How and Why Do you Wear Perfume : Fragrance Giveaway

The draw is closed and the winner is Laura! Thank you very much to everyone who participated. We received a range of very interesting responses, and they are going to be very helpful for my friend's school project.

For someone who loves fragrance, it is always interesting to find out why others wear perfume. My annual giveaway this year ties in with a study on the generation Y fragrance usage for an FIT consumer behavior class, and I am excited to hear your thoughts. Likewise, the prize for this giveaway is very special--tailored to your likes, exclusive (you will not find it in stores) and quite unique. Your answers will be submitted anonymously and your personal information shall not be shared in any way, shape or form.

Giveaway Questions: How do you choose your fragrances and how many do you own (decision based on brand, mood or other?)
When do you wear your fragrances?
Where do you buy your fragrances?
Why do you wear your fragrances?

Rules to participate: you have to be a female, age 16-24, with a wardrobe of 3 or more perfumes. The draw is now closed.

Prize: You will win a unique fragrance that is not on the market and which corresponds to your olfactory preferences.

Comments

[Ksenija]

Hi,
I really like your blog. In my dreams, I am writing a similar one, but in Russian. It seems there is a gap, and I can hardly find similar blogging culture established within Russian Internet/language, which is a pity.
I cannot answer your questions, since I am 28, and do not apply for winning/loosing/competing.
But I wanted to write anyway. It was such a pleasure to read your blog, and I am glad that you still come back to it despite your busy life.
As for me, my love of perfume started from Mitsouko, and then chypre became a dominant topic in my collection, but of course, collection is ultimately built on exclusion, and then you try to overreach and aim for something that is outside your comfort zone, include florals, greens, leathers, and you feel that you cannot stop, since you are collecting beauty and beauty can be found everywhere.

To ask how many perfumes one has, is almost like to judge a woman upon her age. Age is abstract and the number of perfumes I have is "never enough" :)

Not every day is cut out to wear fragrance. Perfume, in my opinion, is an intervention, and you cannot plan when you intervene, and same times you cannot make this choice at all, so the day passes blank. Intervention, rupture of the banal as an event in its own right is a good enough reason for me to wear fragrance. Also to wear perfume you do not have to change yourself, you do not have to comply to a certain shape, form, race, you just wear it. It does not ask you to be someone else, it releases its beauty expecting nothing but patience. As for where to buy, currently I buy on eBay, trying to obtain something that is not supposed to exist any more, vintage and no longer produced. However, learning how to love the outcome of this quest is challenging and can be a subject to many anxieties.

[dissed]

This is interesting. Many of us (who have left this age far, far behind) would like to read the results.

[Margaret]

I choose my fragrances based on how they make me feel! Relaxed, sexy, spunky, etc.
I wear my fragrances all the time, even a dab before bed, especially something with rose.
I make my own fragrances or buy from natural perfumers.
I wear fragrance because I believe it is a support for my sense of well being..and just for the joy of it!

Thanks!

[Issey Miyake Perfume]

I pick it depending on what I am doing usually.
If its a normal day I usually go with something mild and fruity.
If its a date I like to wear something that makes me feel beautiful.

[Jennifer G]

I wear perfume everyday
I wear some at bedtime and usually use a relaxing musk or sandalwood.
I wear it because it helps lift my mood and I like to smell good.

[Anna]

Hullo. Please don't count me as a runner up for the giveaway, I live in Italy and mailing perfume here is a nightmare at both ends.
Here are your replies:
How do I choose...trying them on and finding that for the rest of the day a waft of delicious smell will make me wonder “What’s this?”until I remember I’m wearing a new frangrance. If I can’t forget about it, and remember it again with delight, it gets discarded however much I may have liked it at first sniff.
Or you meant, how do I pick up which fragrances to try? Looking at ads, reading reviews, pursuing people in the street to ask “what is it you’re wearing?”
How many do I owe? A dozen bottles, plus some 100 samples.
When do I wear them? Always. Usually apply morning, midday, and evening, if I’m going out; sometimes at bedtime.
Where do I buy them? Boutique.
Why do I wear them? Oh, my. ‘cause I like to smell them, I guess. Perhaps also, a little, because I rely on them to give me a presence a little less haphazard than rather thoughtless clothing and make up would make for?

[sweetlife]

Huh. My guess, V., is that most of your readers are past the age bracket you are looking for. In fact, I'd venture to say that that's why lots of us found the blogs and so on--we've been totally ignored by mainstream marketing. But I am often wrong...

Do share your results!

[Sofia]

Victoria, I like your blog, and I think you are wonderful. I would love to take the survey, but I am over 24. What a bummer...

[Sofia]

Victoria, re-think your audience.

[Boisdejasmin]

Ladies, thank you very much! I would have loved to include everyone, but the FIT project that I am helping my friend with has a very specific age requirement. I promise that after I collect all of the "16-24" set responses, we will do our own giveaway later that will include everyone, male or female, from 16 to 106! :)

[Natalie Wong]

Hello! (^_^)/ I'm 16 and I live in Singapore in South East Asia, so i think it would be quite impossible for you to send me a fragrance but here's what i think anyways:

1.How do you choose your fragrances and how many do you own (decision based on brand, mood or other?)
I test them at the department store counters; two sprays on the wrist or maybe in the bend in my elbow, a different fragrance on each arm (a horrible habit of mine) and continue shopping for a while. If I really like it after and hour or so, i'd consider buying a small bottle. I get bored easily of the same perfume and I hate to have a perfume waste on my dressing table so I limit myself to small 30-50 ml bottles. However I have made some fantastic discoveries rummaging through my mother's extensive fragrance collection (she collects perfume miniatures). I try not to be partial to any brand but CK One, Dolce and Gabanna's Light Blue wear really well in the dense tropical heat of Singapore. Most Singaporean women, especially the younger set, favor lighter, fruity florals or crisp green florals. However, I get most compliments when I wear Rose by Paul Smith, an unexpectedly fresh rose scent that's also urban, mysterious and sophisticated. I bought a full 100ml bottle of it and my mum has been constantly raiding my dressing table for it ever since.

2. When do you wear your fragrances?
Whenever I step out of the house; my wrist and neck feel naked without that spritz or two.

3.Where do you buy your fragrances?
I travel mostly at the end of the year during the school holidays so i buy most of my perfume at duty free shops at the airports. As such, every year, I have this shopping list of perfumes I like, complied through the year. But for some fragrances that I do not wish to commit to, and when I cannot get a sample vial, I buy just a tiny 1.5 ml sample (sold illegally at beauty and fragrance shops in the suburban areas of Singapore) for 2-4 Singapore Dollars, depending on the brand. Chanel samples can sell for 4-5 dollars while celebrity fragrances sell for 2. I have tons of those convenient purse sized samples and I carry a few vials all the time in my handbag.

Why do you wear your fragrances?
Here in Singapore, most teenagers my age don't wear perfumes, so I stand out of the crowd in that subtle way. People do take notice. I'm shy, so I don't attempt to make a fashion statement. Fragrances make that statement for me. Also people say that i'm nice to hug cause I always smell so nice.

[Natalie Wong]

Hello! (^_^)/ I'm 16 and I live in Singapore in South East Asia, so i think it would be quite impossible for you to send me a fragrance but here's what i think anyways:

1.How do you choose your fragrances and how many do you own (decision based on brand, mood or other?)
I test them at the department store counters; two sprays on the wrist or maybe in the bend in my elbow, a different fragrance on each arm (a horrible habit of mine) and continue shopping for a while. If I really like it after and hour or so, i'd consider buying a small bottle. I get bored easily of the same perfume and I hate to have a perfume waste on my dressing table so I limit myself to small 30-50 ml bottles. However I have made some fantastic discoveries rummaging through my mother's extensive fragrance collection (she collects perfume miniatures). I try not to be partial to any brand but CK One, Dolce and Gabanna's Light Blue wear really well in the dense tropical heat of Singapore. Most Singaporean women, especially the younger set, favor lighter, fruity florals or crisp green florals. However, I get most compliments when I wear Rose by Paul Smith, an unexpectedly fresh rose scent that's also urban, mysterious and sophisticated. I bought a full 100ml bottle of it and my mum has been constantly raiding my dressing table for it ever since.

2. When do you wear your fragrances?
Whenever I step out of the house; my wrist and neck feel naked without that spritz or two.

3.Where do you buy your fragrances?
I travel mostly at the end of the year during the school holidays so i buy most of my perfume at duty free shops at the airports. As such, every year, I have this shopping list of perfumes I like, complied through the year. But for some fragrances that I do not wish to commit to, and when I cannot get a sample vial, I buy just a tiny 1.5 ml sample (sold illegally at beauty and fragrance shops in the suburban areas of Singapore) for 2-4 Singapore Dollars, depending on the brand. Chanel samples can sell for 4-5 dollars while celebrity fragrances sell for 2. I have tons of those convenient purse sized samples and I carry a few vials all the time in my handbag.

Why do you wear your fragrances?
Here in Singapore, most teenagers my age don't wear perfumes, so I stand out of the crowd in that subtle way. People do take notice. I'm shy, so I don't attempt to make a fashion statement. Fragrances make that statement for me. Also people say that i'm nice to hug cause I always smell so nice.

[Daisy Daisy]

Hi Victoria, I already emailed you my answers for this, was fun to write! I just got nominated for a Kreativ Blogger Award, so I in turn nominated you as you are my favourite perfume blogger!
http://whatdaisydidnext.blogspot.com/2009/12/kreativ-blogger-award.html
Enjoy! Keep writing!

[5Th Avenue Perfume]

Do you have any idea about 5th avenue perfume, where I can found a information for 5th avenue perfumecause I have some questions. Or may be you have helpful tips, tricks, or suggestion

[Nasir]

nice blog:)thanks for sharing