When Good Perfume Goes Bad...

Note: This post started as sort of a little inside joke. I searched wikianswers looking for the answer to one of life's little puzzles, how to explain to my readers the exact smell of bad (as in spoiled) perfume. Despite the topic, I actually love the photo above- it seems so playful and sweet; really, you can just tell everything is completely lovely, smelling of roses and not at all like... rotten calendula flowers!

But yes, oddly that's exactly how perfume smells when it's turned rotten- like funky Calendula. You probably knew that already... don't I often complain right here on these pages about how the odor of marigolds can turn a perfectly good perfume bad? Now never mind that Calendula are actually pot marigolds, and not proper tagetes; there is a smell connection!

Calendula contains all sorts of awful sounding chemicals like flavonol glycosides, triterpene oligoglycosides, oleanane-type triterpene glycosides, saponins, and sesquiterpene glucosides. Yikes! Many other flowers have various terpene constituents as well.  A little reminisce of orangic chemistry reminds me that terpenes are very unstable. As they oxidize, rancid smelling substances are formed. Calendula already smells intensely sharp and herbaceous. Add some rancid terpenes and you're going to get something pretty awful smelling. 

Vitamin e is recommended to prevent essential flower oil from spoiling but it wouldn't do at all, popping those little capsules into our aging vintage perfumes, would it? How're you supposed to get them in there, for one thing?

No matter what causes the particular smell, it is peculiar. Sometimes perfumes go a bit flat, or smell musty, or loose their top, even their middle notes- all of that is or can be acceptable. The perfume will still be wearble or interesting or good, in degrees. But that certain air of death I'm referring to always smells the same. Fried- but not like scorched wood. It's a little more toxic, like chemicals burning or smoking wires. At least I've learned to pick it up quickly and surely at first whiff. Don't laugh. When I was first smelling many unfamiliar vintage perfumes and occasionally picking up this characteristic sourness, I wondered, "What is this terrible note?" But catching it on the breath of a dying Mitsouko, and comparing it to a healthy example, nailed the case down for me. 

Oddly this kind of sickness in perfumes is not as common as you might think. Out of say 1000 older bottles maybe only 10 or less will be affected. Or could be every perfume in a case. Depends. And it isn't associated strictly with age. The oldest perfumes seem 'nigh on to immune yet it happens to relatively young perfumes if conditions are right. Likewise dark color has nothing to do with it- but an off color (unlike others of similar age) merits further investigation. Exposure to light/heat, and repeated heating and cooling seems to be at the root of the problem, not- as is often stated- exposure to air which can actually be a cure of sorts.

I discovered that accidentally, leaving a turned perfume open over night to evaporate and checking it in the morning to find it had mellowed completely.  If you find the harsh odor seems to settle down as the perfume wears, you can probably save it by opening the fragrance up to the air to let it breathe.

I'd like to quote FiveoaksBouquet from a Perfume of Life discussion on the topic of checking out spoiled perfumes: "One thing: have you tried washing around the nozzle? Sometimes it's oxidized perfume collected around and in the nozzle that is bad and the juice in the bottle can still be good. If you haven't tried that, I would suggest it, before giving up completely and then spritz a few spritzes off to clear any residue. Perhaps after that the rest will be good."

Colonia, also in a thread from POL agrees: "Besides washing the spray nozzle, try spraying the fume several (8-10) times into the sink not only to clear the nozzle, but also to clear what is in the little plastic spray tube. With a non-spray bottle, try airing out the fragrance by leaving it open for a day or so to allow old fumes to evaporate off. Gently swish around the contents every few hours. Both of the above have salvaged older fragrances for me."

The ultimate test after trying all of the above is to give the 'fume a skin or fabric trial. If the taint is detectable to you, even faintly, are you willing to wear it? Like mildew odor on towels that were left a little damp in the drier over night, even a trace of it drives me crazy. Turned perfume is about as useful as salt that's lost it's savor.

Can you even toss something like that into the trash? Or shouldn't it really be burned? An environmental blog recommended that we simply leave our rotten perfume out in the open until most of it evaporates so then you can just recycle the glass and plastic parts. But if it just dissipates and settles into the air and fabrics of your home or yard how is that good? Yet another suggestion: just rinse it down the sink. Now you know that it's probably not good for our water supply - although it many not be any worse than all the other stuff that we pour down our sinks.  But please just don't pass it along to someone who will try to dump it on sell it to someone else. Like me (or you)...

Enough said!

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.

image: bibi lartigue On Our Honeymoom by jacques henri lartigue

image: Horizonherbs

image:smoking bottle by mother_flickr 

image: chypre-perfumes.blogspot.com

image: breathe minute dance.ohio-statedance.edu 

image: spray at pocketchange.com

image: boingboing.net

What to do with all that old perfume?

image: unknown source

Today is laundry day and the house smells like heaven- thanks to an old bottle of Habanita eau de cologne. It smelled alright but I just never wear it. Perhaps the top notes have burned off too much or perhaps it's just not my scent. In any case, I hate to throw perfume away- but I accumulate so much of the stuff! So what to do?

                                    image: a Source Parfumee in the village of Gourdon in Provence

Well, there was an unfortunate late night run in with a skunk this week... and quite a few of our old towels picked up the odor after we used them to blot our dogs (after washing them with the prescribed odor-eating mixture of hydrogen peroxide and baking soda.)

                                                                image: hprints.com
I washed the towels in Tide with Febreze to no avail- they came out of the machine as stinky as they went in. Then I got the idea to try something a little different. So I mixed the Habanita cologne with some water (about 1/2 the volume of the perfume) and it turned an even, milky white. I then added several tablespoons of this liquid to liquid Woolite and rewashed. The towles smelled good out of the wash but I was really impressed  when they came out of the drier as clean as ever but with a divine sweet smelling scent and no trace of skunk (or the heaviness you usually associate with Habanita).

Next week I think I'll try scenting something else via the wash... maybe a load of bedsheets.

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.

Is it Safe to Wear Old Perfume?

If you read down to the comments on my Chypre post, you will see a couple of my readers have asked some very good questions about vintage perfumes. So good, in fact, that I've decided to respond to those questions here in a separate post so more of you can share in the answers. Now for the disclaimer- I'm just sharing my own experiences and opinions; I do not recommend that anyone else should necessarily follow me! Use your own common sense and practice safety at all times.

OK, so let's get down to business. First, Alessandra asked about the safety of wearing vintage perfumes. The short answer is yes, it is safe to wear vintage perfumes.

Now for the long answer: it is safe, but only in as much as it is safe to wear any perfume. Skin can definitely become irritated by many different perfumes and other scented products, like soaps and creams, but that is regardless of the age of the product. I know that my skin can become irritated by a few perfumes, but they tend to be carnation-spicy scents (eugenol), chypres (oakmoss) and certain musk oils. The worst effects I've experienced amount to some slight burning sensations and in more extreme reactions, transient redness of the skin in the area where I applied. I've had problems when those scents are applied right after a shower or bath or in lavish amounts. I find the perfume in extrait or oil form can be especially problematic probably because the scent molecules are more concentrated in those formulas. I avoid applying over large areas, soft areas, untanned areas or along the insides of skin folds, or anywhere skin is often rubbed. But if one was actually to become allergic or chemically sensitive to a particular scent molecule or any scented product, old or new, the reactions could be quite severe. But I stress to you that for me it does not matter whether the product is old or new, just the particular ingredient.
On a tangentially related subject, I have read on many blogs the myth that perfumes expire quickly and must be discarded after a certain age. Well, I think that is just pure myth. Scents, especially fine scents, do change over time, just as fine wine or liquors change as they age. Certain scent molecules are more prominent in younger formulas, lending a boldness or brightness, while other notes are created and accumulate as things stew in their own juices. As some notes fade others emerge or become uncovered adding depth to the formula. So the character and color of a juice usually changes as it matures and ages.

As an industrial perfumer or any modern-day scent brander I can see where one would aim to capture a particular scent and set the scent profile in stone. In those cases, the formula might be designed specifically to be stable and consistent over time and from bottle to bottle as possible. It's fine for my Gain or Downey fabric softener but I reject that type of thinking in fine perfumery! I tend to think more like a vintner or gardener. You have to approach each harvest, each batch and each bottle of scent as it's own thing. You may know you prefer a certain type of wine or variety of flowers, but you probably also recognize that sometimes the scent or taste quality of these things are exceptional but sometimes, they are just OK. I say Carpe Diem provided you don't have to pay a premium for the bottle. The bottle or historical import of a presentation tends to impart most of the value in cases where vintage perfume bottles command premium prices. I am not a bottle collector, so I avoid those deals. But if you can manage to find a second hand bottle of perfume offered at a reasonable price, consider giving it a try. Because in the end, I've found that vintage perfume is a lot like life; things change, but mostly in predictable and agreeable ways.

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives