Bottle Splitting

Originally Posted by kbe

I received this in letter form yesterday, postmaked "Folsom Prison", with a request to post it in the appropriate thread on Basenotes. Apparently the sender, who never identified himself to me, had done decant business with me 'back in the day' :

I post this for the edification of my fellow Basenoters~....
kbe

Originally Posted by kbe

... after spending 4 months in Folsom Prison for selling Decants on eBay...

Originally Posted by kbe

I received this in letter form yesterday, postmaked "Folsom Prison", with a request to post it in the appropriate thread on Basenotes. Apparently the sender, who never identified himself to me, had done decant business with me 'back in the day' :

I post this for the edification of my fellow Basenoters~
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Call me "Itchmale".

And I am a Decantaholic. My real name I will withhold to protect the innocent. This is my story:

Part of my probation after spending 4 months in Folsom Prison for selling Decants on eBay is to give counsel those who think they can circumvent the Fragrance Industry Protective laws. I am concerned at the undercurrent of possible illicit decanting, guised as 'bottle splitting' , on e-sites such as Basenotes.

I started small as you are now starting, splitting a bottle of Axe with my brother, in whose van I was living. Soon I was decanting and splitting bottles with everyone and anyone. I couldn't stop. Behind restaurants,in bathrooms and in public malls, with bellboys and senators, I conducted furtive and clandestine deals on the fly at major intersection stop lights in medium size cities across this great nation of ours. (I recalled your name and address because no one else but you had ever been a repeat buyer of decants of Guerlain's underground frag "Icky")

I began selling my illicit wares on e-sites such as eBay and Amazon under the guise of such colorful names as ScrewTop and Madamizer. I was knowingly bringing the entire fragrance industry to their knees, costing them a bundle in lost new sales, and I was loving it. "They" (eBay?) even sent an asnomic hit-woman to 'take me out' with a public superspritzing from a specially prepared, noxious 10ml spray bottle of Britney Spears "Pantyless" (unreleased) but after the superspritzing one thing led to another and we ended up co-habitating in my brothers van as live-in lovers. My Brother and his lover graciously moved to the back seat.

Please, gentle readers, do not follow my path to perdition. Stop this highly addictive and patently insane 'bottle swapping' now, before it leads to hard core decanting, as it did to me, and even more importently, STOP, before you piss off eBay.

I had no shame. I am a Decantaholic.

Respectfully,

"Itchmale"

PS: (Please find a way to post this on Basenotes? Thanking you in advance with the enclosed 5ml roll-on decant of "Squeeze" by Sun Maid Raisin Company)

"My Decant List"

__________________________________________________ ________________________


I present the above without comment, unabridged and exactly as I received it.

kbe

Originally Posted by musse

Hilarious! This should be "sticky" on the market place!!!

Now, how about purse sprays?
I guess it´s ok to lend your sister/friend/neighbor/whoever your bottle of Chanel no 19 for some time. To show her/his gratitude, this person lets you borrow her/his Dior Poison for the same period of time, and everything is fine. After a while you both decide that the scent you borrowed was better than the one you lent, so you both agree on keeping things the way they are.
But what if both you and your friend had these frags in purse sprays? That would be swapping decants, alas illegal, wouldn´t it?

I really can´t see how bottle splitting is different than decanting, btw.

Originally Posted by Clemmie

But why is it illegal? It's not like you're passing it off as something else. I don't get it.

Originally Posted by shadesofbleu

I don't think it's illegal but it is sort of flirting with the Basenotes rules of not allowing sales or trades of decants ... I would be interested in what Grant's interpretations are about posting notices about bottle splitting, but I would think that anything done in the privacy of PMs between consenting Basenoters are ok

Originally Posted by kbe

Please note the 'Decantable" tab in your Basenotes Wardrobe.

My own personal interpretation is that swapping or giving someone else some of your fragrance, not selling it, is acceptable. I will stand corrected if wrong in this interpretation.

Originally Posted by shadesofbleu


This is the posting that Grant first made:
"From Sunday 15th April 2007, Members will no longer be able to list decants in their items for swap or sale. Only manufacturer's standard bottles will be permitted.

After this date, any post selling/trading decants will be deleted in their entirety."

And then a few posts later, Grant elaborated a little. This is just a snippet pertaining to sharing:
"Getting a decant is a great way to try a fragrance you are considering buying. Members are still able to list fragrances they are willing to share with others in their wardrobes."

Please don't think I'm arguing about this. I'm as confused as anyone as to how this pertains to advertising a bottle split.

Originally Posted by kbe

I think what is being implied is that what happens behind closed fragrance doors, and any sharing/deals or advertising deals involving decants and bottle splitting, that are not made public on Basenotes and are private contracts between individuals, are beyond the scope of any Basenotes attempt to control them.