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The Needs of the One.

post #1 of 27
6/16/10 at 3:13pm
Thread Starter 
Due to the constant reformulations and discontinuances I find myself compelled to hoard those fragrance that I can't live without. Just today I received another bottle of Vent Vert (1990 Becker Version) and Beau Cavalier. Am I the only one with this compulsion to preempt the fragrance industry's propensity to adversely affect my fragrance needs? I think how when the last drop of the last bottle of one of my favorite fragrances is gone that I should imagine myself as Hamlet looking upon the skull of Yorick. Alas, poor Yorick I knew thee well. Oh what melancholy may come of such tragedy.
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post #2 of 27
6/16/10 at 3:20pm
My name is Mimi Gardenia and I am also a God Awful fragrance hoarder.
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post #3 of 27
6/16/10 at 3:26pm
Thread Starter 
Mimi Gardenia; Bless you my child.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Mimi Gardenia View Post

My name is Mimi Gardenia and I am also a God Awful fragrance hoarder.
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post #4 of 27
6/16/10 at 3:37pm
Oh yes, I've been doing this for a number of years. especially citruses and mossy frags.
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post #5 of 27
6/16/10 at 5:51pm
N, when I saw your thread title, I was worried that Mitsouko was now 'telling you' to do stuff or something.

I have every concentration of and bottle style of Y ever made. That's ONE example. Of many.
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post #6 of 27
6/16/10 at 7:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hirch_duckfinder View Post

citruses and mossy frags.

They seem to be dropping like flies . . . sad to watch a creative industry implode. It's a bit like the shift from analog tape to digital . . . something is missing and somehow that indefinable magic we grew up with will be gone forever.
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post #7 of 27
6/16/10 at 8:16pm
I am such a hoarder of fragrances, goodness I am such a hoarder. For some reason I felt the need to own 6 back-up bottles of vintage Arpege and 5 of vintage Pavlova. Not to mention the 6 bottles of Fete, the 6 assorted bottles of L'air du Temps and Eau de Fleurs, also the Infini and Bellodgia...Nocturnes...Parfum Sacre...
Oh, it is just horrible to see what is becoming of the world of parfumery. Anyone who is desperately in adoration of a scent needs to maintain a supply for the future, we are living longer you know. If I may live to be past 110 years, I will need to smell nice.
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post #8 of 27
6/16/10 at 8:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hillaire View Post

N, when I saw your thread title, I was worried that Mitsouko was now 'telling you' to do stuff or something.

You mean your Mitsouko doesn't tell you what to do?

Shun the non-believer! Shun!!
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post #9 of 27
6/16/10 at 9:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brielle87 View Post

Oh, it is just horrible to see what is becoming of the world of parfumery. Anyone who is desperately in adoration of a scent needs to maintain a supply for the future, we are living longer you know. If I may live to be past 110 years, I will need to smell nice.

I agree and of course I love the kind of scents that are dying off..............
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post #10 of 27
6/16/10 at 10:01pm
Thread Starter 
It seems that the very best fragrances are the ones most endangered. Hoarding is simply a reaction to the folly of the fragrance industry by those of us whose passion for the fragrance art drives us to conserve what we can for the future. The real shame is that future generations of perfumnistas will never know the beauty of some of these classics as they fade into oblivion.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Mimi Gardenia View Post

I agree and of course I love the kind of scents that are dying off..............
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post #11 of 27
6/16/10 at 10:40pm
I honestly don't think it's "hoarding", and I have had this dicussion with my boyfriend, too. Whose collection is double mine and loaded with vintages.
I feel it has an element of connoisseurship, like wine-collecting does... but it also feels almost like a very "higher-purpose" thing; I feel impelled to acquire something of a library of great, deceased scents... for posterity and out of the truest sense of honor.
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post #12 of 27
6/16/10 at 11:46pm
The only real concerns I have are: running out of space (my cottage is tiny) and who will clean up if there's an earthquake. I know it won't be me because I'll be too busy crying and trying to sniff and save the remnants of my collection.
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post #13 of 27
6/17/10 at 8:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hillaire View Post

I honestly don't think it's "hoarding", and I have had this dicussion with my boyfriend, too. Whose collection is double mine and loaded with vintages.
I feel it has an element of connoisseurship, like wine-collecting does... but it also feels almost like a very "higher-purpose" thing; I feel impelled to acquire something of a library of great, deceased scents... for posterity and out of the truest sense of honor.

That is a good way of looking at things.
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post #14 of 27
6/17/10 at 8:33am
I'm with Hillaire on this - laying down a couple of bottles of a good vintage for posterity is applauded in wine circles . . . and knit_at_night, it's clearly time to move to solid ground, you'll just lose sleep otherwise

It's just occurred to me why wine collector types are so generally relaxed and affable . . . they KNOW that each release is finite, they ACCEPT that next year's will be different. Perhaps we - speaking for myself up until about 5 minutes ago - sort of EXPECT things to stay the same, to never change. Yet even without the oakmoss thing those perfumes relying on specific natural ingrdients (ones that are cultivated from the ground and require rainfall and sunshine and do not require volcanoes and hurricanes) do change from batch to batch don't they?

I feel strangely peaceful all of a sudden. Mind you, on the affability score, the wine collector types generally have lots of money to stock up on their favourite botles and they get to drink the stuff.
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post #15 of 27
6/17/10 at 9:19am
Yep, wine makes me affable too!
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post #16 of 27
6/17/10 at 9:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hillaire View Post

N, when I saw your thread title, I was worried that Mitsouko was now 'telling you' to do stuff or something.

I have every concentration of and bottle style of Y ever made. That's ONE example. Of many.

I have at least 4 different full bottles of Dioressence. They all smell totally different! The one that is most amazing is from the 60's (70's?) in a turquoise blue rubber over glass bottle assisted with CFC (sorry, ozone layer). I only need a tiny squirt, though, and I'm in heaven!
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post #17 of 27
6/17/10 at 11:34am
Whoa, there's an even better Dioressence?! I've got to track that down, I've got a bottle from the 70s-80s (I think, it's definitely not a new release) and it is unreal. I'm not a big fan of the oriental influenced fragrances but this stuff is so powerful and so complex it defies genre. Finding it has lead me to a seedy life of picking through back country antique stores in search of more artifacts from a better age.* The vintage perfumes are infinetly more compelling than there modern counterparts, if anyone hasn't dabbled in vintage perfume you really need to.

*(Highlight so far: a 90% full bottle of Coty's Chypre for a dollar!! Hard to date but it wasn't a first release but neither was it the cheaper looking last batch that came out)
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post #18 of 27
6/17/10 at 5:03pm
Only the last year and a half I started getting these backup-bottles of discontinued or reformulated favorites.
I was always a "user", but never really any collector.
My "excuse" for this is - they are going to vanish, and as mentioned - when Im 110 I need to smell good. But I had this nagging feeling it had something to do with passing 40 and general fear of the best things already being behind me and a some urge to hold on to them. How boring of me. I like Your answers much better! I don't buy old food, computers or such, but I love and buy "old" perfumes.
But what I also do - I regularly search for things on the net, look for good deals - and get relieved when I find any. Without buying. Its like an assurance that they are still "there" to get, even if they are not in my own wardrobe. Yet.
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post #19 of 27
6/17/10 at 5:19pm
These replies are making me feel better.
What Mr.Reasonable says about acceptance is also true- I think I need to learn acceptance re. discontinued and limited editions. Life is short.
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post #20 of 27
6/17/10 at 5:45pm
I have backup bottles of everything I love - unopened and packed away airtight! This reformulation business has me close to tears for the 'good old days' when we could poison ourselves at will!

Reine
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post #21 of 27
6/17/10 at 8:36pm
OK- I'll post an opposing view here.
Since I jusdt starting wearing perfume 10 months ago (yes, really), I haven't had time to collect. No matter, because my personality type abhors collecting anything. i was freaking out that 8 full bottles were in my collection so I just gave one away. (The rest are decants, i can handle that). 'im also have a short attention span, so if my Mtisouko runs out and I need to replace wiht a modern version who cares.

The only thing I worry about is that Caron and Guerlain will suffer from the influx of inferior products that might dilute their fanbase. If I see that my staples (Caron's urn parfums and the Guerlain classics) come under threat, yes, i may start collecting heavily at that point.
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post #22 of 27
6/17/10 at 8:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BayKAT View Post

The only thing I worry about is that Caron and Guerlain will suffer from the influx of inferior products that might dilute their fanbase. If I see that my staples (Caron's urn parfums and the Guerlain classics) come under threat, yes, i may start collecting heavily at that point.

Sweety, I hate to be the one to break it to you, since I have always been an avid cliente of Guerlain and Caron, but the two houses have been under siege for a good 10 years now. It is only in the past few years that people are starting to take notice, I guess they really figured they could cut costs and glide by on the names alone.
Such a tragedy to befall two of the greatest parfum houses ever.
Do try to hunt down older stock on ebay, it is well worth it.
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post #23 of 27
6/17/10 at 9:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brielle87 View Post

Sweety, I hate to be the one to break it to you, since I have always been an avid cliente of Guerlain and Caron, but the two houses have been under siege for a good 10 years now. It is only in the past few years that people are starting to take notice, I guess they really figured they could cut costs and glide by on the names alone.
Such a tragedy to befall two of the greatest parfum houses ever.
Do try to hunt down older stock on ebay, it is well worth it.

Totally with Brielle here. LVMH - the ruination of a damned good perfume house Guerlain. Caron I know less about but I'll take Brielle's word .
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post #24 of 27
6/18/10 at 8:25pm
Thread Starter 
IMO the Great Houses of fragrance are in decline due to poor stewardship and a lack of emphasis on the Art of Fragrance and quality ingredients needed to deliver genuine luxury rather than the illusion of luxury.
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post #25 of 27
6/19/10 at 8:16am
I too subscribe to the 'live & let live' school and am working to detach myself emotionally from material possessions. I'll leave the hoarding and collecting to our 'fragrance connoisseurs'. Instead of lamenting losses, I'm learning to look for beauty in life as I find it, fragrances included. Life is indeed too short. Perhaps that's part of its charms.
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post #26 of 27
6/26/10 at 10:30am
I'm hunt & stashing .I HATE falling for a scent and then no longer being able to satisfy that scent-craving any more. I will worry about stash size when my collection outgrows my dresser(including drawers)dimensions 48" tall,40" wide,19" deep+ the top for in-use/new accuisitions/ minis
Earthquakes aren't as common here but twisters are more frequently a hazard (Hmm if one ever totals the house I might be fragrancing the countryside! Asthmatics Beware!)
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post #27 of 27
7/18/10 at 8:17am
Speaking of..do you all think that Opium parfum bought from online discounters are more likely to be older stock, and therefore produced before the latest reformulation? I think my first bottle was around the year 2005, and I'd like to have an extra bottle or two around.

I have two (or three?- have to check) backup bottles of Jour de Fete, but still get slightly panicky every once in a while and think about ordering another bottle or two, or three...
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