PERFUME BUYING MORATORIUM

As the spring comes to an end, I have made a vow not buy any more perfumes or perfume samples until the middle of August, at the very earliest. It’s not only the need for economy during the lean summer season of the academic year, it’s also that I have such a huge stash of unsampled things that it would be absurd to add to it at this time.

As a perfume maker, I can always rationalize buying samples so that I can make sure I’m not duplicating anything that’s already on the market, but the lure of “needing” to try everything is much too seductive. Every time one of those special offers from Lucky Scent or the Perfumed Court shows up in my e-mail box, I fall for it, hook, line and sinker. Every time I read about a new and interesting release I go looking for a sample of it. At least it’s not full bottles.

I’ve also tried to buy everything I could conceivably need for perfume-making before summer starts, but perfume materials are every bit as seductive as ready-made perfumes, maybe more so because they have so many more possibilities. However, the buying moratorium on raw materials is only a partial one, trying not to buy things that aren’t absolutely “necessary”, whatever that means.

The good thing is that I’ve probably forgotten what I have in all those boxes of samples that I have stashed in my closet (the photo only shows one of several stacks), so pulling them out will be almost good as receiving one of those exciting padded envelopes in the mail. I may even review some of them here.