2019 was crazy busy at work. I hope not to repeat it this year. Most likely because of all the stress, I had more health issues than usually. I hope not to repeat that either. But I got to travel much more than I usually do, both for work and pleasure, including a visit to London during which I had a chance to spend some time with Vanessa (Bonkers about Perfume) and Tara (A Bottled Rose), as well as visit all the usual places that this perfume Mecca offers. I hope to keep this trend up in 2020. So, I’d say that the difference between all the great experiences I had last year and any negatives is still positive. 2019 wasn’t a bad year for me.
But let’s look at the last year perfume numbers.
In 2019, compared to 2018, I wore slightly less different perfumes (190 vs. 196) from significantly more brands (91 vs. 79) on less occasions (351 vs. 372). It means that I wore perfumes not every day. Partially, it was because there were some days when I didn’t want to risk associating how I felt with any of perfumes I love. Also, on some days, while working from home, I would test several new perfumes instead of wearing one.
Since I tend to wear favorite perfumes from my collection, the same seven brands stayed on my Top 10 Brands chart, changing places, for the last 8 years that I’ve been keeping detailed records. Between any 2 years usually only 2 brands fall out from/appear on the list. New contenders this year were Houbigant Paris (because of the new favorite Summer Iris and one more perfume, about which I’ll write soon) and Tauer Perfumes (no special reason, just felt like wearing 3 of my favorite perfumes).
Top three perfumes that I wore the most often during 2019 – two of my all-time favorites, same as top perfumes from 2018, Ormonde Jayne Ta’if (9 occasions) and Lancôme Climat (8) and a new favorite Houbigant Quelques Fleurs Royal Collection Privee (8). I see a pattern here with wearing more often perfumes newly added to my collection (in 2018 it was Chanel Bois des Iles).
Despite all the hurdles describing which I started this post, I managed to do enough testing: 272 perfumes (vs. 380 in 2018) from 128 brands (vs. 139). Out of 272 perfumes tested, only 107 were new to me: the rest was either repeated testing of older samples or comparison testing between new samples and either older samples or perfumes I own. These numbers do not include my London sniffing sessions since most of perfumes that I tried there had never made it to skin.
I’ve done once, I think, “The Best N New Perfumes of the Year” post. But this year, even had I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have been able to: out of just 16 new releases that I managed to try in 2019 (Sixteen! It’s almost a quarter of what has been released just in 4 days of 2020!), there were only 5 that I liked and 3 that were not spectacular but not bad. I think, you’ll agree that Top/Best 5 (or even 8) perfumes of 2019 sounds somewhat pathetic. But I’ll mentions those 5 here: Bengale Rouge by Papillon Artisan Perfumes, Puredistance Gold, Paris – Riviera by Chanel, Mon Boudoir by Houbigant and I am not a flower by Floraiku.
In the 2018 Year Round-up post for the first time I started counting pictures of Rusty that I used in my posts during the year. I decided to continue this tradition. In 2019 I used 39 pictures of Rusty, which was significantly fewer than in the previous year (51), but I managed to publish just 29 posts (vs. 48), so the ratio of picture to posts is much higher.
Images: My own
Undina's Looking Glass 
First of all a Happy New Year to you, Rusty and all the lovely readers of yours.
I know that you were extremely busy this year so I’m not surprised you wrote less posts than in 2018. It was the same for me in 2019.
I’m still in awe how you are able to track down all the details about what, when, where and to what occasion you’ve worn. Were I to do that, I would probably forget to do it daily or I’d quit after a month or less.
Happy to see Rusty photos as usual, so hopefully more of them in 2020!
Hope it’s a good year to you :)
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Since I’ve been doing that for years, it’s almost a habit already. In the post shown above in “Related” for 2017, I showed the diary form I use. Since most of the fields are auto-complete, once you start typing, it takes a minute or less to add a record for one day. Sometimes, when I travel or do not have time to turn on my personal computer, I make a Note in my iPhone, and the next time I’m updating the database, I’d make an input for missed days.
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Hello Undina,
I am also in awe of your perfume tracking abilities and, had someone suggested I do it, I would have refused immediately and not thought about it again. However, when I look at your results I am so very impressed and it makes me wonder what my pie chart would look like.
Thanks for sharing and Happy New Year!
Normand
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Happy New Year to you too!
It takes some discipline, but the hardest part is to input a new bottle or sample into the database, especially if it’s a new brand and/or new perfumer – that takes about 5 minutes (especially since Fragrantica prevents copying from the page). Daily inputs are easy. But since I’m doing it for years, I don’t want to stop: the more numbers you get, the more interesting it is to see trends and patterns.
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I could imagine! It does make me regret not having started in 2010 when I got interested in perfume. I never even thought of it!
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Happy New Year Undina, and also to Rusty, star of the blog! I also dealt with health issues in 2019. I hope you have a handle on yours and are better. I also wrote less posts in 2019–way less–and again, this pertained to health issues. My new years resolution is to become more organized and eliminate clutter. I had a melt down yesterday when searching for some business papers that I urgently needed, plus I’ve lost a perfume sent to me by a favorite perfumer. ARgh! I’m desperate to take on just 20% of how organized you appear! I’m always in awe that you are able to keep these records. And your travel sounded wonderful. Here’s to a better 2020, and keep on posting!
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Let’s hope we both feel better this year – health-wise and emotionally.
I’m much less organized than I’d like to be but I’m trying. De-cluttering sounds like a good idea. I’ll do something not too radical but at least moving in that direction.
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Perhaps this is the year I try to emulate your database and track my perfume as well. I have been using Instagram daily posts and have a spreadsheet listing everything in my collection but so far don’t have a good way to determine statistics. As this is a no-buy year for me it might be time to o pull it together so I can see how the no buy really affects my perfume wearing. Happy New Year; Rusty is looking magnificent and I hope to see much more of him in 2020!
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You can try to use forms in Excel: I’m not sure, how technical you are, but there are many tutorials for making forms without any coding. Once you have look-ups and do not have to manually enter everything, it gets much easier to fill data in. And if you have data, you can use Excel to do many different calculations. You could probably even have a link to each Instagram post from your record.
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It never ceases to amaze me how organized and detailed you are, Undina! By “feel”, I believe my most worn house in 2019 was Chanel as well, followed by Guerlain. I had 4 new to me perfume houses whose perfumes I had worn more than once (Chris Rusak, Herve Gambs, Jorum Studios and St. Clair Scents).
Rusty is gorgeous, as usual!
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Thank you, but it’s not as hard as it seems once you do it routinely (and have proper tools).
Out of the 4 brands you mentioned, I tried a couple of St. Clair Scents perfumes, heard of Chris Rusak and haven’t even heard before the other two names, which isn’t surprising with all the new brands and perfumes being released daily.
Rusty got rewarded for all the compliments he received.
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Happy New Year Undina!
It was so good to see you in London.
I think to try 107 new perfumes this far into your perfume journey is amazing.
Here’s to the Rusty Ratio remaining high in 2020 :)
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Thank you, Tara.
I’m glad that I still want to try new perfumes. I just wish they were more readily available for testing.
I’ll try my best to keep this blog Rusty-fied (Rusty-nated, Rusty-filled? ;) ).
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The analysis of your stats makes for impressive reading, Undina. Hope 2020 brings less work stress, more travel and better health your way.
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Thank you, Richard. I’ll hope the Universe will hear your wishes.
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