DeCANting or DeCANTing?

[Jbird45]

Hello all.

I have several aftershaves, and a few of them are in glass bottles. The ones that are in plastic bottles, mostly my clubman products, aqua velva classic, and old spice original, I have been told can be improved if transferred to a glass bottle.

My logic tells me that if a chemical leaches from the plastic that once it's in the liquid the damage is already done.

To those of you who have tried, in your experience, can this have a noticeable effect or can't you tell any difference at all?

If it does have an effect, is there any specific bottles I should use and where can I buy them?

 

[Tanuki]

Hey @Jbird45 , is this a quiet thread or what?!

I decant to picante sauce bottles a lot. Cholula is very convenient. We like it as a family, the labels soak off easily, and the restrictor is glass. Nice looking wooden top, too.

I also decant AS (and make badger blends) into small (2 oz?) brown glass eyedropper bottles. I bought two dozen on Amazon.

Decanting gives me more AS choices in the same footprint. The big bottles go into the cool, dim basement.

I really can't say that I notice a big difference. However, I decant generic witch hazel to glass and finally I can smell its distinctive scent. So I'm guessing the other decanting changes things, but I haven't put the effort into 'nosing' the difference.

 

[EclipseRedRing]

I found that Pinaud Clubman became positively unpleasant if left in the plastic bottle in which it is sold, so much so that it was unusable for me. Decanting into a glass bottle avoided the deterioration, but I am not aware that it could restore an already spoiled product. It is for this reason that I would not purchase Pinaud as it is sold in packaging that is not fit for purpose and which contaminates the product. No other aftershaves that I own which were sold in plastic bottles exhibit this tendency to spoil, I have only seen it with Pinaud Clubman.

 

[Crisp Rat]

I decided earlier today to decant some original Clubman and some VIBR into small glass bottles (liquor samples) and keep the remaining product in the plastic so I can do side-by-side comparisons. I will certainly post results, but obviously it will take some time.

 

[luvmysuper]

Not a chemist, can't tell you what happens with the stuff while in contact with plastic or if that contact makes a permanent change or not, but...

Exposing the liquid to oxygen and other atmospheric gases while being transferred from one bottle to another, perhaps it's the process of decanting itself that changes the scent?.

 

[Crisp Rat]

The experiment begins!
I cleaned the bottles thoroughly and made sure no residual scent remained of the original contents.
I will note these aftershaves are fairly new, but not brand new. So some of the deterioration people talk about may have started to occur, but probably not much.

 

[Jbird45]

Hey @Jbird45 , is this a quiet thread or what?!

I decant to picante sauce bottles a lot. Cholula is very convenient. We like it as a family, the labels soak off easily, and the restrictor is glass. Nice looking wooden top, too.

I also decant AS (and make badger blends) into small (2 oz?) brown glass eyedropper bottles. I bought two dozen on Amazon.

Decanting gives me more AS choices in the same footprint. The big bottles go into the cool, dim basement.

I really can't say that I notice a big difference. However, I decant generic witch hazel to glass and finally I can smell its distinctive scent. So I'm guessing the other decanting changes things, but I haven't put the effort into 'nosing' the difference.

It has been a quiet one. But I'm glad some people are chiming in!

As a lover of hot sauce, and Cholula, I have quite a few bottles I will be able to thoroughly wash and try. Thanks for the tip!!!

 

[Jbird45]

View attachment 1345423
The experiment begins!
I cleaned the bottles thoroughly and made sure no residual scent remained of the original contents.
I will note these aftershaves are fairly new, but not brand new. So some of the deterioration people talk about may have started to occur, but probably not much.

Looking forward to the results!

 

[EclipseRedRing]

I decided earlier today to decant some original Clubman and some VIBR into small glass bottles (liquor samples) and keep the remaining product in the plastic so I can do side-by-side comparisons. I will certainly post results, but obviously it will take some time.

My Pinaud Clubman became tainted within a few months of opening and storing it in the original plastic bottle so you should not have long to wait. It was just the smell in the bottle and the initial smell on application that was off, the powdery dry down a few minutes later was fine as far as I recall.

 

[Ron R]

Kind of accidently learned from a hospital plastic misting bottle containing a cleaning agent & wanted to put witch hazel into this mister bottle.
I put a little alcohol into it to clean it first, after dumping after rinsing it still left the cleaning scent agents that had leached into the plastic. I tried with witch hazel by filling it about 1/3 up and tried to use it and discovered the leached scent went into the witch hazel (not a pleasant scent)so I came to the conclusion that glass is superior to plastic because glass is inert and does not allow leaching of scents into the glass.
Use glass if possible because it is a lot superior & great perfumers is all they use because it retains the scent the manufactures want you to enjoy.
The only reason they went to plastic bottles because greedy ignorant cheap fragrance manufactures bottom line financially, they don't break easily and it reduces weight when transporting so saving money even if it does not work ideally as a container for fragrances. General public really don't know any better and keep pouring plastic leaching stuff on them and don't complain so they will not change until people stop buying it.(likely not to happen)

 

[Rocklock]

And yet my clubman after 5 years still smells the same in the original bottle.

 

[luvmysuper]

Someone once told me they opened a plastic bottle of Lilac Vegetal and the plastic had made it go off because it smelled like cat pee.
I didn't have the heart to tell them.

 

[hcoop112]

I will say 100% it changes it and removes that strange smell…when I first got them I sniffed them all and was about to come here and post about the strange smell then found a post talking about decanting into glass bottles…I tried it and low and behold it removes that smell 100% I would really advise you do…at least with the pinaud i can’t comment on the rest

 

[Jbird45]

Well, a few nights ago I finally finished a bottle of Cholula, and I washed it out and filled it with the veg. That was an interesting process.

I will say moments after transferring to the bottle there was already an improvement. Now a few days later there hasn't been an major difference, good or bad.

The Cholula bottle was 5 oz and the veg is 6, so there is still some left in the original plastic bottle, and I must say it has gotten worse as the bottle got lower. It smells putrid. It has a skunky smell.

So, this leads me to believe there is truth in the plastic bottle giving the Veg a terrible smell. The stuff in the glass has a powdery lilac smell, which beats gas station urinal cake that has been sprayed by a skunk.

 

[Crisp Rat]

I've checked in on the experiment. Just smelling the bottles the strength is about the same, but the decanted ones are noticeably less "sharp" if that makes sense.

I used some of the decanted bay rum about a week in. Strangely I got a big whiff of alcohol when I first splashed it on. Overall it seemed more balanced and less clove heavy than from the plastic.

 

[ylekot]

Hey @Jbird45 , is this a quiet thread or what?!

I decant to picante sauce bottles a lot. Cholula is very convenient. We like it as a family, the labels soak off easily, and the restrictor is glass. Nice looking wooden top, too.

I also decant AS (and make badger blends) into small (2 oz?) brown glass eyedropper bottles. I bought two dozen on Amazon.

Decanting gives me more AS choices in the same footprint. The big bottles go into the cool, dim basement.

I really can't say that I notice a big difference. However, I decant generic witch hazel to glass and finally I can smell its distinctive scent. So I'm guessing the other decanting changes things, but I haven't put the effort into 'nosing' the difference.

Now I gotta go buy Cholula hot sauce!

 

[luvmysuper]

It occurred to me that possibly the smell in the plastic bottle isn't the plastic changing the smell of the liquid, but maybe the liquid changing the smell of the plastic?
Does that make sense?
Removing the liquid from the plastic removes the source of the odor (the plastic) and the almost empty bottle smells worse because there is more surface area off gassing?
Just a thought.

 

[FarmerTan]

And yet my clubman after 5 years still smells the same in the original bottle.

I've got some that has to be close to 30 years old now, still in plastic. It smells like Clubman to me, ha.

I'm too cheap to buy another one, and I figger it might have a different recipe today, so that would not prove much.

But in my MIND it seems a little "plasticky" in it's smell in the bottle.

Still smells like powder on the dry down though.

 

[Crisp Rat]

It occurred to me that possibly the smell in the plastic bottle isn't the plastic changing the smell of the liquid, but maybe the liquid changing the smell of the plastic?
Does that make sense?
Removing the liquid from the plastic removes the source of the odor (the plastic) and the almost empty bottle smells worse because there is more surface area off gassing?
Just a thought.

I think you might be on to something there. Whatever the science is, I think decanting is the way to go.