Best place to purchase fragrances...

[MrStayPuft]

Hi all!!

So this may have been covered before and if so, I apologize for the redundancy, but I'm curious as to where you folks purchase fragrances? Kolchak had suggested an online place to me (Kolchak, can you remind me?) at one point...but what about others...amazon? fragrance net.com? Sephora?

Or maybe B&M shops like Target, department stores or Perfumania? I'm on a budget so places that can offer a slight discount on MSRP are preferred but I like to make sure I'm getting the real thing...

Hope this yields some good discussion!

 

[Schad]

Online:
Luckyscent (the best)
The Perfume Shoppe
Sephora
Beauty Encounter

Online and BnM:
-Neiman Marcus for Creed and Tom Ford and Kurkdjian and Hermes
-Barney's for Malle and Lutens and Lartisan and many other niche
-Saks for Kilian and Bond No 9

Decants Are the way to go early to sample lots. This along w going to actual stores so you can sample for free.
Decants through this site (I've used Archerfire several times he is great), Crystal Flacon (got excellent serice from cbstarker and strifeknot).

 

[KarlMaldensNose]

I generally find Fragrancenet.com and FragranceX.com to have the best prices and an excellent selection. In addition to LuckyScent, MiN New York and Aedes de Venustas are very good for niche fragrances, both online and brick 'n' mortar.

 

[Indaco]

As the others have said, Luckyscent is awesome for niche frags (but you pay retail... you should be able to get free shipping). You can request a handful of free samples with each bottle purchase, which is a nice way to try some expensive fragrances. ParfumsRaffy.com is also pretty good, but I tend to go to Luckyscent first because of their selection.

Fragrancenet, Scented Monkey, and Amazon (both the previous two have storefronts here) have worked well for me for discounted designer scents. On Amazon, just be careful about affiliate sellers. Fragrancenet and Scented Monkey, as well as Beauty Encounter, come to mind as ones that have worked out well for me, but there are a lot of other affiliates there.

If you don't want to shell out money for a full bottle, decants are great. Basenotes has a splits forum where some established members split expensive or hard-to-locate scents. At Crystal Flacon, off the top of my head, I've had great transactions with Archerfire, Heperd, Strifeknot, Hasupk, Bigsly, cbstarker, Gerald (ships from Germany), and Blackkitty. The only person there I've not had a good transaction with was bbBD, who never responded to my email inquiry.

 

[rickboone1]

MiN New York

 

[KarlMaldensNose]

The only person there I've not had a good transaction with was bbBD, who never responded to my email inquiry.

Interesting. I've done one transaction with him and it was eventful. Like you said, communication was an issue. For you, nonexistent. For me, delayed... and this is after paying. On top of that, it took him well over a week to send my decants out... usual barrage of excuses. In fairness, he did included a decent bunch of extras to "make up" for his slacking. BUT, but, but... he then messed up my order be shorting me on a couple things. Also didn't use atomizers for 2ml orders, instead used vials with dip sticks.... ggggrrrrrrr!@!!! i hate those!! But he clearly states on his page that atomizers are used with no mention of vials. Maybe he changed this after my "suggestion", which he didn't take too kindly to. He was offended that I dare call him on what I perceived to be problems with his practices. He tried to sell me on the idea that absolutely nobody in the fragrance community uses atomizers for 2ml orders as it isn't cost effective. Hmmm, tell that to the upstanding Archerfire, YouTube's Cubby of Fragrancetalk, and any other number of decanters from whom I've received 2ml atomizers. Sorry, rant over. That guy really ticked me off, though. Please stay clear of this shadey character.

 

[Schad]

Thanks for the heads up. He never replied back to me when I inquired about a purchase a few weeks ago.

 

[Indaco]

Interesting. I've done one transaction with him and it was eventful. Like you said, communication was an issue. For you, nonexistent. For me, delayed... and this is after paying. On top of that, it took him well over a week to send my decants out... usual barrage of excuses. In fairness, he did included a decent bunch of extras to "make up" for his slacking. BUT, but, but... he then messed up my order be shorting me on a couple things. Also didn't use atomizers for 2ml orders, instead used vials with dip sticks.... ggggrrrrrrr!@!!! i hate those!! But he clearly states on his page that atomizers are used with no mention of vials. Maybe he changed this after my "suggestion", which he didn't take too kindly to. He was offended that I dare call him on what I perceived to be problems with his practices. He tried to sell me on the idea that absolutely nobody in the fragrance community uses atomizers for 2ml orders as it isn't cost effective. Hmmm, tell that to the upstanding Archerfire, YouTube's Cubby of Fragrancetalk, and any other number of decanters from whom I've received 2ml atomizers. Sorry, rant over. That guy really ticked me off, though. Please stay clear of this shadey character.

Wow, thanks for the heads up. One of the things I like about Surrender to Chance is that they do atomizers on 2ml samples. I only wanted to get decants of Fumerie Turque and Hinoki - I finally bought a bottle Fumerie Turque, and my interest in Hinoki is being edged out by less pricy Odin 07 Tanoke.

 

[mdevine]

For niche fragrances, I've had good results with First in Fragrance; http://www.ausliebezumduft.de/?___store=english&___from_store=german

The only drawback is that it has taken a couple of weeks for an order to arrive due to custom delays from Germany. The prives have been lower than Lucky Scent and I've also found them generous with samples.

Mike

 

[KarlMaldensNose]

For niche fragrances, I've had good results with First in Fragrance; http://www.ausliebezumduft.de/?___store=english&___from_store=german

The only drawback is that it has taken a couple of weeks for an order to arrive due to custom delays from Germany. The prives have been lower than Lucky Scent and I've also found them generous with samples.

Mike

Thanks, never heard of this place. I'm gonna give them a try for some samples. I just read on their page that they're between 1.5ml-2.5ml samples, which is a nice bump up from Lucky Scent's laughable 0.7ml vials. The prices are outrageous (10 euros for a sample and 330 euros for 100ml of Bond No. 9 New York Oud!!!!) but at least they offer Bond no. 9 at all, unlike LS. And New York Oud in particular is next to impossible to find at all here in North America, nevermind samples of it. Trade-offs... I can live with them.

 

[MrStayPuft]

Thank you, folks. I'll try several of these.

Pardon my ignorance, but decants...? I assume this is just a several mL vaporizer filled?

 

[DukeGrad]

Fragrance Net for many, nice prices.

Aedes for pure oils.SMN, Lorenzo Villoressi, Serge Lutens etc

Nice day
Jimmy

 

[insomniac]

I like Parfum1 as well.