Saturday Question: Where Do You Keep Your Fragrance?

/ AustralianPerfumeJunkies

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Portia

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Hello Fellow Fumies,

At APJ we have a Saturday Question. Everyone gets to chime in with an answer, chat with other responders and it’s a fun event each week. Taking sides never means taking offence and everyone keeps it respectful and light, even though we can sometimes trawl the depths.

The idea is you’ll see it on the weekend or chime in through the week. Hopefully you will come back regularly and see if anyone has responded to your comment and you can reply to them. The aim is to generate real conversation and connection even though we are scattered around the globe.

Over 100 responses I will draw a $25 Surrender To Chance Voucher

 

Saturday Question: Where Do You Keep Your Fragrance?

There is so much theory and talk about where to keep your fragrance. Cupboard, drawers, boxes, refrigerator, bathroom, vanity, dressing table, wardrobe, handbag, glove box, windowsill, gym bag, wet pack. Does it need to be kept at a certain temperature, out of the light, cuddled, cuddled or cuffed?

My Answer:

Well, I have two answers today. The first is for Jin who built some shelves at the back of half his wardrobe, above the drawers. It is quite cool there but does get some indirect light if he leaves the sliding doors open (read ALWAYS). It looks very nice, neat and it’s easy for him to decide because everything is on display. Without going there to count I think he may have 20 full bottles ranging from Nautica and M&S to Neela Vermeire Creations and Serge Lutens. It’s perfect for the way he wears fragrance.

My answer is I have an office/perfume room. There is a large glass doored cupboard about the width of a queen size bed, two metal shelving units and two sets of drawers. Most fragrances are still in their original boxes, the ones that aren’t are put together in groups in open boxes that work like drawers in the cupboard and shelves for easy access. There are also 4 boxes that fit nowhere and they float around. My desk is also usually awash in bottles and samples being used, written about or waiting to be sniffed. It’s fairly chaotic but has a mad order and I can usually find something within two minutes if you ask.

This room is not temperature maintained but over summer it rarely gets over 25C and in winter it doesn’t go under about 10C. The changes aren’t quick either because we are the middle level of cement floor and ceiling apartments, built in double brick and the outer wall only gets prolonged direct sunlight in the cooler months.

I had a fridge but found that it was sucking the juice out of my spray fragrances noticeably.

My Saturday Question to you is:

Where Do You Keep Your Fragrance?

71 thoughts on “Saturday Question: Where Do You Keep Your Fragrance?”

  1. Oh how I love this question!!!! As you already know, the Marzipan clan shares everything so the bottles, decants and samples are literally strewn all over the house…three bedrooms, two bathrooms and also storage in the basement (where it stays very cool year round)…..on top of all the grandma and grandpa Marzipan also wear fragrance but live much further away….when they visit we often “swap” bottles….and now that the two eldest will be heading to college our bottles will also be there and probably swapping will occur during visits home…..does this make it hard to keep track? you betcha 🙂

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    • Oh and I forgot to say DO NOT ENTER ME…..I have won so many lovelies in the past that I would like to give someone else the opportunity to win!

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        • Ironically despite my middle age memory failure I usually have a fairly decnt idea of where things are and just go in and steal a few spritzes when the spirit moves me…I have about 8-10 bottles that are exclusively mine (as in no one wants to use them but me) and they live in my bedroom…however, every once in a while I stumble upon hidden stuff in the basement….the basement is really the abyss……and then when the eldest came home for the summer she returned a few samples and decants which I had forgotten she had taken-LOL!

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          • YES Portia! I am eagerly awaiting the day you come back to my parts in the States!!! I still think about heading to Koreatown with you and Jin! My middle one is obsessed and has been there twice already this summer with one more outing scheduled before she heads to college! And we would also visit the newly designed second floor on Saks Fifth Avenue devoted exclusively to beauty 🙂 We will reek!!!!

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  2. I have three trays of top of my dresser with the categories: Winter, Summer and Office. I throw a scarf over them to keep out the sunlight, but that’s about it for care, as the temperature is usually pretty even. Will be as curious as a kitten to see how other folks handle their collections.

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  3. I keep my collection in my bedside table far from light and prying eyes. Most of my perfumes have boxes but I keep some of them elsewhere because it seems a bit redundant to keep perfume in a box while it sits in a dark place already. Oh, and I keep all the samples, decants and minibottles in separate boxes. I definitely need a bigger piece of furniture since my bottles’ number keeps increasing (slowly, but still), or simply a bigger house with a room for my perfumes!.

    Portia, please don’t enter me this time 🙂 Good luck, girls & guys!

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  4. I have a beautiful wooden corner cabinet that I picked up second hand for a steal. In the top half I keep my collection, in the bottom half I store backups, trades/sales and samples. Bottles are stored inside boxes if I have them, for protection and because I think the boxes look neater. I’d like to find homes for all of my trades so that the cupboard feels like it expresses my tastes exactly. Have considered a wine cooler for summer but the evaporation risk is scary.

    Please don’t enter me. 🙂

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  5. I have a closet that is all shelves, perhaps a foot deep. I have a series of trays for bottles and lipstick organizers for samples. It’s dark except for the few moments when it’s open for selection, but the doors always are closed due to it being in a hallway between the bedroom and bathroom. Please do not enter me, I have won several times!

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  6. I have a walk-in closet filled with shelves, the perfumes are arranged in bamboo shirt boxes (that have no front and no top). They are arranged by house.

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  7. I keep my perfume in decorative storage boxes you can buy at Ikea or other shop with interior design items. They look good on The shelves and keep perfume away from sunlight

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  9. I have an Ikea Kallax shelf with doors and drawers in which I keep my make-up and perfumes. It’s in the bedroom which is the coolest room in the house. Most perfumes are in their boxes.
    I still plan to see your Aladdin’s cave of perfumes one day!

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    • Hey Ingrid,
      How good are those Ikea Kallas sets? When we got my cupboard they were the other way we might have gone. I love how there is so much variety in the way they can be set up nowadays, it wasn’t so good a few years back.
      Yes, a tour of the frag room is definitely in order next visit.
      Portia xx

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  10. We have deep bookcases in the study and recently my husband suggested I put my lovely full bottles on one shelf in front of the books. He was slightly bemused when they overflowed onto the next two shelves!
    I love that I can see them all.
    Samples I still need help with!

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  11. I keep my peerfumes in the bedroom, mostly in their boxes. Most of them are on top a chest of drawers or inside two drawers. Then I end up with the most used ones on my nightstand during certain busy weeks.Still no good storage system in place for samples, so I try to use them or move them along. This summer heat is a problem, this morning it was +30C in the room, but generally our summers are short and not too warm, so I figure I’ll take my chances with the temperature. I really try to keep out all direct Sunlight, thinking that is really harmfull to perfume..

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    • Hey there Ingeborg,
      It’s good having a few at arms reach. Especially if they are the current high rotation.
      Having just catalogued the wardrobe this week I love that most of my frags still have their boxes, So much neater.
      Portia xx

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  12. I keep mine in their boxes and in my wardrobe, a full shelf to themselves! Also about 5 with no boxes on my dressing table with my lipsticks, these are my everyday frags. My everyday ones include Opium pour homme, SJP stash and unspoken, jimmy choo and The One D&G.

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  13. The quickest answer is all over the place!!!
    My primary location is ‘my’ room.. a dishevelled place wherein are kept my perfumes and craft items. It is a little bit of organized chaos, because he bottles are in 2 drawers, unboxed, and I can never remember which bottle in is which drawer. For some strange reason, my bottle of Costume National Sou remains in its box, sitting in my KITCHEN.
    Samples and decants are anywhere and everywhere, the exceptions being the loo and laundry. I have a couple of baggies of samples in my work bag for the occasional ’emergency’. Ditto in my day handbag. As I write this sitting at my computer I have approx. 25 vials in sizes from 1 to 5mls surrounding me which are waiting to be tried.
    My hubby has his collection in the bathroom, because he doesn’t fuss too much about their care.

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    • HA! Saffyishere! Organised chaos indeed.
      Cool that you have a couple of drawers where they are easily seen and grabbed.
      YAY! We both have “OUR ROOM” in the house. I think it’s important to have personal space.
      Portia x

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    • Ha! Thank you for reminding me that I keep perfume at work as well!!! We seem to have the same system in place as in “all over the place” 🙂

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  14. I keep everything on some shelves in my bedroom. Most of my full bottles are on a tray I dumpster-dived. Some of them spill over onto the shelf. My minis and samples and decants mostly live in boxes on the same set of shelves. I really need to go through and weed out a few…

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  15. I have what was likely intended as a night table that has two shelves with a glass & lattice door. I have my bottles mostly in boxes there. There’s a little drawer big enough for a lipstick organizer that holds some of my samples. Since meeting some perfume buddies locally, the samples pile has completely overgrown the drawer so there a little bags all around the apartment. I’ve really got to get that under control. I also have a few bottles in the fridge that are either unopened back ups, or naturals that I’m scared will turn, and a big bottle of cologne to cool me off. I hope the cold isn’t damaging them but I figure if it preserves food, it has to be ok for perfume!

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    • Hey Gigi,
      Woo Hoo! It gets exciting when the samples start to take over. A good way to clear a few is to use the whole thing at once in the morning when you wake up. If you love it then write it down somewhere in your phone but mainly you’ll just have used up a like or a no.
      Portia xx

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  16. All my perfumes are niche perfumes–just by dint of where I keep them! There’s a big deep open-fronted niche cut into the wall of our bedroom. The lower area of that is jam packed with lined up boxes. Largely clustered by house–except for snarl’s fragrances that live on one side of the niche–but all in their boxes even though they get no direct sunlight, and it’s lovely and cool all year around. Erm, they may also have spread to the upper area as well, starting to cozy up to things like the badly-taxidermied woodcock, and odd accumulation of decorative boxes. With other escapees and strays hanging out in my study–for some reason all the vintage Diors seem to have followed me in there and make the theory shelf in my bookcases less daunting–and in the bottom drawer of my bedside cabinet, which is mostly samples, minis, and a couple of back up bottles.

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      • Sometimes I have to play a version of “find the lady” with the identical chanel exclusifs boxes, or wee Dior tubes, and a few seem to play hide and seek even though I can kind of see all the boxes in the niche, because it’s quite low down. (it would horrify a super-tidy person though.)

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  17. So good to have APJ back again 🙂
    I have several different cupboards I store them in
    An antique kitchen dresser with green stained glass windows holds most of them as I love this one, then I have a small bedside cabinet for all my Avons.
    Then I have one of Nan’s old bookcases, with shelves in the middle and cupboards on top and bottom as well. I either have boxes arranged by house, or random groupings. Pictures could explain this much better than I could! lol

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  18. Hello, APJ friends! It is wonderful to be here again. Thank you to Portia and to everyone who has helped bring us back together.

    Where is the perfume at my house? A few bottles are in the bathroom for everyone to use, though my family members rarely touch them. I keep most perfumes in my clothes closet. I have a small table inside the closet, all full bottles are there on a large glass tray. Their empty boxes are stacked behind them. I put a bottle back in the box when I take it on vacation. Samples and decants are grouped in small containers on the table as well. Anything I might want to re-home goes on the floor under the table for a time out. If I reach for something on the floor often enough, it gets a reprieve and goes back up on the table, otherwise it goes to a fragrance friend for some love.

    Enjoyed reading of your perfume cataloging adventure. Those 1000+ bottles are an inspiration. I’d like to take all my perfumes and samples (certainly less than 100 items) out of the closet, then put them back in a more organized way. Probably would group them by house, though my most-often-worn scents would go in the front row where I can reach them most easily.

    I like to be able to see all the bottles at once and have them all within arm’s reach. Then I feel I am in physical control of the emotional space perfume fills in my life. That’s one reason I have made myself keep my perfume collection to fewer bottles than I would have if I gave myself free rein to buy all the pretty things. 😀

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  19. A couple of years ago I did a post on my perfumes storage (just in case you want to take a look https://undina.com/2015/06/07/thinking-outside-the-box/), but, in short, I keep my perfumes on two very crowded shelves in my walk-in closet, in their original boxes and covered by a curtain from black-out fabric. In summer if it gets too warm (I have a thermometer on one of the shelves), I turn on an AC (but I don’t need it more than 4-5 days a year).

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  20. Welcome back Portia and all you APJ lovelies. Oh how I’ve missed you. Have been checking site since forever and having had a very busy week I didn’t check and you done gone and snuck back in right under my nose. How remiss of me to let that happen😮. I hope everyone has been doing well in the meantime. I know you’ve been having a wonderful time in Europe Portia, and now you’re back with your nose to the grindstone.
    Now, getting back to the question. Most of my perfume I keep in my dressing table drawers. It started out back in the day in just a corner of the top drawer, then filled the whole drawer. Then it filled the second drawer, and now it’s almost taking over the third drawer, which just happens to be my knicker drawer. Recently there was a massive row in the drawer and the perfume won, so a lot of the knickers got well and truly trounced and kicked out. There’s nothing sadder than a pile of homeless knickers, just lying there with nowhere to lay their weary heads at night. I put them out of their misery and binned them. A shopping expedition is needed in the very near future to replenish the stock, and a major reshuffle will need to happen. I have a feeling that the nightwear is going to be living elsewhere in the bedroom. I recently cleared out matching body lotions and oils and put them in a nice big box on a shelf in the wardrobe where there’s more space to see what I’m looking for. I also keep some of my lesser worn fumes in my daughter’s bathroom cabinet, and my backup bottles are stored in a box on the top shelf of my big wardrobe which I keep unheated so that they won’t spoil. I like to know where everything is, and put things back in their place every time as I hate to have to go rooting around if I want something in a hurry. I thought I had mislaid a bottle recently and spent ages in a tizzy until I found it. I am turning into a right old saddo in my dotage.

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      • Oops, I forgot about the unopened bottles that are in the other part of dresser, on the bottom shelf hidden behind jewellery boxes☺️

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    • And I would like to know if your daughter uses the perfumes you keep in her bathroom cabinet? In our house, if someone really likes/loves something they lay claim to it and either keep it in their room or the main bathroom…however, it is acknowledged that everyone gets to share so I always have access to sneak a spritz 🙂

      I love that your perfume takes priority over your undies 😉 …my kinda thinkin’

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      • She doesn’t usually wear any of those, but she loves nosing through the dresser drawers every time she’s here just to see what’s new, because there usually is something new lurking within😉. She then comes out and says “smell me and tell me what it is” and I get it right about 95% of the time. My grand daughter has taken a particular liking to No 19 Poudre, so I have high hopes for her. I don’t mind that it’s always open season on my perfume because it’s not as if I’m going to run out any time over the next 50 years. Yikes 😬

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        • You have a great attitude in sharing your treasures!!! If your grand daughter is taking a liking to a Chanel she is definitely a perfumista!

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  21. I keep all of my fragrances in a large armoire that stays in the basement where it is cool and dark. The armoire has two sets of big doors and inside has shelves. I organize my fragrances by houses, and separate the vintage from newer/niche. My samples/decants are stored in the large white/black Chanel boxes that come with purchases. The boxes are classic and nice to look at, and very sturdy. The bottles that are in my rotation of wearing I keep in my clothes closet on a shelf.

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  22. I made a cute little caddy to store my Teone scents. I am part of the Vic committee for a group named SALT – supporting and linking trades women. We do classes in schools etc to get females to try power tools out. So, I made my own caddy. Though I use power tools at work (the air inch rattle gun is HEAPS of fun, though heavy), I use them in a very different application to wood work.

    My other fumes are stored wherever I can put them. Under sheets to stop dust, and pretty much on the floor, out of the sun’s way. My room is east facing, so misses the hot arvo sun. I have begun rotation every six weeks. To use put everything, and to see if they are changing state.

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