Photo of decant vials & bottles.  Click here to view larger version.

CURRENT SCENTS IN MY COLLECTION

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Amouage Epic Woman

Amouage Gold (ladies)

Amouage Jubilation 25

Amouage Lyric Woman

Amouage Opus I

Amouage Ubar

Byredo Green

Caron Parfum Sacre
 
Caron Tabac Blond

Caron Yatagan

Cartier IV: L'Heure Fougueuse

Chanel Chance

Chanel Coromandel

Chanel Egoiste

Chanel No. 22

Coty Chypre
  (Vintage 1970s)

Creed Fleurs De Bulgarie

Deneuve

Donna Karan Black Cashmere

Estee Lauder Private Collection

Frederic Malle Bigarade Concentree

Frederic Malle Carnal Flower

Frederic Malle Geranium Pour Monsieur

Geoffrey Beene Grey Flannel

Gucci L'Arte di Gucci

Hermes 24, Faubourg

Hermes Eau Des Merveilles

Hermes Hiris 

Honoré des Prés Vamp à NY

Jean Desprez Bal A Versailles

Jean Patou 1000

Jil Sander No. 4

L'Artisan Parfumeur Nuit de Tubereuse

L'Artisan Parfumeur Tea for Two

Maison Francis Kurkdjian Absolue Pour le Soir

Molinard Habanita

Mona Di Orio Les Nombres d'Or Vanille

Montale Black Aoud

Montale Boise Vanille

Odin 04 Petrana

Parfumerie Generale Un Crime Exotique

Parfums de Nicolai Sacrebleu

Parfums Delrae Amoureuse

Pascal Morabito Or Black

Profumum Roma Acqua Viva

Profumum Roma D'Ambrosia

Robert Piguet Fracas

Robert Piguet Visa

Serge Lutens Arabie

Serge Lutens Borneo 1834

Serge Lutens Chene

Serge Lutens Chergui

Serge Lutens Muscs Koublai Khan

Serge Lutens Un Lys

Serge Lutens Vetiver Oriental

Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb

What Is A Decant? 
Decanting is a method of transferring the contents of a larger container into a smaller one.  A fragrance is decanted from its original manufacturer’s bottle into either a small glass sample vial or atomizer bottles of various sizes by one of several methods: either by transferring with a sterile pipette, or by pouring the perfume through a small metal funnel, or often by directly spraying the contents into the smaller container. Each fragrance is freshly decanted just prior to shipping or delivery.

Why Decant? 
The reasons are many: it allows perfume aficionados to sample scents that aren't available in their area, or to "test drive" a fragrance and prolong the purchase of a full bottle until they know whether it clicks with them.  Decanting allows a person to buy a small quantity of a pricey perfume that is otherwise unaffordable – and it’s great for the person who only wants, say, a quarter-ounce of a fragrance rather than a huge amount.  For the truly scent-obsessed, decants make it affordable to have an entire perfume wardrobe and to enjoy sniffing a little bit of everything!

Image: 5-ml glass spray decant bottle (left side of photo) along with 1.5 ml spray sample vials (foreground and left) and packaging materials, including gift bag. Original manufacturer's bottles are in the background (these are the bottles I decant from). Photo by Suzanne Keller.

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Read the latest in Suzanne’s Perfume Journal 

April Aromatics Bohemian Spice: A Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Spice was my parfum de jour yesterday, and it was the perfect spice scent to wear on a day when summer arrived early. There is a lot of patchouli in Bohemian Spice—and given the name and the fact that this is an all-natural perfume, one might assume it to have a hippie bent (by which I mean a crunchy, head-shop smell) when nothing could be further from the truth. There is no funkiness whatsoever to fear from Bohemian Spice, not even while wearing it in a swelter. This is a most elegant perfume—a perfume that is quietly complex and textural, featuring a lean and lightly camphorous patchouli accord that makes up its core, as well as a dusting of gingery spices intermingled with orange; a weathered-smelling wood accord that draws heavily on cedar; a quiet spiral of frankincense; and a lightly vanillic and powdery amber base. It’s a perfume that makes light work out of what I think of as traditionally heavy notes: Bohemian Spice floats on my skin, and though it has a gorgeous detectable sillage that leans slightly towards the masculine side, it smells carefree and easy-going in a way we don’t always equate with masculine scents. To my mind, a bohemian is someone who has a bit of the drifter in them—someone who knows how to travel light and live life in an unencumbered manner—and that’s how Bohemian Spice strikes me. It has enough heft to let me know I’m wearing a gorgeous scent, but there is a sheerness to its formulation that lends it a relaxed sensibility. A dreamy and effortless affair, it is—and yet this bohemian doesn’t drift away altogether and evaporate into thin air. Like all of the perfumes I’ve tried from the April Aromatics line, Bohemian Spice has impressive longevity on the skin and provides many, many hours of scented pleasure.

Wearing it yesterday in the heat, it stirred a specific memory (a distant memory that remains fresh despite thirty years that have passed) of spending time with my college boyfriend at his family’s vacation home in Cape Cod. My college years are what I consider the bohemian years of my life—not because I was the boho type, but because it was a period that afforded me much freedom—and there was a particular week I spent with my boyfriend and his family in Cape Cod, right before the start of our senior year, that I’ve catalogued in my mind as being symbolic of that time. It wasn’t any “Born to Be Wild” kind of experience at all—just a moment when a curtain on the stage of Real Life parted long enough for me to step into a charmed world that was the epitome of bliss and freedom—a vacation in the truest sense of the word.  »Click to read article in its entirety