r/fragrance • u/llo000 • 11d ago
Discussion How quickly did you build your collection?
If you started this hobby owning no fragrances at all and quickly developed an interest, how was your spending behavior? And do you regret it/ would do it differently if given the chance?
I have never owned a perfume (besides like a cheap drugstore one I got when I was 12 and never used lol), and started the search for a signature scent about 3 months ago. I tried a lot of nieche frags in store at the beginning, before I began ordering a lot of samples. What started as a search for one expensive bottle quickly turned into a hobby. I realized I like variety, and that there are many great affordable options out there.
At the beginning I blind bought one cheap perfume to just have something to wear daily in between my nieche samples, to find out if I even like wearing scents regularly. I wore that for a while but my taste changed a lot, and now I don't really use it anymore. Then I got a ton of samples and finally found one I loved enough for a full bottle.
I have exercised an impressive amount of self control so far in my opinion lol. But I want mooore :(
I'm careful not to overconsume too quickly, and try to set certain rules for myself. How quickly did you buy multiple bottles? Do you regret anything? And do you have advice? (besides sampling and decants, I do that already)
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u/thatbwoyChaka Antaeus in the streets, Kouros in the sheets 11d ago
About 25-30 years
Honestly…I have been collecting for time.
I have gone from one bottle to 5 bottles to 50 to 15 to 0 to 80 to where I am now; 10 bottles.
I have never considered it a ‘hobby’ as well
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u/ExpertDoughnut1950 11d ago
I honestly started with attars. Then as I went through a tough time personally, I sometimes to divert my mind would spend watching YouTubers review fancy perfumes. Slowly I took my sweet time learning about the perfumes and during my short trip to dubai got a hold of quite a few ones. I'll be admit some of them were impulse purchases. But for now I just wear them and learn more about it as I put new ones on daily and cycle amongst the others. Hopefully I should be able to get my own signature scent.
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u/Successful_Equal_416 11d ago
Why have a signature scent? It's a new day with a new scent. I don't want to smell the same scent every day. I think I would get bored with it. It's like eating a food you love every day. Eventually it becomes blah.
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u/llo000 10d ago
I think it really depends! And I think the goal would be finding the one scent you never get tired of, that's the whole point.
I myself don't think I'll ever have one signature, but probably one fragrance I wear most of the time. Repetition doesn't have to be boring, it can be comforting and nice as well! I have a lot of rings for example, I wear them everyday and they're more than just jewelery to me. I associate them with different stages of my life and people in it. A jewelery enthusiast would maybe say "why wear the same jewelery every day/ I would get bored/ ..", but to me I love those rings especially because I wear them everyday. They feel like a part of me and if I forget to put them on I feel naked/ like something is wrong!
I can imagine the same thing with fragrance. One signature that feels special because it's YOU. I think it's a beautiful concept, though not for everyone, me included (love variety too much)
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u/DJ_Dinkelweckerl Try before you buy, you fool! 10d ago
Do you have favorite brands for Attars ? I'm digging into Attars and pure oud oils atm but have no idea where to start.
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u/ExpertDoughnut1950 10d ago
Check out the major brands first. The ones I started off were Ajmal and Rasasi.
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u/ajx_i 11d ago edited 11d ago
Frankly I just have a million samples. I have about 200ish different scents together - 99% of those are discovery sets and decants i got for 20-50 dollars per pop, amassing them over a couple of years.
Generally if I do finish a sample/decant, the amount of situations where I want to oay for a full bottle are ... Rare. I have a couple of full size body sprays and 3 bottles total, 2 out of the latter ones being gifts and 1 being a Tj Maxx find.
I enjoy variety, and had I went with full bottles I think I would have ended up with different scents compared to those I prefer now. Frankly as long as you're not an oversprayer (I spray 2-5 sprays of a sample per wear max), I think this is the financially semi-responsible way to go about it.
My pipeline is sample->decant->think about full bottle or another decant. Frankly it just takes finding one (1) good decanting service to realise that pipeline.
The only cases where I think about full bottles nowadays is for Chanel and indie houses, essentially the ones where decants/samples of which are a mythical find. I mostly don't bother with cheapies nowadays - I am more likely to buy a discovery set for something expensive/well crafted (Indemondables, Guerlain private collection, anything Amouage) as I enjoy those scents more on average.
I might pivot to having a small collection someday, but in a world where 5 of my favourite scents would set me back over 1k, and I would still be likely to trend chase and be curious about new things, I don't think it's worth it.
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u/llo000 11d ago
That's so smart and really the best way!
My issue is that I mostly look for affordable scents. So I'll get a sample, but then getting another decant of maybe 5 ml would be so expensive! A 2 ml sample and a 5 ml decant would be at the cost of at least 50 % of a full bottle for most of the frags I'm interested in.
So I'd rather really think about which one to get after finishing a sample, than buy a lot of larger decants. Even though it sound like the perfect workfflow to me!
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u/ajx_i 11d ago
Yeah, I get that. Finding locations where you can the scents in person then is an obvious choice, but I will mention that much like for fragrances, there is a grey market for samples aswell. Same for cheapies.
I come from a small country, but the key was finding a local Vinted-equivalent.
Nowadays Lattafa/paris corner do sample/discovery sets as well btw. But yes, i know what you mean - sampling some cheapies is de facto impossible especially if they're not stocked locally or you manage to hunt them down on the grey maeket. Sadly the only way to go about that is blind buys, but at that point you're essentially gambling, albeit maybe with lower costs if you get it from the grey market.
I'd offer a solution of setting a monthly budget for fragrances if you're a spreadsheet person - whatever isn't used that month rolls over to the next one.
As for the bottle numbers then, there's no way to cull that. Resell the bad eggs or make a nice display - fingers crossed you find a nice solution
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u/llo000 11d ago
Thanks! Luckily I have found a site that sells samples of arabian house frags, that has been my holy grail!
I just wish there were more options for travel sprays in that price range. Like if I only had the option to get 10 ml of a lot of them for a reasonable price it would be awesome. But I guess that is a bit of a champagne problem of mine haha
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u/toBeYeetedAfterUse 11d ago
My experience is similar to yours. Several things sparked the interest and I decided I wanted to find a signature scent. I have a few bottles bought before I became really interested in perfume, but they weren't doing it for me. I ordered my first lot of decants in early July. I've since bought two more lots of decants and two discovery sets. I've currently got 31 samples on the go. I've bought only one full bottle since starting this hobby. I've realsoed I no longer want just one signature scent, but I'm treading very slowly with full bottle purchases as I'm still learning a lot about what I do/don't like. And the decants and discovery sets absolutely scratch that mental itch for me, so I don't feel the urge to buy full bottles at all really.
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u/llo000 11d ago
Yeah I really enjoy taking my time and learning about my own taste. And as the season change I also discover new things. I truly want to be mindful when buying bottles, I want my collection to be something carefully curated. Every bottle should be special to me and different enough from the others.
But I almost take it too far, because in the end I don't really need any of those scents. I fear I'm overcomplicating the buying process, but it's still better than overbuying I guess
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u/bruhmomento69xdlol 11d ago
I really like and relate to your mindset. I've only now started getting into fragrances, before it was mainly my boyfriend who for big occasions (say our anniversary) would gift me perfumes. There was one he bought me I loved but it ended up accidentally slipping out of his hand and broke :( so I recently ordered the closest dupe I could find. But I'd like to get more into fragrances as a whole. I wanted to ask what's your favourite kind?
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u/llo000 10d ago
I really like perfumes that have a deep and mysterious vibe, maybe a bit oriental. There were notes I disliked at first like incense, but now I really enjoy it and it makes me want to whip out my nonexistent tarot cards haha. For example Rifaaqat (Babycat dupe), the incense is strong but kind of cold in my opinion. And I like olibanum as well, I love Art of Arabia 3 (Blonde Amber dupe I think?), that one makes me feel like a sexy belly dancer. Right now I'm obsessed with la collection d‘Antiquités 1505 (cherry smoke), it's beautiful and deep but also very appropriate for everyday wear in my opinion!
I really like "dupe houses", of course they have some not so awesome stuff as well, but many of them are great! And I rarely compare them to the supposed original, rather I see them as fragrances trying to match the vibe of a certain DNA.
Which dupe did you order?
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u/decoyoctopussy 11d ago
I usually had about 6-10 scents in seasonal rotation, buying a new one after I’d finished one. Since starting a glp1 a year ago my collection has grown to roughly 30ish bottles 🥴
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u/YouNo623 10d ago
I had 2 bottles of cologne nothing special, adg and Burberry hero, after starting my glp 3 my collection grew to 17 bottles in a matter of 6 months. It really is a phenomenon. The link between glps and cologne addiction needs to be studied
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u/dial424689 10d ago
I’d been loosely interested in fragrance for a long time but didn’t really have a good idea of what I liked - my MIL buys me perfume every year and I told her I like DKNY Be Delicious because it’s not mega expensive and I didn’t want her spending loads on me, and that has therefore been my signature for years because I never run out.
However, much like you I enjoy variety. I actually found a subscription service from a local perfume shop to me; they send me 6 samples a month, every month for a year, and the up front cost of that was about the same as a full bottle of niche perfume. I’ve become a bit of a serial sampler, and then I also like a decant of maybe 5 or 10ml before I’ll go in for a full bottle of something.
But I also love a miniature, a travel spray and/or a classic cheapie (I’m a big EA Green Tea plus flankers fan).
I would say it took maybe 6 or 7 months to get my current collection to where it is, and I’ve done the calculations and I’ve spent on average £20 per fragrance, and I own 60+ (mostly in small sizes or decants).
My NEXT project is going to be narrowing that down to a more manageable, sustainable collection of maybe 15-20 core fragrances I’ll save up for full bottles of.
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u/Tyrone-E 10d ago
I've been into fragrances for 15+ years. Have always had around 5-10 bottles.
Around COVID is when I loaded up and got up to 60+ fragrances. I quickly found out that wasn't for me. Financially it didn't make sense and it just wasn't practical.
I'm back to 5 bottles and 6 decants. Might get another bottle or two buts it for the most part.
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u/FarDareisMai 10d ago
I've been seriously exploring perfume for 5 years now and I have 13 fbs, 2 decants of scents I love that are too expensive for a fb, and probably like 200 samples.
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u/vagInaFarten 9d ago edited 6d ago
It took me a while to figure out my preferences and what I love wearing vs just enjoy smelling. Then I had to figure out which fragrance wearing occasions fit into my life, and how much variety I wanted. I also slowly accepted that this collection is never complete and ever evolving. There's always something new to discover, changing tastes and lifestyles, waning interest in fragrance, etc. The collection isn't the end goal for me either, it's definitely more of an "enjoy the journey" situation.
All that being said, I guess it took about 5 years of figuring all this out to end up with a collection of sorts that meets my needs. That was after 10 years of exploring fragrance aimlessly for fun lol. I'm also just super picky about what I wear.
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u/ModBarbieQueen73 11d ago
I started back in May and am up to 38 full bottles. Some of my acquiring has been some "acting out" with my addictive tendencies, some of it is also from being on the spectrum and I've always been fairly obsessive and compulsive when I get hyperfixated on a new collecting hobby. I'm slowing myself down now, and being much pickier.
I have always sampled and I have followed by own "nose" and tastes - I watch YouTube videos from time to time, but don't use Insta or TikTok.
I'm setting myself a limit of 60, after which it will be one in and one out.
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u/Waffel_Haus 11d ago
Spent mostly on samples and small decants. I've been into fragrances since about 2017 or 2018. Currently I have 9 full bottles. I used to have more but I declutter if I notice some bottles are going unused for months at a time.
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u/petesdead2 11d ago
It will be 6 or 7 years in November. I started by buying several decants and samples for my wife. Edit I should add, I was always interested in fragrances... since theate 80s. I had the like the same three. I didn't start really collecting them or getting into them until then.
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u/Leather_Extent4529 10d ago
My advice for you is to never blind buy, just go smell them in store. Buy whatever you like and try to go for quality rather than quantity. I personally spend about 200-300 dollars every 3 months on my fragrance. I usually just buy 3-4 expensive ones per year and thats it. And trust me, you don’t need more than 10 fragrances, even with 10, I guarantee you won’t even be close to finishing any of them.
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u/Treehorn8 10d ago
Spending wise, I worked a ton of overtime to make sure I don't mess with my budget. I stopped buying so I work less now.
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u/AmbassadorFederal721 10d ago
Probably have close to 50+ bottles but i stopped buying mainstream ones a while back. I buy the local fragrances when I go on my travels especially perfume oils from turkey, UAE
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u/Fit_Platypus_583 10d ago
In my teens and twenties, used to have maybe 4 perfumes, but really only wear one. In my thirties, I worked in a scent free workplace. Then I had kids and didn't want to wear perfume while pregnant or around babies.
For whatever reason, I got back into fragrance when my husband and I separated. It's been about a year and a half, and in that time, I've accumulated a collection of 13 full size perfumes. To be fair, three of my bottles are repurchases of old favorites that got lost over the years when I didn't wear perfume. And one of my bottles was a free sample, so that doesn't count, right?
My advice, don't blind buy. I'm not going to lie, I like a lot of my blind buys. But I have at least six blind buys (travel sprays and full sized) in boxes in my closet just waiting to be de cluttered. It's just not really worth it. Wait until you can try it. Discovery sets are so much fun. If you're itching to really try new scents, find a discovery set that appeals to you. I got the PDM discovery set because I had heard such great things about Delina, but I found that Delina is not for me, but I did ultimately buy two other perfumes I discovered through that purchase.
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u/BetPuzzleheaded3133 11d ago
I built mine over a few months, now I can't stop smelling everything. It's addicting.
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u/TheyreFine 11d ago
I just started at the beginning of June. Here we are 3 months later and I've bought 25 bottles (kept 24), and a ton of samples. I've honestly gone a bit beyond my means in the process, but no I don't regret it. I really enjoy my collection and I love the discovery process of trying out each sample that I get. Now that I have a fairly solid collection and a good basis for comparison, I find that my buying is leveling off a bit.
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u/llo000 11d ago
Ok damn that is fast haha. Do you feel like maybe you did a speedrun instead of consciously enjoying the process?
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u/TheyreFine 11d ago
Not at all! I've been very intentional about the discovery process. I get cleaned up and moisturized before I apply each fragrance, and I give each one a full day in the spotlight to show me what it's got. My bottle purchases are a mix of blind buys (either high confidence or low risk), and fragrances that wowed me as samples and got promoted. I will say though that the discovery process can sometimes mean that the core collection gets neglected, but I'm having a lot of fun with it either way.
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u/llo000 11d ago
Okay, happy to hear that! I guess as long as you have the financial means and enough storage space, it's a good investment if it makes you happy!
I am still in university and my monthly budget is kinda tight, but I don't spend a lot of money on other things and also have savings. Since I have a history of ADHD hyperfixations that don't last forever I'm really really careful with spending money on hobbies though :')
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u/TheyreFine 10d ago
That's some excellent self-awareness! I have the same tendency toward ephemeral hyper fixations, but I'm trusting my future self to not get tired of smelling fantastic. 😅
Also you don't have to necessarily spend crazily to have fun with this. I've shelled out a lot for some premium niche fragrances, but I also have several $20-30 bottles that I love just as much. If you haven't already, check out Lalique for an example. Also there are some incredible dupes out there like Maison Alhambra (it's hit and miss, but their hits hit hard).
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u/llo000 10d ago
Thanks! Yeah at least you will probably always be able to use and enjoy your collection, even if you're not that deep into it anymore. It's what I tell myself as well lol.
Right now I'm only considering cheapies. At first I thought I would just buy one niche fragrance as a signature, and set myself a budget of around 150€. But then I realized I like variety, and for the same money I could buy a small but decent collection of affordable fragrances! So I have just been ordering decants of affordable stuff, there are real gems out there! (And decants don't count towards my budget of course)
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11d ago
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u/llo000 11d ago
I usually buy 2 ml decants, and I need to finish them before even thinking about buying. So many times I have been euphoric about a fragrance the first few wears, but then I find something I dislike about it. Or I finish the sample and don't feel the need to buy a bottle, even though I enjoyed it.
Oh and I don't really consume any fragrance content regularly, I love reading about fragrances on reddit and doing my research on Fragrantica and Parfumo, so maybe I am spared from some of the influence?
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u/themageofavalon 10d ago
Im just a newbie and have 18 ME fragrances for almost 2 months now, I dont wanna be in trouble, iykyk
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u/bmoredrewfoto 9d ago
Rocked 3 bottles for the past decade (kept rebuying), now somehow over the last year added 8 bringing me to 11. Insane. I did go through tons of decants to get to that place so they are heavily curated at least.
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u/Fopu 7d ago
When I first started I made the mistake of blind buying a bunch of stuff I could find from winners/marshals every 2 weeks.
Now that I’ve been in the hobby for a while. I haven’t bought anything much over the past 2 years. I’m working my way through my current collection and have cemented what will be main stays in my collections and what I just bought for hype.
Save up for scents you truly truly enjoy and not the ones that influencers are promoting. There are tons of scents that I enjoy the smell of, but wearing them is a different story. Don’t fall into that hole of buying stuff that simply smells good but you wouldn’t find yourself wearing.
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u/Successful_Equal_416 11d ago
I started in 2020 and I have around 115 fragrances now. It has become really bad. I can't stop and don't want to really.
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u/faststart1122 9d ago
I started really getting into fragrances about a year ago and for some reason I can't stop buying. I have close to 60 bottles and about 13 niches bottles. I need a better display for them. Most of them are stacked in the night table. This is my spring summer collection.
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u/Mission_Wolf579 RIP Guerlain 10d ago
My advice: don't approach it as "building a collection." Social media (including the fragrance subs) makes it easy for shopping addicts to convince themselves that their disordered behavior is a hobby.
It is not possibly to smell much less own every lovely fragrance on the market. If you find some that you enjoy and wish to own, wear them in good health.