Shelf life of a fragrance

[Legitshave]

Hey guys, so a lot of you have a ton of different colognes, however online I have read that the shelf life of a fragrance is up to one year. I know that my own bottle of cologne will last me well over a year, so if I had 10..... well it would last forever....

Do you guys have any experience with losing the smell of the cologne as time goes by? Or maybe it doesnt lose its smell at all? Should I invest in a couple colognes if they are just going to lose their smell anyways?

 

[attime6]

I've had a bottle of Curve since 2006 that still smells the same.

 

[Austin]

I have bottles over 10 years old. They still smell fresh. I think the key is storing them out sunlight and extreme temperature changes.

 

[Obsessed]

online I have read that the shelf life of a fragrance is up to one year

Was that on the website of the National Cologne Salespeople's Association?

 

[Craig_From_Cincy]

Colognes and perfumes will oxidize over a period of time, and evaporation will occur as well. This happens over a long period of time. The same thing happens to spirits, such as single malt scotches, etc. If kept well sealed and in a cool, relatively dark place they should last for many years. I know of a guy who bought a flacon of Creed's Cuir de Russie (several hundred dollars) and keeps it sealed in his refrigerator, as well as a couple of other rare colognes. They'll last almost indefinitely there.

 

[mistercitizen]

I have a bottle of Gravity by Coty from about 1995 that was a gift from my sister that still smells as terrible as it always did .

Ben

 

[Obsessed]

One of the guys at the Creed boutique in NYC told me that their frags have a ten-year shelf life.

 

[michiganlover]

I have bottles over 10 years old. They still smell fresh. I think the key is storing them out sunlight and extreme temperature changes.

+1

There are a number of us who have used vintage Avon Aftershaves, and Colognes dating from the 1970's (when Avon went crazy with hundreds of fancy decanters). Assuming the juice was stored properly, it still smells awesome today some 40+ years later!!

 

[Renato1]

At Basenotes, one chap posted some years back that he'd found his father's scents, which had been stored under a kitchen sink at their house in Colorado for about 30 years - and that they smelled fine to him.

As Luca Turin writes in his book "Perfume: The Guide" the life of scents is indefinite if they are looked after (kept away from direct sunlight). Michael Edwards who writes "Perfumes of the World" mentioned somewhere at Basenotes that he stored all his scents upside down, because that kept the seals around the sprayer lubricated - and that scents could go off if that seal didn't work (which means one could store one's scents on their sides, which would keep the sprayers lubricated for the time it took to get through half a bottle).

I've only had one scent go off, and that was after 20 years, and it was a splash bottle, not a spray bottle. Though I have noticed the topnotes of a few scents change a bit, though after half an hour of wear, the scent became the same as it always had been.
Regards,
Renato