Why do people collect vintage or old perfumes?

[MidlifeFashionPrincess]

Hello friends,

Can someone please help me understand vintage or even just kind of older perfumes? I have been told my whole life that perfumes loose their scent after 2 or 3 years, but I have some Chanel No. 5 EDT that is at least 5 years old and an EDP that is much older and they are still fine as far as I can tell. I wear them regularly and the dry down is fine (IMHO).

Throughout my entire childhood and youth I had a small bottle of cheap perfume that I received as a gift (I assume it was cheap, but now that I think about it, I have no idea). I never used it because I was the weird kid who could never eat the face of the chocolate Easter bunny or use the perfume that I loved, but I very much enjoyed sniffing it through the years. It never lost its lovely scent.

However, I see decades old perfumes for sale that fetch quite a price.

Super Dacob recently unboxed a Chanel 5 from the 1960s that wowed him. It was still sealed, so maybe that was why it still was fresh, but he is not alone. eBay is filled with all sorts of partially used high end perfumes and people pay good money for them.

Just for clarity, i do understand that formulas change and that's why someone would want an older bottle, but that doesn't help my wee little brain. If the wonderful vintage formula is too old, doesn't it cease to smell like the wonderful vintage formula making the chase moot? See what I mean?

What's the deal?

Did any of you ever listen to Click and Clack, the car guys? One of them had a junky old car and he hadn't changed the oil for decades to prove that old oil did not actually harm car engines (I still change mine; I'll never test that theory), but is it the same with perfumes? Do they maybe not really go sour as much as people seem to think?

Looking for all sorts of inputs here. I've been curious about this for some time.

Thanks!

 

[maris.crane]

Personally: I don’t think I’d buy an old perfume to wear, but I might buy it to have on display. I bought a vintage gold plated perfume bottle I keep on display on my nightstand.

It takes a while for me to get through a perfume and have never had one go stale after 2-3 years. Could be storage, could be luck.

 

[pursekitten]

I loved listening to Click and Clack! And I'm not even a motor head. lol

I'm just as confused about vintage perfume fetching high-end prices. The bottles can be beautiful, but scents remaining in tact could just be luck. I bought a vintage gold-plated and enamel powder compact with unused powder still inside because it looked lovely and smelled wonderful. Yet, actually using any vintage perfume or makeup could be anywhere from disappointing to dangerous. Imagine the rashes or other skin reactions!

Following this thread to try and understand the vintage perfume hobby too.

 

[JenJBS]

I wonder if perfume companies said it goes bad in two or three years to get people to throw it out and buy more new perfume? Money making scheme.
I think how it's stored is a major factor. Kept in a cool, dark place it could easily last two or three decades. Kept on a vanity in front of a window where it gets sun on it every day, and in a hot environment, it might go bad in a two or three years. I know sunlight and temperature can degrade perfumes. Then, for legal reasons, the company would likely publish the worst case scenario.
What notes in the perfume are in it might also be an issue. It makes sense that some notes might go bad faster than others.

 

[Purses & Perfumes]

Excellent question, MidlifeFashionPrincess! And a timely one from my perspective, since I have been on a vintage perfume phase this summer. For me, there were a few different reasons why I began to purchase vintage fragrances. The first is nostalgia. I remembered the bottles of Miss Dior, Hermes Caleche parfum (with the tiny oval sticker) and Rochas Femme parfum bottles on my mom's dresser, and although I've had newer versions, I nonetheless wanted those exact vintage bottles, more so for sentimental reasons.

The second reason stems from my interest in perfumery. While I grew up around family members who wore some of the vintage classics, I myself did not actually use very many of them, other than a few vintage bottles that were handed down or gifted to me, and were mostly finished a long time ago. So, I really wanted to smell the classics of perfumery -- the benchmark fragrances, the legends in perfumery -- composed by great perfumers, preferably in their original compositions. Some of them I was smelling for the first time; with some others, I just wanted to refresh my memory. Perhaps a little bit of a collector mentality kicked in as well, since I did not just want to order vintage samples. I actually wanted the gorgeous original bottles.

But for me, it's not just about displaying a pretty bottle on the dresser. I usually purchase to wear the perfume, and this brings me to the all important question of "how vintage" is your vintage bottle. While there are collectors who wear deep vintage scents from 1960 and earlier, (and many of them are in great condition), I chose to focus mostly on trying to procure scents from the eighties and nineties, basically before restrictions were brought in on the usage of various key perfume notes, but also not too vintage, in an effort to obtain perfume that is still in great condition. I do have a few older bottles including a No. 5 extrait that's probably from before 1960, and smells fabulous, but most of my vintage acquisitions are from the seventies, eighties, and a few from the nineties.

Just for clarity, i do understand that formulas change and that's why someone would want an older bottle, but that doesn't help my wee little brain. If the wonderful vintage formula is too old, doesn't it cease to smell like the wonderful vintage formula making the chase moot? See what I mean?

Lots of people pursue vintage versions of their favorite scent precisely because the formula was changed and it no longer smells like the scent they were accustomed to. @JenJBS has already talked about age and shelf life, so I will not go into that in the interests of keeping this reply short (Yes, I know I have already gone on at some length, LOL).
I have also sought older versions because of the change in formulations. An example is Chanel No. 19. About a decade ago, I sprayed some from an older tester in the store and loved the scent. I even got a small decant from the SA that day and used it up happily. But when I went to purchase the scent, the new bottle I brought home just smelled different. I couldn't pin it down, but it was not the version I fell in love with. The differences were there. So I began researching, and was finally able to figure out and purchase the older formulation that I wanted. To answer your question above, the vintage formula in this instance was not too old and it definitely had not ceased to smell like the wonderful vintage formula, so the search in this instance had a very satisfactory outcome for me. That said, buying vintage scents is a bit of a gamble. There is always the risk that even a nineties bottle could have gone bad. But a lot of these scents have also held up very well over the years.

And now, since I have waxed eloquent for several paragraphs, I will wind down and hope that some of the other fragrance lovers will chime in. I also hope this has helped provide some answers. I should also add that a large part of my collection is not vintage. I also enjoy current fragrances, but I am very happy with my vintage additions.

 

[BigPurseSue]

I'll second the points that Purses & Perfumes made. Perfume-makers frequently reformulate scents (sadly). And while many scents are not stable over time, many do retain their original crispness and joie de vivre. For example, DH gave me a bottle of classic Chloe during the '80s when we were dating. It was a very strong scent, very heady, very '80s. I loved it, though I used only part of the bottle. A few years later he gave me another bottle of Chloe. This was in the '90s. It smelled very different from the bottle from '80s, not so strong, not so over-powering. Something was missing. Still nice though. I didn't use much of it because it seemed like the style of fragrances had moved on. Both bottles sat in my dresser drawer in the dark for many years. Not so long ago I took them from the drawer. The first spritz from the '90s bottle seemed to have turned, maybe because the perfume was sitting in that plastic tube for years. But the next spritzes were the Chloe I remembered. Same for the perfume from the '80s bottle. Same heady Chloe. I see there are Chloe collectors searching online for the different vintages. Not going to give mine up though. They remind me of DH and the good times we shared when we were young, a very special time in our lives. I can definitely understand the allure of searching out fragrances from special times in your life or special people. Fragrances are very ephemeral but sometimes a whiff of a few familiar notes is enough to bring back memories in a potent way.

 

[MidlifeFashionPrincess]

Wow! Purses & Perfume and BigPurseSue, your responses are wonderful, thank you! I will have to come back and read them more deeply.

I've been looking on eBay and there are many vintage bottles from Japan and the Russian federation that trouble me. They often state the exact year of production. I don't know if that's possible. And some of those only have few photos. I bet there are a lot of fakes out there on eBay. Can someone point me to a good guide that will help me? I don't know anyone authenticates parfum/perfume (I don't know which to use), here on ePF.

I am very excited to give an old bottle or two a try. I just need to find the right bottle.

Also, what the heck with Opium? I wore that in my 20s and thought I'd try to find some. It's so expensive!

 

[Purses & Perfumes]

@BigPurseSue, good to know that your Chloe bottles are in great shape, and enjoyed reading about the memories linked to the perfume.

@MidlifeFashionPrincess, I have only purchased from sellers based in the US. I also prefer sellers who have been around a few years and have some selling history so I can read feedback over a period of time. Regarding guides to dating bottles, there is Raiders of the Lost Scent, which is a good resource. I would google "dating Chanel or Guerlain bottles" and these guides come up. It all depends on which fragrance you are seeking. Reading reviews of the perfume you are seeking on perfume websites and blogs is also helpful since some of them have pictures posted and some reviews are more detailed, giving information pertaining to bottle styles and good formulations vs mediocre ones.

Regarding Opium, there is still a fair amount of availability. If you search for vintage YSL Opium in the search bar it will pull up a variety of options. Usually, full bottles in boxes are more expensive than partial spray bottles or unboxed perfumes. It helps if you have already smelled or sampled the perfume you are buying because you will be able to tell if something is off, based on the smell.
I will think about this a bit more and add some more suggestions as they occur to me. Good luck in your quest for vintage perfume!

 

[ultravisitor]

If the wonderful vintage formula is too old, doesn't it cease to smell like the wonderful vintage formula making the chase moot? See what I mean?

Not necessarily. I have 30+ year old bottles of Chanel Egoiste that I bought way back in the day and they're fine.

Anybody saying that perfumes lose their scent after two or three years is full of ****. Companies only say that to make sure you buy more.

 

[MidlifeFashionPrincess]

I bought and received a tiny bottle of Chanel 5 since posting this. It was half empty and very inexpensive. The 14 ml bottle is as divine as the parfum.

It is entirely different from my EDT or EDP. I love it. One thing though, I find it very faint after dry down. Is that likely because I am not used to using pure parfum and maybe that is to be expected, or due to its age (questioning not that it looses it's scent, but rather it's strength), or maybe my skin?

Any ideas?

 

[ultravisitor]

It is entirely different from my EDT or EDP. I love it. One thing though, I find it very faint after dry down. Is that likely because I am not used to using pure parfum and maybe that is to be expected, or due to its age (questioning not that it looses it's scent, but rather it's strength), or maybe my skin?

A pure parfum will wear a lot closer to the skin than an EdT or EdP. It's not going to project a lot.

 

[jewel_ly]

My favourite old perfume I always love to wear is Revlon Fire and Ice Cool, not the yellow one. It's mostly out of stock, I hope they continue making it. I agree with nostalgia to an extent as "purses and perfumes" above noted. The smell rekindles lot of the memories.

 

[880]

I’d rather buy a perfume as close to the original formulation as possible. Pre IFRA regulation changes that disallowed the use of accords that were deemed allergens you could get a hint of an older perfume by looking at the ingredient list. No chemical names, just fragrance and water. ive Purchased some amazing deadstock sealed bottles (sometimes you can also tell by looking at the date of first release and matching the Btitle designs. i also enjoy reading fragrance blogs like boisetjasmin and others for info on fragrance history ans perfumers. Note: while vintage AVON has always intrigued me, every bottle I’ve purchased has been irredeemably awful most likely bc people liked to display the bottles in the sun. I’ve had the most success with vintage sealed extrait from Caron and Guerlain, but YMMV

Note: every sealed bottle of Floris Malmaison has been perfect, spicy carnation, amazing, even from clearly different time periods (vastly different bottle designs).

once you start collecting, you can also track fragrances by perfumer, for example, I love ropion who did several gorgeous fragrances for Frederic Malle

 

[QuelleFromage]

I wear vintage Vent Vert a lot. I have a bottle from the 60s that smells amazing. Maybe it's the way scents were formulated back then? Either way, Vent Vert has been changed so many times, and it's an important fragrance in the history of scent, so it's fun to try finding it in good condition.

 

[_Moravia_]

There have been some great replies to this thread on posters' various reasons for collecting vintage perfumes and I will add my perspective for collecting them. I have a niche interest in collecting antique Lalique perfume bottles - while it would be a boon to find them filled with scent and sealed, it's close to impossible to do so.

For Lalique, the desirability really runs to the perfume bottles themselves and antique ones can run in the thousands (depending on model, age and condition). Lalique still exists to this day and are still making new perfume bottles and you'll find there are collectors of the old antique versions, the newer ones and both. All of this is to say that there are different reasons for collecting vintage perfumes and it's not always just for the perfume that they contain.