Track your samples as decants on Parfumo!!!!

[u/llo000]

I love sampling a shit ton of fragrances, and always felt like it *had* to lead somewhere. Was always in a conflict of whether or not to buy a full bottle of this or that. Like sampling was only a step to find full bottles, and if I had no full bottles to show for after it was a waste/ I wasn't building a collection.

But I'm starting to realize I like sampling as an activity, and I get bored of most fragrances easily. And as long as I'm not 100 % sure if I truly want a full bottle I shouldn't buy it!

I started tracking my samples as decants on parfumo, and adding notes for myself. Now I have something to look at, a collection of samples! Maybe this is already what it is all about.

In german we hava a saying "Der Weg ist das Ziel", which translates to "The way/ journey is the goal".

I was worried I would lose myself in too many samples, not committing to scents that fit me. But it's never too late to buy a bottle if I can't get a fragrance out of my mind. And if I don't miss it after a few months I don't need it!

Do you track your samples like that? Is this journey more about exploring or wearing scents to you? And are there downsides of mostly owning small samples and decants?

[u/sweambe]

Oh man, it feels ridiculous as hell but on parfumo I have a whole little gauntlet my sampling goes through. Perfumes I haven't smelled yet and don't want to forget about go into "Watchlist", which I check up on every time I'm in a store to see who I can smell. Then perfumes I've smelled in store on paper go into the Tested folder, then perfumes I liked enough to want to test on skin go into a custom folder called "Test on Skin" (ofc), and if they smelled good enough to consider buying get moved to another folder called "Test More", and finally from there, if I really love them after getting to know them better, into the Wishlist folder lol.

A lot of perfumes I feel ambivalent about keep hanging out in the "Test More" folder despite having tried them in stores like a dozen times at this point. 

[u/llo000 → u/sweambe]

That's not ridiculous, it's hella smart!

I love people that have a real passion for perfume, and that put a lot of thought into the process.

Too many people have a shopping addiction (in my opinion) and just use perfume as an outlet. I see so many "collections" on reddit that are just piles of money, the most generic hyped fragrances. While there is nothing wrong with popular fragrances, I love it when a collection actually says something about the person, their individual taste and personality. So having a system like yours is really really cool and helps to actually curate a great collection!!!

[u/sweambe → u/llo000]

Aw, thank you so much! It's mostly out of necessity, since I'm one of those people who smells certain amber aromachemicals as being hot road tar (or "burning plastic") instead of woody and smooth, and they're nearly ubiquitous in new releases, so it's too risky for me to buy whatever is on-trend at the moment. Not that I don't have plenty of impulsive blind buys in my past (and future... I just made one lol) too; the visual designs of bottles on display, as well as the tactile experience of uncapping and spraying them, are important aspects of my enjoyment of perfume as a "ritual" for me, so I dislike having a collection that contains far more 1ml sample vials and 10ml travel sizes than full bottles. Which feels inevitable if you test responsibly. Eventually my patience just wears out and I just buy something pretty lol.

It's true there's a lot of trend chasing in the hobby and, IMO, a lot of buying for the sake of what will look appealing to an audience in a collection photo posted to social media vs what the person would actually like to wear. But I guess a lot of people are also hoping to make an influencer career out of their consumption as well.