Saturday Question: What Are Your Perfume Fantasies Before A Purchase?

/ 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 Secret Scent Sample Pack (from my collection)

Last Weeks Winner: Diana

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

Saturday Question: What Are Your Perfume Fantasies Before A Purchase?

You are humming and ha-ing over a purchase. Maybe you’re reading a bunch of blogs about the latest, greatest, newest thing, or you’ve spritzed something in store. You’ve been sent or bought a sample or someone you know wears it or maybe you’ve had it on your hit list for ages and now there’s a super bargain. Suddenly your brain goes into overdrive…..

My Answer:

This happens to me ALL THE TIME! My decision to buy a fragrance is rarely dispassionate. You know, I like it, I have the money, I’ll buy it. That is not the way my brain works mostly.

My brain will suddenly jump in to scenario fantasy overdrive.

If I’m sniffing it and I fall in love I start thinking how this will be my next season staple. I’ll ignore the 1300 other bottles in my collection for a season and wear this one frag which will give me the best scent memory stamp for that time in my life.

Reading about the latest and greatest will have me thinking everyone will be so glad to read how much I loved it. I’ll be able to decant something totally cutting edge for the winners of the draws. Next sniffy at my place everyone will get to try this new baby.

If it’s something a friend owns my mind will be making sure I do enough things away from that person to not be wearing the same scent on the same day.

Bargains are so compelling already and then my mind goes, Well you were going to buy this anyway and look how cheap. Is there anything else for a good price on this sale doc, on this discounter site, in this store? Suddenly my cart is full and I’m pressing the PayPal button.

Seriously, it’s a never ending litany of fantastical and barely realistic thoughts.

My Saturday Question to you is:

 What Are Your Perfume Fantasies Before A Purchase?

65 thoughts on “Saturday Question: What Are Your Perfume Fantasies Before A Purchase?”

  1. I am so like you in this regard! I was laughing reading your response, as I can relate. I get so thrilled about fragrance purchases, much more so than other purchases. My mind imagines how the new fragrance will become my new favorite and all the scent memories it will create. A vintage will make me feel like I own a little piece of perhaps rare history that has endured, which many people no longer can appreciate but holds essences from a time when perfume was a classic and classy beauty ritual and not “banned.”
    And I am giddy with joy when I find a perfume I want to own for a bargain price, compared to the (mostly new and niche) ones I’d like to own that are out of my budget.

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    • I am with you on the utter delight in finding a bargain, especially with the insane prices of new releases these days.

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      • Agreed Brigitte. I couldn’t afford to purchase many new releases with my fragrance habit. In the process of bargain hunting, I have discovered so many gorgeous perfumes that I missed out on in their day, or am re-visiting past loves, many even more special to me than the expensive niche that are being released now. The bargain perfumes’ popularity may have passed; however, the perfume remains a pleasure to own and wear.

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  2. I mostly go through the Dance of Justifications and Very Good Reasons, rather than your more fun and complex scenarios. E.g. “I’ll buy that as a birthday present for myself!” and completely ignoring the three other bottles I already bought for exactly this reason 🙂

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  3. Right now I am SO MAD that you basically took my upcoming post away from me, as I hsd just about the same question, I will not answer you I will have to adapt my post. Perhaps I will answer your question in a complete post. Who knows? xxx

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  5. Magical thinking, that’s how I obsess over my latest object of desire that will uplift my mood, take ten years off my age, make me feel unstoppable and everyone will swoon in my presence. A lot to ask of a bottle of smelly water but there you go.

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  6. Portia, your way of choosing perfumes seems like fun, at least much more fun than mine: I read tons of reviews even if I tried the scent, – for inspiration, I guess, – I compare prices at all available platforms looking for a bargain, and eventually it comes down to the moment when I say “F-k it, I’m buying it” or “I don’t need this one”. This is happening right now, I’m desperate for a revelation 🙂

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  7. Interesting question!
    My knee-jerk reaction was: I’m so boring and rational when it comes to perfume purchases that I don’t have any of these rituals and thoughts. But while reading everybody’s responses (for a change, today I came here before the conversation had already a winning number of posts), I realized that I have my own “thing”: I’m thinking whether perfume I’m buying comes with any story. I don’t mean the ad copy. But for those who read my blog, it’s not a surprise that I don’t do actual perfume reviews but rather tell life stories related to perfumes. While I still have some untold stories from my past, those alone cannot provide enough “material” for the (ninth year of) blogging. So each time I consider a purchase I think about the “storyworthiness” of that acquisition :). And how I’ll trick Rusty into posing with it.

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    • Your approach isn’t boring at all: even though perfumes are our passion, we can’t afford to be careless and buy them “just because” (well, not every time).

      PS I first read “Rusty posting it” and laughed!

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      • Well, I think that it might be much easier to organize “Rusty posting”: all I need to do is just to leave my laptop turned on and open. But after that it might be problematic to use it for anything else (or even find all the missing letter keys 😉 ).

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    • Thanks Undina,
      How fabulous. Yes, a story does help with the purchase. You’re right. Whether it’s one we can tie to our lives or the buying process or even a memory it conjures. I’d never thought of it like that. Now that you say it though, this could be the most important push to purchase of all. A story for every time we spritz. I do have same or similar visions and fantasies most times I spritz. So interesting.
      Sadly I have no Rusty and the dogs don’t really love their fragrances much. Give him a treat from Jin and I please.
      Portia x

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  8. I am usually all logic. I look at the price, notes and reviews. Once in a very great while, I say, ooooh, what a cute bottle. I must have it. For me, I think it is the thrill of getting a bargain like going to a resale store or flea market. You walk away with a treasure for under $20. Score!

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  10. I’m a shocking impulse buyer, especially of vintage perfumes. I usually only worry if it’s collectable and affordable. The latter is almost always true in op shops and flea markets, so it barely gets a look-in. I don’t curate my vintage collection; I’m more of a magpie for anything interesting.

    For my use, I tend to buy FBs when i shouldn’t, buy perfumes without properly testing them first, buy online when i/ see a bargain, everything that you shouldn’t do.

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    • May I offer you a simple algorithm?

      Can you afford it?
      If No, you need to do something about it.
      If Yes, then do you get more joy from “hits” than regrets from “missed”?
      If No, you need to do something about it.
      If Yes – don’t change a thing until you answer No to one of the two questions above 😉

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  11. I’ve changed a lot over my perfume buying career. Early on, I’d formed a bit of an infatuation/frenzy. I remember once in particular, I’d read that l’Occitane was discontinuing l’Ambre. That night I couldn’t even sleep! I had to have it, it was A Classic! After I got it, I didn’t really like it that much and swapped it away.
    Nowadays, I usually just want something at a low hum for months before buying.

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  12. Was really fun to read your answer 😃 Everytime i’m thinking about getting a new bottle i get so thrilled, full of sparkling enthusiasm , making a photo in my head with the new aquisition on the shelves near the other bottles, and how amazing will gonna smell this new juice :))) And then of course the bargain story, little gems found for 10-20€, online or flea market, such an awesome feeling 🙂

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  13. I am secretly hoping the new purchase will blow me away like very few have. One of the reasons I enjoy the process of blind buy is to discover one of those perfumes that take my breathe away like Cuiron, Kouros, Opium, vintage Eau Sauvage, vintage Givenchy Gentleman, Shiseido Feminite du Bois, Gucci No. 3 etc. did when I smelled them for the first time.

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      • As can be expected, very rarely. This is why it is also easy to remember which perfumes blew me away the instant I smelled them.

        It makes sense for such perfumes to be rarities because truly beautiful and one-of-a-kind perfumes do not come often as most releases are merely following current trends and/or playing it safe to sell as much as possible.

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  14. This is a hard question for me and I don’t even know why. I guess when one has an “addiction” there is always going to be some element of fantasy. I think for a very long time with each new bottle I was yearning for that one scent that would knock my socks off so much that I would never wear anything else ever again and everyone around me would always associate me with that scent. Well, we all know that never happened! Now I am starting to reacquaint myself with some of my old loves and in retrying some of them realizing that it just isn’t quite the same anymore. I guess I am less driven and frenzied and perhaps more reality based for the first time in my perfume journey…I aspire to just go with the flow and accept what comes my way and enjoy what I have. I know what I like and I don’t need to turn in my perfumista badge if I choose to perhaps wear the same old fragrance day after day. Trying not to keep up…if that makes any sense?

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    • Thank you, dear Brigitte! I loved everything you said about your perception of yourself as a perfumista. May I just say it: it’s not the amount of perfumes we own, it’s the interest for the new things and the desire to know more. Oh, and also sharing one’s knowledge with fellow obsessed ones 🙂

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  16. I am usually pretty logical. Bottles sit in my cart for days before I can be sure of myself. But then- someone posts a 37% fragrancenet coupon on NST and it all goes to hell as I scramble to see what I have been wanting but not buying. (I have a healthy decant of LPRN Black Perfecto so I didn’t really need that bottle but I HAD to have the actual bottle, it does look so nice on my shelf…) I no longer expect to be blown away by anything, sadly. Perhaps the perfumes that would do so are out of my budget so I never try them. Or i just need a break from so much new. Happy to be (mostly) working what I have at this point!!

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    • Ha!!! That was me on the 37 percent coupon! That’s how I got the NOA and Niki de Saint Phalle for practically free!!!

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  17. I think I have one fantasy: this will be the last bottle I ever will buy. Period. Hahaha…but I am getting to know this little voice and it’s not taking my by the nose so readily anymore!
    And what is the difference between a fantasy and a rationalisation?

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  18. I take the impulsive and scattergun approach. I’m the human equivalent of a blue bottle caught inside a lampshade with a hot lightbulb. There is neither sense nor reason to my perfume buying. Except when I’m hunting down vintage, and I set notifications, and trawl endlessly. Then when I see something I want I pounce. Have had great success at this to date. There’s always endless chatter going on inside my head about the whys and wherefores, how much cash I have to squander, and if I’m not going out eating/drinking/partying that week then I’ve got a higher budget and would I be better off buying that bottle of discontinued that I’m familiar with or that other one that’s selling for big discount. Or have a total brain fart and buy both. I’m justifying things to myself by thinking that I haven’t bought shoes or clothes in ages or that I have a special event coming up that would go perfectly with whichever perfume I’m thinking about. I wear myself out sometimes.

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  19. That little devil on my shoulder so often talks me into making purchase by whispering in my ear, “You deserve this!” Then I agree and buy, telling myself that it’s ok, I’ll cut a corner somewhere else, like perhaps eating out less or not making so many frivolous clothing purchases. Of course the self denial never happens!

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  20. Pingback: Perfume Purchase, Perfume Game. | Australian Perfume Junkies

  21. I was really laughing hard at most of the above answers. You know why – I’ve experienced it all at some point, more or less.
    I’m not an impulsive buyer and quite reasonable. My approach is: First a small sample, then decant, then bottle. Most of the perfumes that seem fantastic after a small sample already make me yawn when I’m halfway through the decant. My only expectation when buying a new FB is: please, make me finish this bottle during my life! I suppose this sentence means also: let me live long enough to enjoy and use up all my perfumes 😀

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