The Stash Purge

A glimpse of my stash....

When one is as fragrance-obsessed as myself, it's inevitable that a collection will accumulate. Those lemmings duplicate and before we know it...we have more bottles than we know what to do with.


For myself, I had a brief period about 6 years ago where I had purged pretty much everything from my collection...resulting in a grand total of about 5 bottles. Fast forward till now and I can safely say that between samples, decants and full bottles....I'm well past the double-digits.


I was looking at my collection recently and was seized by a fit of anxiety. There was just WAY too much in there. Incredibly overwhelming, attempting to look into my stash and figure out what to wear on any particular day. So I made myself do the unthinkable: take every single bottle out of its box and organize. (Those boxes take up a ton of room!) And yes, my mother's voice popped up into my head, telling me how important it is to keep that precious juice out of sunlight and heat....The problem was that since I had everything boxed, I had literally forgotten about half the stuff in my collection. So I had to weigh my options: have everything hidden and nicely preserved, or unearth all of those dusty bottles (at the risk of having them turn more quickly) and enjoy. Needless to say, I chose the latter.


Realizing how much I had that I literally hadn't worn in years, I had to come to a decision: to keep or not to keep? It's kind of embarrassing, admitting that I have some bottles in my collection purely for nostalgia's sake (Britney Spears Fantasy anyone?) The stuff that I had worn years ago and associate with particular times of my life but rarely revisit. Do they warrant that precious real estate? Is it time to let go? I think so.


I have my moments where I get into a major swap frenzy, trading as much as I can. At certain times though, I have such an insane hankering to get rid of stuff that I just pack it up and send it away to my cousins overseas. Who absolutely love their fumes. (Is it genetic? Maybe so... ;-) I also like to pawn stuff off on other unsuspecting family members (who will often gladly take any castaways :)


What do you fellow perfumistas do when you're hankering for a stash purge? Giveaways to friends and family members? Online auctions, swaps, or do you just put them away somewhere to retrieve later for future enjoyment?

The One that Got Away....

As rabid perfumistas, it seems that we're always looking for the next best thing. As soon as I make a purchase or complete a swap, I'm always reading up on something new, negotiating my next swap, or scanning ebay for a deal. I can admit the fact that it's an obsession; an addiction, borderlining on illness.

Occasionally, I think back to the scents that captured my imagination years ago when I was just beginning my fragrant journey. The ones I had a chance to purchase before they were long-discontinued, or ones that I've always wanted to have in my collection but for whatever reason...I just haven't taken the plunge.

Maybe it's because I'm saving my pennies for the next best new thing, am afraid of not loving the particular perfume as much as I did back then...or just simply because I'm somehow thinking it won't get as much wear as anticipated.

The first perfume that comes to mind in terms of woeful regret, wishing that I had bought a bottle when it was readily available is Joop's All About Eve.



(Image taken from douglas.de)

When I travelled through Europe in the mid-nineties, this one was absolutely everywhere. I first sniffed it in Munich and fell in love. It stands out in my memory for several reasons. The first being that it is in my mind that link to the summer of '96, when I had high hopes about my future and was living out my dream of travelling through a continent that somehow felt more like home than North America ever did. (The fact that this was seemingly never launched in North America reinforced that).

The second reason was that it went completely against the grain of what I usually desired in a fragrance back then. My usual preference was the uber-clean, ozonic aquatic that was ubiquitious. All About Eve was the polar opposite of everything that I had coveted. With it's notes of caramel and apple, it was heady, sweet, and completely different. It had taken Europe by storm that summer, and when I came back to Canada and it was nowhere to be found, I was kicking myself for not christening my student Visa card and plunking down the 90 Deutchmarks for it. (Incidentally, I ended up using that Visa on the flight back. First purchase? The newly-launched Acqua di Gio, duty-free.)


My second regret, wishing that I had purchased vats of it when it was possible to do so (given how much this currently goes for via online auction, I might have been able to retire by now...) is The Body Shop's much-lauded Original Vanilla:



(Image taken from essential-oils-store.com)

At the time, I didn't understand what the huge deal was, why everyone was bemoaning the fact that this one was being re-formulated. After all, a vanilla is a vanilla is a vanilla, right? Turns out that I was wrong. This one has been virtually impossible to duplicate. A bit of sugar cookie, a blast of pure vanilla, and a touch of magic. It's the stuff that dreams are made of. Most recently, a pal of mine parted with a couple of mls of this to add to my collection. As soon as I sampled it, I was instantly transported back in time. High school Biology class, someone seated behind me doused herself with this on a regular basis. Still completely hype-worthy.

What say you, fellow perfumistas? What are the ones that got away in your fragrant world? Are they still readily available, or is the eternal quest on?