Decants & dollars: what I spent on perfume in May 2025

Lessons from a month-long no buy

Yes. I have a perfume spreadsheet.

Tabs. Formulas. Conditional formatting. Possibly a pivot table. Definitely colour-coded chaos.

I made it during that glorious annual delusion known as New Year’s Resolution Season. You know the vibe: This year I will become someone who tracks things. And I have. I’m basically making my own Spotify Wrapped, but for my fragrance related activities. A rolling log of fragrant impulse control (or lack thereof), emotional purchases, and tiny glass vials that ruin my wallet.

Also: it lets me engage with perfume in a way that isn’t just buying, spraying, or sniffing the air like a bloodhound in a department store.

It’s got tabs, formulas, colours, the whole shebang.

So let’s kick things off with a snapshot of the monthly summaries of the year to date.

The mls columns includes samples I’ve received, either as freebies, swaps, or purchases, as well as samples I’ve given away, sold, finished, or decanted from my own full bottles.

My perfume tracker’s monthly summary table.

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What I spent (and earned, technically):

Sold: $914 worth of perfume to people with better impulse control than me.
Spent: $648 on two bottles I absolutely needed (don’t look at me like that).
Net: +$266.

We call that fragrance arbitrage, baby.

What I loved

Unusually, this month I have a four way tie! I wore Celine Black Tie, Genre Fairy Dust, Maison Mataha Printemps Blanc, and Dedcool Xtra Milk all three times each.

What I got (and got rid of)

My collection reduced by 4 bottles this month, though there was much more movement than that. I sold 3 bottles, did a few swaps (permitted in my ‘no buy’ month), gave a few travel sizes away to friends, and bought two.

Sold or given away:

• Brulee, Ahmed Al Mugrabi

• Celine Black Tie

• Vanilla Bomb, Coconut Passions, Poets of Berlin, Perdrisat Porcelain, and Dua Orchid Molecule 7.0

Swapped:

• Chanel 1957: Swapped for Chanel Les Exclusifs No 18

• Swapped Chanel Les Exclusifs No 18 for Amouage Love Tuberose

Bought:

• Mind Games Opera Mate

• Maison Mataha Printemps Blanc

• Le Monde Gourmand Petal Ephemere (gift)

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Reflections…

… on opportunities
(aka loopholes I invented and immediately used)

April was my birthday month, which obviously had me making ‘treat yourself’ a full-time personality. So in May, I swung the pendulum back to virtue and restraint with a no-buy.

Except… well, Printemps Blanc doesn’t count. I’d sampled it to death and scored it through a very legitimate, very unmissable group order from Amyris in Italy. It’s not breaking a no-buy when it’s for the sake of internaitonal relations, right?

And then there was Opera Mate. A friend-of-a-friend offered it to me at half retail through some mysterious, back-channel fragrance plug. What am I supposed to do? Say no to fate?

Call it weakness. Call it strategy. I call it limited-time opportunity.

… on emotional shopping
(aka scented self-soothing)

Turns out, telling myself “you’re not allowed to buy anything” flips a psychological switch labelled I MUST BUY EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY.

The no-buy month became less about saving money and more about observing my own inner toddler throwing a tantrum at checkout.

Weirdly, the moment June hit and I could buy again, the urgency evaporated. Turns out I didn’t want the perfume as much as I wanted to want it. Forbidden fruit, but make it neroli.

… on consumerism
(aka resisting a really good deal)

At one point in May, Miss Mona Kattan of Kayali fame came for me personally with a massive sale. Like stackable discounts, spend-and-save, unlock-the-secret-door-at-midnight kind of energy.

I made a cart. Obviously.

It was multiple bottles for less than the price of one. Tempting? Yes. But when I looked at what I’d picked, I wasn’t desperate for any of them. No dopamine spike. No lust. Just… good deals sitting politely in a cart. I do have a 10ml bottle of Vanilla Oud which I intend to upgrade when I finish… but that might be in over a year from now.

What saved me? The spreadsheet.
The thought of having those bottles sitting untouched on my shelf, increasing the number of bottles in my collection when I wasn’t actually excited to have them hurt more than the thought of missing a sale.

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On dupes, doubles, and not needing both

Here’s a question I now ask myself before buying anything:

“If I didn’t have this, what would I reach for instead?”

If the answer is “oh, that other thing on my shelf that does basically the same job,” then… do I really need it? (No. Do I want it? …Different question.)

Yes, scent freaks can absolutely justify having five woody vanillas and eight variations of citrus. I do. But they all hit different to my nose. They earn their space in my cabinet.

That said, I recently picked up a second-hand bottle of Frederic Malle x Acne Studios. It’s a soapy, clean, minimal scent that feels like skin scrubbed pink with dove soap. Then I smelled ELDO Ghost in the Shell and had a moment of, “Ooh… yes.” But the vibe profiles are similar. Like, share-a-shelf similar.

And since the Acne came first, I’m staying monogamous. For now.
Might I one day swap it out for the ELDO? Possibly.
Am I pretending to be virtuous about it? Obviously.
If I see an amazing deal on it pop up in one of the Facebook groups, will I end up buying it anyway? I can neither confirm nor deny.

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Thanks for reading, enabling, and judging (silently)– I’ll see you next month for more data, drama, and decants. If you liked this, hit that love heart button and share it with your fraghead friends.

PS - want to see quick fire reviews of every thing I smelled and sprizted this month? Check that out here!

xoxo Liv