Is my collection ever going to feel complete?

You seem to know your tastes well enough to not need any advice from me. You'll know there is something missing from your drobe the minute you don't want to wear anything in it

I wanted to address the issue of a fragrance collection feeling complete. I had this idea - that there was some amount of fragrance that is "enough" and I would know when I got to it. I tried to guess how much is "enough" and limit my collection to that number. Well, let me tell you - that number went from 6 to 12 to 20 and I now have 22 or 23 bottles. I don't think there is a limit. It's great that you pared down from 40 to 20. Maybe you have now determined that 40 is too much for you.

As for content rather than quantity - I had this idea that there are certain bases that need to be covered for this "complete" collection. You need a few office scents, a few evening scents, 1 or 2 suit scents, etc, etc. Then the summer/winter divide doubled all those numbers. Then I started looking at things from a fragrance familiy perspective. Should I own something mossy? Should I have a gourmand? Maybe I need a few classics?

Luckily, I'm over all that stuff now. Does that mean my collection feels complete? Not at all - but I think I have learned how and why to add and subtract from it. I don't really WANT my drobe to become static, but I also don't want it to grow out of control.

To bring things back around to my original point - you know you need to add something to your drobe when you want something that you don't have. I don't think there is anything you "should" have.

I think the only time your fragrance wardrobe will really be complete is when you have lost your passion for fragrances or are dead. That being said, it sounds like you have gone through dramatic shift in your wardrobe and are now in for a long period of slower evolution of your wardrobe.

There are a lot of factors which will drive the evolution of your wardrobe, some external such as:

- Change in styles.
- Change in fragrance technology
- New Fragrances Coming Out
- Old Fragrances which are new to you

There will also be factors internal to you such as:

- Getting older. What works in your 20's may not work in your 40's
- Change in Living Situtation. Single looking for dates vs. in a stable relationship
- Evolution of taste. I've found that my taste in fragrances along with many other things has evolved toward the richer, the more complex. I'm less swayed by the latest fashon and more inclined to go my own way. You see this a lot on Basenotes where the newer people are going for the more popular fragrances where as the people who have been around longer are collecting more of the nitch/artisan fragrances.

In a lot of ways I'm getting to the same point you are. I first ran across Basenote early this year and the knowledge and options that it has provided resulted in a major reworking of my fragrance wardrobe. At this point that I'm very happy with it and don't see major changes any time soon. Yes, there are a few that I'm still looking to dump but in general I feel that I'm got a rich, complex and diverse wardrobe of about 15 fragrances which meets my needs, brings me a great deal of joy and still fits on my shelf!!! But am I done looking or refining it, certainly no.

I'm still waiting to pick up that one fragrance bottle that i can stare at and finally say, "You complete me."

I have around 80 bottles and it still doesn't feel complete. Only guilting myself helps keeps the number hovering around 80 bottles. I'm not sure I could get rid of more than 10 bottles if forced to. At this point I feel like they are my children and how do you pick which kids to put up for adoption?

After buying Rive Gauche, I feel my arsenal is now complete. Since then, I have no burning desire to buy any more frags. It kind of helps that this year has not been kind in terms of quality releases. Burberry London is nice but I'm in no rush to buy it. So, consider me satisfied, satiated and set. At least until 2007!

I'll respond in two parts:

With regards to the initial post and the idea of 'completing' it... I think your best bet is finding people with similar wardrobes and seeing what they have that you don't. I didn't initially respond to this thread because it's obvious from your list that we have very different tastes.

To what 'completing a wardrobe' means, I think the reason we're on a system like this is that that is very open-ended. My experience is very much like FatTony's. I think there's a post of mine on here talking about how I thought I would stop at around 30 fragrances (full 50 or 100mL bottles). I'm at 40 right now. I'd break it into two meanings: sufficient - that is, you never have a time where you say "I have nothing to wear" and really mean it (not just griping about how nothing is calling out to you) and complete, as in you could go the rest of your life without buying another bottle/decant. I think I'm at a sufficient wardrobe.. I've actually held off samples and buys for about two months. Parallel to my book-buying, I have gotten to the point where I am budgeting my acquisitions. Next month I plan to acquire Divine - L'Homme Sage (potential signature) and Tauer - L'Air du Desert Marocain. I'll probably hold off after that until December when I'll either get some D&Gs or get contacts....

I think feeling happy or satisfied with your collection is more important than feeling like it's "complete". Is yours complete? I don't think so. I don't think any of ours are, which is a lot of the reason we are here on Basenotes. I think you still have many future favorites to find. It's hard for me to comment much further, because we clearly have extremely different taste in frags. Of my very favorite scents, the only one you have is Angel Men. You have lots of good ones though, and as long as you're happy, then that's good.