Decant vs. Sample

When is a decant a decant and not a sample ? Is a decant always bottling ( which I thought it is...) from the original perfume bottle ?

I do not know, I was also wondering. I think, 0,1-2 ml must be sample, decant can be something around-above 5 ml...

Thanks Tar, I always thought that samples are manufactured by the brand for promotion and testing. So these are for me samples to test before buying a full bottle. And decants can be of different ml. because they are bottled from the original perfume bottle. Some of the decants are even less then 2 ml. but still.....please share your thoughts and opinion. I'm trying to insert a picture, but don't know how.

A decant is the insertion of a perfume/edt in a bottle of different ml. done by a private, never by the original company while a sample is a small phial or miniature with a few ml. inside for testing or collecting purposes. For obvious reasons, a sample will always be original while with a decant you can never be sure.

Exactly Byron75, That's what's my opinion aswell

Decants, never, have the same smell as that of the original fragrance. However, samples can be believed to be original. Moreover, the company never give away any decants themselves. So, it's better to stick to the samples.

That's worded quite strictly. In theory, you are right:
a) Oxygen changes a scent over time. However, that's true for any opened flacon, as each pump gets air into the body. Especially if decanted with a syringe, there is not much of a difference.
b) Smaller volumes of perfume change faster than bigger ones. However, a decant of e.g. 10ml won't be much different from bigger flacons over significant amount of time, especially if stored appropriately (rather dark glass than those white sprayer which also aren't completely tight) .
I have decants for years and cannot detect any difference in scent. Of course, it might be my nose But I'm convinced enough to blind-test that with someone else.

As for the naming sample vs decants, we had the same discussion in the German forum. It turned out that there are two opinions, which we couldn't really unify.
1) Sample = Original, decant = coming from the flacon (could be from a personal one or as a service in a perfume store)
2) Sample = small size, decant = same as above, but usually 5ml+
I personally prefer version 2, as I find that both in German and English language, it's more intuitive (sample = I want to try, no matter if it comes from my friend or the vendor).

I've never had any experiences with decants yet, but I agree that samples are for testing and, if made by the brand, especially for promotion. That is why some brands admit they made samples "thicker/more concentrated" than the actual bottles of the same fragrances (the version the consumer will purchase in the end), in order to "provide the tester a more intense experience of the same fragrance". I myself have noticed this in a lot of fragrances where the samples smelt considerably different than the purchased bottle-version, and I saw some people even going after a bunch of mini-flacons (like hunting for 10x 5ml) instead of just getting the usual 50ml-bottle and be done with it.
In this sense, I am not sure if a sample could always be regarded as closer to the 'original' than a decant of an actual bottle.

PS. But one thing I agree with everyone here, that samples will not have a minor quality than the full bottle product