Saturday Question: What Size Bottles Do You Prefer?

/ 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: Kathleen

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

Saturday Question: What Size Bottles Do You Prefer?

Recently the new owner of Sonoma Scent Studio, Brenda, asked the world of parfumerie what their favourite sizes for bottles is. I thought it an interesting question and it got me thinking. There were so many excellent answers in the thread too which made me think you all might like a go at it.

My Answer:

OK, in samples my ideal size is 2ml spray. That’s about 3 or 4 full wears, which is exactly enough to really live the fragrance, get some cross weather nuance and let my brain parse the scent enough to know if a Full Bottle is in my future. Less than that and I’m left questioning, more and I’ll never buy the Full Bottle because there’s still some left in a sample/decant around here somewhere.

Bottles is different. Having so much perfume I will rarely, if ever, be emptying the 100ml bottle I buy of anything. So lately I’ve taken to buying the smallest bottle of anything I can find, even though the juice is then relatively more expensive. The perfect example of this is the Hermessence line and their clever 15ml Travel Size sprays. I love these beauties so much. They are perfect travel accessories in your cabin baggage for pre landing spritzing, take up almost zero room in cupboard, case or handbag and they smell freaking awesome. 15ml is a LOT of fragrance, the only two I’ve had to rebuy so far are Vanille Galant and Cuir d’Ange.

My Saturday Question to you is:

What Size Bottles Do You Prefer?

105 thoughts on “Saturday Question: What Size Bottles Do You Prefer?”

  1. In samples 2ml sprays are the perfect size. That is enough juice to determine if I will love a fragrance or not. The ideal full bottle size, just for my personal use is 30ml. Considering that I am always sharing my perfumes with others, most of the times I need 100 mls bottles to be able to make samples and decants and keep at least half of the bottle for myself. I am a heavy sprayer so decants usually do not last much for me, unless the perfume is very strong and I just need a bit to enjoy it.

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      • You are also very generous sharing everything you have, Brigitte. I have discovered many favorites thanks to you! (Looking at you Amouage Imitation Woman!). I really appreciate that!
        Being very busy lately, with barely time to breathe. Glad to have a little bit of time now to read and comment.

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        • I too am glad that life has slowed down a bit for you to relax and enjoy the reading and commenting. We always miss you when you are not here!

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  2. If it were a perfume just for me maybe 15 ml. But I also like to share with my tribe here so 30 ml is ideal for making samples and decants. Plus, I have scent devouring skin so 10-20 sprays depending on the fragrance is not unusual for me. Unless I am testing. Then it’s one or two sprays on the wrist or top of ✋. This gives me an idea of the pedfume’s longevity on my skin.
    And Portia, I have thunked hundreds of 50,75 and 100 ml bottles in my lifetime.

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  3. I like 2-3ml sample sprayers for testing. For a fragrance I know I won’t wear often, 5-10 ml decant is perfect. I love the Hermes travel sprays because they are so cute, but they are a bitch to store on my shelves because they are tall, thin and tippy. I prefer 50-100 ml bottles for esthetic, storage and hoarding reasons. And I looove the gigantic 250 ml Dior bottles for their opulent excess, feeling like I will never run out. Finishing a bottle is unimportant to me.

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    • As I said below I very much appreciate your sharing of your collection. I have sampled so many beautiful perfumes thanks to you and also enjoy passing things on to other APJers to sample as well! So your NOT THUNKING is a good thing in my book!

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    • I have the same problem with the long travel size “tippy” bottles! I use an old Glasshouse candle jar to store them upright in the cupboard which helps to also keep them all together and prevent them from scattering everywhere everytime I reach in 🙂

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  4. I do like the 30ml or even 50ml bottles. Buying these helps me to feel that ‘I’m not spending as much as I could …’ even though, as Portia mentioned, the price per ml. tends to be higher. I prefer a 5ml sample if I can, as I tend to forget what I have and where it is, so 5ml allows for a little evaporation!

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  5. I agree with TaraC’s response, I really don’t need to or enjoy finishing bottles of perfume and rarely do. I want the bottle to last forever! And therefore, I prefer to buy the largest bottle that I can afford. I enjoy sharing and spritzing often, and I love not having to be conservative with what I have. I store my perfumes carefully in a cool dark place, and so far I haven’t had any evaporation or turning. I hope I can still reach for my perfume loves that are not easily available, many years from now.

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  6. The 2ml sample sprays are the right size for sampling – anything less (and dabbers!) doesn’t really give you a full impression.

    I too love small bottles. 30ml is perhaps my favorite size. Enough that I can still make a small decant for someone but leaving me with more than enough given the size of my collection. 50ml is the largest that I really want to buy these days. 15ml works for those kinds of perfumes that I know I won’t wear very often but still want to have a bottle that’s less likely to evaporate than a decant. I would be happy if every brand make at least 50ml in addition to 100ml! (I know I could host splits for larger bottles – maybe in the future…)

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  8. ALL!!!!!!
    LOL
    Seriously, I guess 30 to 50 ml but only if they are a bargain. They should be priced at the same cost per ml. If $100 for 100 ml then $30 and $50 respectively. But, if I am going to pay $25 for 1.7 oz or $33 for 3.4 oz, I go for the larger.

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  9. I like 2ml sprays for sampling. I dislike samples I need to dab. I tend to spray lightly as my skin amplifies scent. I only apply once a day because most scents last until I shower again the next day. Because of this I generally like the smallest bottle available even if it makes the price per ml more expensive. Except when it’s something in frequent rotation, then I buy bigger. Lately, if I really love something I try to buy a backup bottle as soon as possible because I hate when I go back and it’s been reformulated yet again. I’ve been swooning over Jovoy Fragrance Du Bois Amber Intense and the only size bottle it comes in is 100ml. It’s priced at 720 USD or 695 Euros. I wish it came in smaller sizes because that’s just a lot to spend on fragrance in one go, especially for something I’d probably only wear in cooler weather.

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    • @Tatiana – eek, 700 smackers? Jovoy and other super-pricey folks would do well to have smaller bottles for that fact alone.

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      • I’ve been back to Jovoy twice since I first tried it, hoping they’d put it in a smaller bottle, since the sales associate said it was a new scent when I initially tried it in 2016. Nope, still the huge 100ml bottle. Dear Husband wasn’t particularly in love with it, so it doesn’t hurt passing it up. Mostly I wear scent for myself, but every now and then I like to wear something he absolutely loves. I just ordered a sample from LuckyScent and I think that will be enough for me.

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  10. I just bought a 30 ml bottle of L’Eau d’Hiver, which I have wanted for a couple of years. It will be emptied, and it also gives me the chance to do a couple of decants, so a vote for this size. Speaking of decants, I have come to the embarrassing conclusion that looks do matter: it’s hard for me to remember to pick one up, even if it’s a perfume I really love, because they all look alike.

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  11. Agreeing with the 30ml and the 2ml spray samples! Perfect sizes! I dont like clutter and have perfume guilt, so this makes it mangeable.

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  12. Samples definitely 2 ml sprays. I always thought 15 or 30 ml would be my preferred choice, but reading the liberating comments I realised actually it doesn’t really matter as long as I love the fragrance.

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  13. I tend to look at price/ml. If the price/ml is same for all bottle sizes then it does not matter to me though most of the times, bigger bottles tend to be more economical on per ml basis. If I am blind buying and not very sure it will be a successful blind buy, I may prefer the smaller size though at least 30ml even if I have to pay a litlte more per ml as is the case for Chloe Nomade that I am seeking because reviews are all over the place. However, if I love a perfume, I want to have the biggest bottle sizes, hopefully in a spray format because spray bottles are better preserved over time.

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      • less contamination, oxidation, and evaporation. I have also noticed that top notes (already short-lived) tend to disappear in splash bottles quicker than in spray bottles. We are also familiar with stories of perfume loss due to evaporation, especially in splash bottles, though splash bottles with tightened caps are better than those with inserted tops. Evaporation occurs in spray bottles, too but mostly because the spray mechanism was poorly designed, not a frequent occurrence. However, it is certainly possibly I got few things wrong here because I am mostly relying on anecdotal evidence.

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        • No I think you are right, Fazal. Part of the issue with splash and extrait bottles is that they also get our dead skin cells in them…or so I read. This doesn’t necessarily freak me out ( surprisingly) but I wonder too if that impacts upon the scent. Years ago when I started this “hobby” ( around 1970) most bottles were splash, there were virtually none offered as sprays from what I remember. For those of you who collect vintage do you find that to be true?

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          • I think you and Fazal are right on the contamination issue. I have two bottles vintage Shalimar perfume. Both splash/dabbers. (I really wouldn’t dare splash that stuff!). The one I use the most is getting cloudy. Guaranteed there is a transfer of skin oils and cells when dabbing.
            I think evaporation depends on the bottle. A well constructed spray (the kind you can not screw open) seems like it would be much less prone to evaporation. My Shalimar bottles are both stoppered. The stopper has some sort of grippy coating and seems to close quite firmly, but I’m not convinced they are safe from evaporation.

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          • Brigitte, you are very right. I am a child of the 80s so by the time I became interested in perfumes in early 2000s, splash perfumes were the exception rather than the norm. However, it is through my interest in vintage perfumes that I have learned how splash releases were common last century. My collection tells me splash perfumes were common at least until 1980s and somewhat started losing popularity in the 1990s. In fact, a splash bottle is sometimes my hint that it is relatively an older formula even if the perfume in question is still in production.

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  15. Congratulations, Kathleen! I really love mini bottles. I think they’re so cute, and they hold enough to really try out a fragrance, and then you still have the cute bottle. I enjoy having 100 ml bottles of scents I really love, because then I just spray what I want and don’t even think about it. Luckily, I have been able to buy a number of testers in that size, which brings the price within a reasonable range. Travel sprays are great, but I miss the pretty bottle!

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  16. For samples, I look for a spray vial less than 5ml; around 2-3 is good. I find that 5ml is quite a lot and can last a lot more time than needed for just a sample; if I don’t like it, it ends up wasted.

    I have so many bottles and so much perfume that I do not think I can finish it all in my lifetime. So if I am buying new perfumes, then I’m looking for smaller bottles, 50 ml at most. A 30ml bottle is about right. When buying vintage, the bigger the better, as the chance may not come again.

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  17. For me the 30ml size bottle is just perfect. It looks nice in the shelf, it fits any bag, and it’s also great for collections like 50+ bottles.

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  18. For sampling, I’m happiest with 2-3 ml. But they MUST be sprays. Obvs I will use a dabber but if I like it dabbed I will still buy a 3ml spray before making the FB purchase.
    Size of the FB really depends on the perfume. For light perfumes that require many sprays OR a perfume that I both love and is wearable in most situations and seasons 50 ml is good.
    But, generally speaking I would tend to opt for the 30 ml size for everything else. If it’s eye-wateringly expensive I’ll bite the bullet, pay a higher per ml price and purchase a 10ml decant.

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    • As I said below I think the issue with sprays is that they often leak in transit. But then again a manufactured sprayer would not. For this reason I usually mail dabbers when I am sending samples. I have tried three different types of 2-5 ml sprayers from various sources and not one has been 100 percent leak proof. maybe the solution is to send 2-3 1ml dabbers and then let the recipient decant into an empy sprayer?

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  19. I’m a fan of 5ml decants/samples and like a lot of others have said, 30mls is perfect for a full bottle.

    Good to see ‘dabber’ style samples are universally hated!

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  20. I love 100 mls. I buy the SL, Eau d’Italie, Dior in large sizes. I’m more interested in checking edp vs edt differences for a particular fragrance.

    Samples, I do like 10 ml. Brigitte encouraged me to spray a lot. Double digits is a great way to test the juice. 😉

    Chergui, I want The Original Formulation in A Vat. Or two.

    All of which makes this a pretty exxy indulgence. Sigh.

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  21. I’m a minority here 🙂 – I prefer dab samples. I mean, I wouldn’t refuse a free 1.5-2 ml sample from a store/manufacturer but when it comes to getting perfumes from friends’ bottles, I prefer smaller sizes – 0.5 – 1 ml, but for that I don’t want to waste a spray bottle, hence a dabber is just fine.
    Since there is a 9 out of 10 chance that I won’t like that perfume, and because I do not usually wear perfumes from samples, even if I liked it while testing (unless I plan to go for a FB and wear it to make a final decision), I won’t use it up, so I would hate to waste perfume which someone loved enough to buy a bottle. So, you all should probably send me your hated dabbers ;))

    As for bottles, I don’t think I need more than 15 ml of any perfume for my personal use but aesthetically 30 ml bottles appeal to me the most – so, 25-30 ml is what I’m looking for usually.

    If not to count a couple of splits through NST, I haven’t sold a single ml of perfume in my life and I doubt I’d be able to do that (I’m just not good at selling stuff), so I never go for a better per ml price but prefer cuter smaller bottles. Besides, since I store them in their original boxes, I’m out of shelf space.

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  22. For sampling I like 2-3 ml in a spray. I don’t have anything against dabblers but I don’t think I get the full effect of the fragrance if it’s dabbed. Think I may have said it here before that I’d love if every fragrance house released a travel spray. 10 ml is perfect. The price per ml is more expensive but if it’s an already expensive perfume then a huge 100 ml bottle would be out of reach for a lot of people – me included – and that’s the deal breaker. As I like to carry my frag of the day in my handbag the small sizes are great and saves the hassle of decanting into a sample spray. I’ve purchased not one, but two Malles this week, both 10 ml.

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  23. I don’t mind dabber samples, but will often buy a spray sample if I’m unsure the dabbed scent gives me all the nuances, at least if I’m contemplating a FB purchase.

    I have loved some well designed travel sprays from Bulgari and Atelier Cologne bought at Sephora. I haven’t seen similar for sale here and like to have bottles and sprays which are easy to tell apart, so wouldn’t be equally happy with decants, I think.

    For some of my favourite fragrances I need a 100 ml bottle. If not, I would easily start saving the fragrance for special occasions! Many of my favourites are citrus based and re-application is necessary after 4-5 hours. But mostly 30 or 50 ml bottles will do. I also find travel sprays a good option to get some extra variety (and my relatives won’t faint seeing the price tag of the F. Malle travel sprays or similar)

    I’m about to drain my 15 ml spray bottle of the Le Labo iris, so have to conclude 15 ml is not enough, at least for edt or edp of a kind which would fit many different occasions.

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      • I am thinking about repurchasing the Le Labo Iris 39, but am in doubt. It would have to be the bigger bottle, and that is at least as expensive as another favourite (which I don’t own), Iris des Champs by Houbigant. Plus the last few weeks our currency has become very weak compared to Euros, so another reason to hesitate. Maybe as a gift for myself in October (my birthday month and a time of the year when I really need something to cheer me up).

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  24. Hello gorgeous.

    Size? The bigger the better right?
    Oh… you are talking about perfume bottle size. 😉

    Like TaraC, Gina and Kathleen above I tend to do the price per ml and more likely ends up with larger bottles.

    I don’t tend to use samples so I am not fussed about the size but I do prefer they are sprays and not dabbers.

    XXX… T

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  25. The older I get, the less I care to invest in a scent that could outlast me, so I try to purchase travel sprays or rollerballs when possible. I’ll still probably never use even all those up, but it does make me feel a tinge less guilty. The price per ml macht nichts in the end if you do not deplete the full quantity.

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