keeping my perfumes in the fridge. Not sure why though. I keep mine on my bookcase on the landing. There’s no window there and they stay in their boxes. One shelf is for spring/summer and one is for autumn/winter perfumes. It makes me happy to see them and I’m so glad I did it (inspired by you). Before that they were hidden away.
Glad you enjoy your new storage and display solution, Tara!
My side of the world only has 2 kinds of weather: hot and very humid, or heavy rain and typhoons. To keep them safe, I store my perfumes away from direct sunlight and humidity in a dark, hidden cabinet (and hopefully, out of sight from my mother – selfish little me, ehehehe …).
Not my kind of climate! 😉
Keeping them hidden has several advantages in your case it seems! 😉
maybe we have to invest in a perfumidor or if that’s not out there build and sell it.
You could make a fortune by inventing a humidity-free cooling device! Get to it!!! 😉
That is a genius idea! I would buy it!
Same dark cool cupboard year round. In their boxes. Anything in any fridge in our home is consumed, except the unidentified penicillin growing stuff hidden at the back. Not in boxes. 😉
😉
I have a pretty wooden perfume box, but it i getting crowded in there, since I also keep essential oils and both collections are growing! It doesn’t get that warm where I am, so I guess i will have to relocate part of it in my beauty closet. My three year old daughter loves the perfume box as well and always seems to appear when I open it to get a tiny spray of “her” perfume.
As for fridge storing, there is no space for anything else than milk and food in my fridge!
What is your daughter’s favorite perfume?
I wouldn’t have the fridge space either… 🙂
I let her wear Kenzo Amour in Eau de Toilette because it is the lightest perfume in the box, but she loves Vanilla by Mona di Orio…. and also think the Shalimar bottle is the prettiest, she already stole it and stashed it away several times!
So cute! The girl has taste! 🙂
Well she has training as well, I cook a lot and make both children always smell every spice I use when I am cooking, my daughter is always the keenest to have a good sniff and remembers their names as well. Quite impressive!
That is great, you might have a future nose on your hand. 🙂
Hi Birgit!I live in S-Africa,so you can imagine the summer temps over here!(30-37degrees celsius summertime!)Currently it’s Winter with temps around 19-24 deg celsius,so not too cold either.My perfumes are stored in cooler boxes,inside a built-in cupboard in my bedroom.The most precious(to me!!)are way at the back.and then I have some that are in regular rotation in front,boxed still,but not in the coolerboxes.I also recently started making 10ml travel mini’s from the ones that are way in the back.I found really cool Metal travel atomizers that also keeps them cool and protected from the sun.Enjoy your summer,B!
A great solution for your hot climate, Johano!
What summer heat, I ask you??! The temperature here right now is more in the region of 10C…
I store my perfumes in their boxes in a dark, cool cupboard and so far I haven ‘t had any of them go off as far as my nose can tell.
Ah, gotta love Sweden! 🙂
I store my perfumes in a cupboard in the “temperate climate” of my bedroom. This room is heated in winter and airconditioned on the hottest days of summer, and they seem to do very well there. I would never refrigerate perfumes, as I feel – with no scientific evidence whatsoever – that long term cold temperatures are as bad for them as extremely hot ones.
Like you, I put a moritorium on purchases during the extreme heat of the Australian summer (January/February/early March), as I am frightened of the effect on my preciouses of sitting around in the various postal depots and un-airconditioned mail delivery vans on their way to me.
It is agonizing to think of perfume in hot UPS vans… argh!
Here in the South Carolina heat, I don’t order during the most extreme temperatures. The UPS trucks are not air-conditioned, and neither are the ones from the regular Post Office. Fortunately, my old house is air-conditioned and each bedroom has two closets. One of my closets is for perfume storage, and nothing has to be moved. The ones in current rotation are usually sitting
on the desk in my bedroom. So far, nothing has gone wrong and some of my vintage stuff is at least 10 – 15 years old. I’ve found that my new Carnal Flower is terrific in the summer if used sparingly. Stay cool, Birgit.
Oh yes, no shipping in the heat is a very good idea.
I love Carnal Flower in summer, gorgeous!
Ooh, I could write a book on this…I have sort of come circle, after five years of year-round multiple fridge usage. I found the fridges were full of condensation, though none of the labels came off, it must be said. Or wrinkled even. A few boxes did though, before I twigged that that was a foolish idea to store them in their boxes there! My perfumes are now ostly in the (dark cool) hall cupboard, with a few easy acccess boxes dotted round hot bedrooms, though out of the sun at least. And I do worry about all of them – comes of having worked for a chilled food company maybe – but not enough to reinstate the fridges, which looked ugly in the newly decorated rooms where they used to live. And whirred and shuddered like crazy.
Sorry – that should read ‘mostly’. Just clocked your comment to Portia above – I was interested to hear she has become disenchanted with her perfume fridges too!
Yes, it doesn’t seem like an ideal solution.
I can imagine that the sound of two fridges in a bedroom is not inconsiderable…
NYC weather can fluctuate so wildly from one extreme to another. Fortunately, this has been a really mild and clement summer, but last summer when it was very humid and most days were close to 95° or 100+°F, I was really worried about my perfumes (discontinued Iris Ganache, I am looking at you!). I live in a studio so there is not really a cooler room in the house. I do keep them in their boxes and have the AC turned to blow on them!