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 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 

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 Nuit Noire

Montale Black Aoud

Montale Boise Vanille

Odin 04 Petrana

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 Chene

Serge Lutens Chergui

Serge Lutens Muscs Koublai Khan

Serge Lutens Un Lys

Tauer Perfumes Lonestar Memories

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 

La Via del Profumo Hindu Kush: My Side of the Mountain

This week I have been wearing a perfume called Hindu Kush from La Via del Profumo and thinking I should try to write a review that has some connection to its name, but as is often the case, that line of thinking has failed me. Hindu Kush refers to the extremely high-altitude mountain range that stretches between central Afghanistan and northern Pakistan—a sub-range of the Himalayas—and fittingly, this all-natural perfume smells of high-alpine air: green, arid and woody, with a spiciness that its perfumer, Abdes Salaam, describes as evocative of the bazaars of that region. I can envision the picture he has painted with his perfume, and writing about it as such would seem easy enough to do: my husband and I still have adventure travel catalogs that date to a time when we dreamed of hiking in places like Bhutan and Nepal. But perfumes often insist on getting personal—and this perfume stirs up memories instead of dreams. Memories of the Catskill Mountains of New York, and the surreal little town I lived in for the first six years that I was out of college and on my own; a town that had more cows than people when I moved there in 1984, but which was also shaped by the fact that it hovered north of New York City by less than a three-hour drive.

“Where city and country meet” was the description on the logo of the agricultural firm where I first worked, and though to look around the town one could only scoff at that remark, a peak around the edges would prove this to be true. If you wanted a little Catskill Mountain high, you didn’t have to look far; pot, cocaine and amphetamines seemed to be everywhere—something that shocked me at first, but which I would eventually shrug off as normal, which is what one does when everyone else is doing it. This meeting of city and country was evident in other ways, too: on weekends, our local watering holes swelled with out-of-towners looking to escape the Metropolis or their suburban lives in New Jersey—to repair to their vacation homes or cabins in this area they referred to as “Upstate,” even though we weren’t technically that far “up.” But when Monday came, the city slickers disappeared and the local population, as one might expect, was of a distinctly different mix. In a rural town without much in the way of jobs, young people didn’t stick around, and the ones that did either accepted low-paying jobs in factories or high-paying ones in construction. To no small degree, the locals were a graying population of folk who liked bingo, bowling and simple pleasures. »Click here to read article in its entirety