Saturday Question: Do You Keep Your Fragrance Boxes?

/ 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 Scent Sample Pack (from my collection)
This week:
Sample Pack

  1. Oud Spirit by Grandawood
  2. Accord Oud by Byredo
  3. Leather Oud by Dior
  4. Agar Ebene by Hermès
  5. Tobacco Oud by Tom Ford

Last Weeks Winner: katrihaas9

eMail me at (portia underscore turbo at yahoo dot com dot au) with your address please

Saturday Question: Do You Keep Your Fragrance Boxes?

I don’t know where I saw this question recently but I thought it an excellent one. Thanks to whoever wrote it. XX

Boxes! Our first contact with a brand new fragrance. Millions are spent on making it as alluring as possible to us with ready cash to purchase. Are they important to you? Do you keep them? Are they instantly binned? Does your box give you the same thrill as heads, the bottle or the juice?

My Answer:

When I first started buying fragrance for myself I would have a couple of bottles going at a time, they would be kept in the bathroom on my shelf. As soon as I opened them the boxes went straight into the bin.

Boxes got binned even as I started having a small collection.

This habit continued will into my collection stage.

Suddenly, one day, without warning I wished I had kept some of those boxes. Especially as things started to hit reformations and packaging changes. I was most sad when I went to buy The Dreamer by Versace and the boy on the box was gone. I mourned for losing pictorial evidence of the small bit of me I saw in him when I’d purchase my bottle. Also because I’d gifted the last of my boy boxes to a lover. It seemed like everything was changing.

Now I keep them all. Even the boxes I don’t particularly like. Even the bottles that sit proudly on my regular wear tray have boxes safely stored for when they fall from grace. ALL the boxes. Most boxes stay with their bottles in my cupboards. I get to enjoy the sensual pleasure of them every time I spritz, so glam. Just like getting them brand new all over again.

 

My Saturday Question to you is:

Saturday Question: Do You Keep Your Fragrance Boxes?

132 thoughts on “Saturday Question: Do You Keep Your Fragrance Boxes?”

  3. I used to keep all my empty bottles in their original boxes. Then quite a few years ago I did a massive purge and threw out hundreds of them. Now I keep the boxes that I enjoy looking at. For the moment that would be the Berdoues Grand Cru Cologne Collection. Those boxes are stunning as far as I am concerned. Great question, P!!!!

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    • Brigitte- strangely I find it so hard to throw out the empty bottles! Of anything. I have eos and facial stuff. I am quite meticulous about throwing bottles out from the pantry but all else-nope! I did a big purge some years ago. Glad to be rid of the clutter.

      Packaging was waaay easier to toss. Now I keep different packaging for altered+found art projects. Very satisfying.

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  4. All of them. I keep the bottles in the boxes. They may not be as pretty as gleaming bottles and shiny juice, but they keep them safe and shrouded from the light. Some are boringly functional, some feel very luxe when you open them, some are an annoying faff.

    (p.s. please DNEM. I am an oud avoider!)

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      • aye, it’s a conundrum. It’s not like I’m afraid of big stanky skanky scents. But I’ve not yet met an oud that makes me want to wear it. You know how if you don’t quite air your laundry properly, and it gets that weird not quite mildewy smell… and then you can smell that ALL day even if it’s barely there? The ouds I have tried have all had that underlying sense of nose-wrinkling not-rightness following me about.

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        • O M G! I dated a guy for a few months, was madly in love (well lust anyways). One of the most physically spectacular men I ever dated, with a pretty face too. He had that mildewy clothes smell. It was his clothes washing machine, all gunned up with mould. EWWWWWW……..
          NOW I would know exactly what to do to fix the problem but back then I was just disgusted.
          So yes, I do get that reference.

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          • That is one of the worst smells to me. Almost vomit -worthy. I’m hoping that all oud doesn’t have that effect on me! Haven’t tried any yet. Not sure if I can pull it off!

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          • Ew ew ew ew. Oh, Portia, how very off putting, and how very disappointing.
            Reminds me, oddly, of a woman I once saw on the tube. Holy hell, she was spectacularly beautiful, and polished, and immaculately dressed and… chewing gum with her mouth wide open, all smacking and slapping and messy masticating nastiness.

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        • Crikey— Oh yuk yuk. Not the mouldy mildwey smell. Can’t stand it. Nor the smell of unwashed wool/coats.

          I do love the old lignin from old book bindings which is why some second hand books are oh so gorgeous.

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  6. Early in my perfume years boxes were jettisoned posthaste. Bottles in current rotation were placed on a large mirrored tray on my dresser. I still remember the jolt of pride and pleasure I got seeing all the beautiful bottles and different coloured scents. Each one holding a promise to transform me into a different, better version of who I was. These days everything stays safely in boxes. Protection from light I suppose. It’s nowhere near as satisfying as admiring a gleaming display however.

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  7. Yes, but only the fancy/art ones. Usually this type of boxes are from niche or indie fragrances. The rest of them directly into the bin 🙂

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  9. Hi Portia,
    Please DNEM. I am going through the house and clearing up and just binned most of the boxes! (It was actually so cathartic.) They were not stored in the boxes and were taking up so much space. I did keep a few which could also be functional for storage or art projects. Looking forward to seeing the responses.
    Sandra xo

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  10. Yes, I keep the boxes, and I keep my fragrances IN the boxes! I like the protection the boxes provide, but I also love pretty packaging, and it feels like opening a gift whenever I open a box to use the fragrance and get to see the pretty bottle again. I also appreciate the neatness and stackability of boxes. And if I ever start re-homing bottles of my fragrances, I think the recipient would like to have the original box. I do pass along bottles to my daughters — in the boxes!
    P.S. I love the way many of you use “binned” and “binning” — that’s not an expression we use in the US, so it catches my attention.

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  11. I keep my perfume in the boxes. Some boxes are really lovely. I particularly like my Eisenberg boxes, complete with the little booklet.

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  12. Yes, I keep the boxes and the perfumes stay in their original boxes most of the time. SL 5 o’clo au Gingembre does not seem to fit in its box as long as the spray top is on the bottle and I also have a few bottles from gift sets, so those are not in boxes anymore. A decorative box, like the one for Ostara or the round box for the Dior Ambre Nuit, is always a plus.

    The box protects the bottle and makes it easier to put away, if and when needed.

    DNEM this week, oud does not usually enchant me, even in modern perfumes.

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  13. My perfumes are stored in a closet so they are not in boxes. I used to throw away the boxes, now I keep them in a couple of bags at the bottom of the closet. I like to see the bottles when choosing my SOTD!

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  14. Always. It’s much easier to store and stack items that are regular in shape, and I seem to find it easier to identify boxes rather than bottles when scanning a drawer to choose something to wear. Plus, having the box helps to date the perfume via batch codes etc.

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  15. Generally I don’t keep boxes. I have a couple that I did keep though. I found some Vintage Shalimar extract that came in a purple velvet box… so that one I have the perfume in. I have a couple of other boxes that were pretty but I don’t keep the perfume in them I use them as pretty storage boxes.

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  16. When I first started collecting perfumes I was like a glutton at a Tudor feast, gaily throwing the boxes away over my shoulder in my greed.
    But then I found some beauties like vintage L’Heure Bleue which live in their boxes. Now I keep most boxes but display the bottles in a cupboard.

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  17. Great question! Probably the bottles I have without a box are because they’ve been testers and sent in a plain brown box. Similar to many other peeps, I keep the boxes to avoid the light and easy to pack/display in the cupboard. My favourite boxes, looking in my cupboard right now – Florabotanica and Chinatown.

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  18. Fabby question, Portia. Having read everyone’s responses it seems I’ve done the same as most of you. Early on , before this perfume -loving thing became addictive, I’d too the packaging. Now, though, I’m the opposite. In fact, many of my purchases over the years have been done because I’ve fallen in love with the box /packaging, not the liquid inside the bottle inside the box!!!!
    So yes, now I keep the boxes separately ,and the bottles my ‘perfume drawers’

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  19. I don’t throw away my boxes and have never done it but I don’t think I have ever hesitated to buy a perfume because it didn’t come with a box or a cap.

    In the beginning, I would buy tester bottles without caps even if it meant saving $3-5 over retail versions or bottles with caps. Now I wish I had paid little extra for caps because caps do complete the bottle. However, that used to be in early to mid 2000s when online perfume stores used to charge extra $3-5 for caps on tester bottles or little extra for retail versions. Now the difference between tester and retail versions has grown a lot. But if I have to pay a little extra for caps now, I do that.

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  20. I keep all of my boxes, I always have.
    On the rare occasion I buy an unboxed bottle I will try and find a small box to pop it in.

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  21. Interesting question Portia, and even more interesting it is for me to find out that most of you keep the boxes. I don’t think that I’ve ever kept a perfume box. I never really notice the box and concentrate fully on the perfume inside the bottle. More important is that I have a small apartment and not enough space to keep all the boxes.

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  22. Hello all. I keep the boxes and ideally keep the fragrances in them. Reality can be rather different. In some cases, and for the cards from manufacturers’ samples, too, I flatten them along the creases and store them flat. So many are so pretty and I do like that ‘complete’ feeling that keeping the boxes allows.

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  23. Half of my collection has no boxes because I bought them that way (I don’t mind buying slightly used perfumes, it’s cheaper) but I do keep the boxes I’ve got, just not with the bottles in them, I keep them separately: if I ever decide to sell some of them, or move somewhere else (I sure hope this will happen sooner than later), boxes will come in handy, but for now I just don’t like anything standing in my way when I wish to put on a perfume, not even its box 🙂

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  24. I keep the boxes separate from the bottles. I like to have them to look at, and also when I travel I like to put full bottles in their boxes to protect them. I did recently decide to move my boxes to another room away from the perfume closet. It feels better to have more empty space to move bottles around.

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  25. I keep my boxes but they are in bags in the attic. I recently started selling frags on eBay and can’t bother to sort through thousands of boxes to find the box. So, I sell without boxes. Now, I have boxes with no fragrance! LOL. Recently, I started to leave them in the box if they came with one. It makes stacking so much easier. Ugh, the sickness.

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  26. I adore Oudh. I can dive headfirst into oudh. I think I’ll organise and Oudh Expression travel and fragrance exploration trip to India. For APJers!

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    • Except so many of us don’t do oudh. Again, must be my indian skin because oudh is much nicer than many light florals on me. 🤔

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  27. Oooh. I loved going through everyone’s replies. Great question, Portia!
    Nowadays mine are mostly in the boxes. In the wardrobe. The ones the get frequent wear, like most of my Lutens, are unboxed but in the wardrobe too. Honestly most of my recent FB have been SLs and as we’ve already established their boxes are rubbish!

    I am sorry to say, I binned quite a few empty minis. I loved tge bottles so that was HARD. I love some of the beautiful packing and designs on some new stuff. Blows me away! I keep stuff for art projects. I try not to be a hoarder.

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