Save Perfume’s Soul, Sign The Petition.

 

Vintage Perfume Ad, circa 1953.

I have been collecting perfumes for many years. I own quite a few, both new and vintage. My vintages date from as early as the 1950’s. They are all absolutely beautiful. I will continue to seek out vintages as I find them to my liking and they become available.

I find the substance and quality of the vintages to far surpass so many of today’s fragrances. There are few of today’s offerings that can truly compare to yesteryear’s creations. And I am willing to pay for the vintages because I enjoy them. As far as their quality, I can attest to their beauty in fragrance. I wear them and enjoy them.

I much prefer my vintages over the copies of the vintages that are made today. I have absolutely no interest in replicas of the originals. I’d rather take my chances on the originals, than someone’s new interpretation.

Nothing can compare to vintages because of the  ingredients used from years gone by. Today’s perfumes are not made with the same formulations. Very few are of the same quality and can perform with the same gusto.

Vintage TouJours Moi Ad.

Perhaps we of older generations are spoiled. We know, have smelled, have lived and have adored the originals. We are now faced with these insidious new products that calls themselves perfumes.

Now, not all of them are bad. Not at all. Some of them are quite good. Some. But I can truly say that what is being produced today is nowhere near the quality of what the perfumers produced in decades gone before them. And that’s to be expected. The perfumers today cannot. They do not have the same raw materials. They do not have the same natural materials. They are now working with synthetics and chemicals that are designed to make us believe that we are smelling something. Compositions that are created for far less money yet sold for more than they should be and still called perfume.

At least regulatory agencies will not allow them to call their products “natural”. Because they are not. Nor are they as real as we are led to believe. But politics, marketing and capitalism will always win in the end.

I smile at some who disdainfully isolate older or vintage perfumes as fragrances that should be relegated to an age-specific generation. Or, even worse, thrown away. History should never be ignored. It is a platform from which the future is built.  If they would only free their senses to experience new olfactory delights they would learn about the true histories of perfume and from there, garner the steps of education needed to truly adore and appreciate all facets of perfumery.

From there, a true appreciation of the history of perfumes can be learned.

Emeraude.

There are some perfumes from days gone past that are still in existence today. Should we wear only today’s formulations? Or only seek out the vintage bottles? That is your choice. Another suggestion would be to own two bottles. One of today’s formulation and seek out a vintage bottle and compare the juice in the two bottles. See the differences between the two and decide which you enjoy more. You just might find out you gravitate more towards vintage perfumes once you try them.

Emeraude, for example,  an iconic oriental, has been in existence for 93 years. It has withstood the test of time and is still going strong. How does today’s version smell compared to a bottle from ten years ago or twenty years ago? Well, the ingredients from twenty years ago are quite different. Perfumers had access to different materials that are no longer available today. Today’s perfumers must use more synthetic materials and due to regulations must change the actual ingredients to create the original formula. It still smells similar, almost identical, but not quite the same. The only way you can tell is by sniffing a vintage alongside a new bottle.

So why should you care? Is it important to keep our vintages for history? Is it important to retain the original formulas as close as possible or would you rather have synthetic perfume that simply smells as close as possible to the original?

There are some schools of thought that believe people are allergic to perfume, and for that reason, there are certain ingredients that must be taken out of perfume formulas. The truth of the matter is that only a very small percentage of the population is actually allergic to perfumes. And taking that premise further, if that small percentage knows they are allergic to perfumes, why would they even bother to wear perfume? So the next question that arises is that if they are allergic to perfumes, then if someone is wearing a fragrance, and they are standing next to them, it will affect them. This is not true. Studies have been done in Europe to show to the contrary.

But again, why is it so important? Legislators want to remove certain ingredients from perfumes. They wish to ban certain substances that are crucial to the olfactory experience that perfume lovers take so much delight in. These legislators say that these substances just aren’t good for the human population in general anymore because of allergies. And again, perfume lovers say,if you are that infinitesimal part of the population that truly is allergic to an ingredient in a perfume, then don’t wear it. And statistics prove that you will not be affected by someone else’s use of a perfume.

Parfumo.net, a highly respected perfume forum, has created a petition for all to sign. The petition has much pertinent information in it and it is important for perfume lovers around the globe to read it and sign it to keep our perfumes as an art form with as little regulation as possible.

The petition, called “Save Perfume’s Soul”,  can be found here:  http://www.parfumo.net/petition/index.html; and here:  http://www.parfumo.net/petition/petition.html?pxID=ac4919b4445530e9b6a1a4428c409be5

In the interest of saving perfume for not only ourselves, but for future generations, I advise all to read the petition and please sign it. Keep perfumery as a pure art, not as a lost and forgotten creation. Save our perfumes and retain the pureness of olfactory delights we as perfume lovers so enjoy.

Thank you.

Peace.

Sorceress.

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