Weekly Scent Discussion #19: Bottle or Decant? Pros and Cons

My last post in discussion #18 got me thinking. Perhaps I should consider making easy to store decants for many of the scents that I don't wear a lot and the sell or trade the bottle. I have more perfume that I will ever use and I need to stop being such a pack rat. There are of course some bottles that I am attached too (all my Lolita Lempicka for example). But there are a bunch that I just own because I like the scent, but not enough to wear all the time. The main pro of doing this would be to free up space. Do you think the scents decanted off would turn faster or slower than the full bottle? Part of me says slower because there is less air in a full decanted bottle than in a half bottle but experience tells me minis turn more often than Full Bottles. Hmm.

What are your thoughts? Do you think a decant collection would be as satisfying as my current Full bottle collection? Will the decants turn faster?

I don't know from experience but the few I have decanted myself into 5ml bottles have changed .

It could be because spraying into a funnel does add a lot of air into the liquid; another problem could be making sure that not only the bottles but the atmosphere is clean.

By my experience decanted perfumes last less long, be they professionally decanted from a place like The Perfumed Court, or by myself using clean decanting supplies. It may have to do with the exposure to air and the general "handling". Are the decants stored "cool and dark" like full bottles usually are ? Perhaps not, because they are in use ... in the handbag or other open places.

I would never purposely shrink my collection into just decants. It took too long to put it together, like a piece of art. There is pleasure to hold a nice bottle and spray lovingly.

Very good points on the propensity for the decants to turn faster than the Full Bottles.

You are right, Pipette. There is just something wonderful about holding the bottle and feeling the weight of it as you spritz. You ladies have convinced me. It's folly to shrink to decants.

You write good. (? correctly - you write well ?) Anyhoo, you always bring interesting topics to this Forum and initiate fresh discussions. Agree or not, there is food for thought.

I get a decant if the full bottle is just too expensive, or there are no samples easily available; otherwise, it's full bottle time. However, I do store the decant "cool and dark" in my fragrance cabinet along with my bottles. I can't say that my decants go bad any faster than my bottles. Then again, I usually use up my decants a lot faster.

It's totally worth investigating how much you care about each fragrance. If there's some you don't love much, a decant may be better. It saves space that you can use for new fragrances.