A couple of weeks ago, in another SQ post, Jyotsna suggested this question. And I decided it was a good idea to combine it with my yearly statistics post.
Saturday Question #98:
Do You Keep Any Perfume Records?
Do you have a spreadsheet of your entire collection? Or maybe you’re tracking them somewhere online, as a wardrobe in one of the perfume forums? Do you record what you wear or test? Or, maybe, what you buy?
If yes, how meticulous are you? If no, do you have a desire/urge to do it?
My Answer
As many of you probably know already, I record everything related to my perfume hobby in a database. If anyone hasn’t seen it yet and is curious, in my 2017 Year Round-up post I told more about that database and shared some screenshots. Data that I record there allows me to run these yearly calculations to share with my readers. I try to record what I wear or test daily (in the last year’s statistics post, I provided an infographic that explains wear vs test concept), but some days I don’t get to the home computer where I have that database, so then later I would try to catch up for several days, if I remember what it was.
In 2021, compared to 2020, I wore fewer perfumes (178 vs 210) from fewer brands (79 vs 96) on fewer occasions (291 vs 367). It means that for 2.5 months during 2021 I didn’t wear perfumes. It doesn’t mean that I was completely scentless on those days: if not to count several occasions when I wasn’t feeling well because of the vaccination shots, I used those days to test perfumes new to me or re-test those that I’ve previously tested. But even testing went down in 2021 (compared to 2020): I tested/re-tested 180 perfumes (327) from 68 brands (126).
My traditional Top 10 brands worn chart has the same 7 brands that keep re-appearing in my yearly posts for the last 9 years in slightly different order: Ormonde Jayne, Guerlain, Amouage, Tom Ford, Jo Malone, Chanel and Serge Lutens. The remaining three brands are new on that chart: Puredistance, Olfactive Studio and Masque Milano.
Nose Prose just did a post on the first week of the project she runs this month: to wear different perfume for each day. When I first read about it, I was almost surprised: how else? I’m so used to my routine of not repeating the same perfume for months, that I forgot that many people, even perfumistas, often rotate through some small subset of perfumes (and I’m not even talking about Brigitte who might wear the same perfume for weeks). This year, out of 178 perfumes that I wore 110 made their appearance just once. And perfume that I wore most often, Ormonde Jayne Ta’if, I wore only 6 times (plus 3 times I wore Ta’if Elixir).
The only aspect where I “improved” is the number of 2021 releases that I tested – 38 vs 22 (2020) vs 16 (2019). The list of my Top 5 new releases for 2021 is in the previous SQ post.
Now it’s your turn.
Undina's Looking Glass 
Happy 2022 once more and here’s cheers to statistics.
I don’t keep any record of what I’m wearing on a daily basis. The only record I have is my collection on parfumo.net where you can simply click the “I have it” or “I had it” button and then it automatically appears on your virtual perfume shelf. But I don’t wrote down my daily choices.
However for Instagram photos I always try to photograph a bottle that wasn’t shown there for a while. I don’t want to show the same perfume too often, heehee…
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Happy New Year to you too!
I was always wondering, do you wear perfume the same day you take the picture, do you post the picture that you made earlier on the day when you wear that perfume, or are those two events not related?
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Actually both. Most often I wear the perfume that is pictured on a specific day. Sometimes when the lighting is good I would take more photos and then publish them when I wear these fragrances.
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Same with me, except I don’t take photographs. I also keep a wishlist, a list of perfumes that maybe I’d like to try, and a list of decants I’m willing to swap. All of it maintained in quite a slipshod manner and often unreliable. Whenever I miss something the lists say I should have, I put in some work to consolidate.
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Have you tried taking pictures? It might be quite addictive!
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I’m not picture-taking person, even on holidays I usually prefer to buy postcards. Part of the reason is that I don’t own a smartphone, which makes taking pictures cumbersome. With regard to perfumes especially, about 75% of my collection consists of decants of various sizes, so the opportunity to take a picture of a bottle would not present itself often.
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I love your stats…but alas, I don’t keep any records myself. But as many perfumes that I have, I would say my top 3 brands worn are Guerlain, Chanel and a toss up between all my other perfumes! Say hello to Rusty for me.
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Guerlain and Chanel are always in my top 10!
I’ll give Rusty a treat from you.
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Somewhere in my basement is a book of every full bottle I owned (700+) and every fragrance I sampled (2k+). I stopped updating several years ago because it got to be too much. I also have a wardrobe listed on another forum but I don’t update that either. I’m too lazy.
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I wonder, how did you record those (when you did)? With hundreds of perfumes, how did you check if you’ve added something previously or not?
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I just kept everything listed alphabetical. Nothing was duplicated.
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I have a spreadsheet of everything I own, but don’t track wearing in it. I have been using my Instagram for that for the last couple of years. Every year I think about your database and how I ought to put something similar together (and fail!). After the 365 project for 2021, I’m just going to wear what I want this year, while also trying to declutter my collection.
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Your 365 project was part of my inspiration for trying a smaller, January version!
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I loved your project!
I haven’t done it in a while, but I remember that it was possible to create some simple form in Excel. But it is some effort to keep updating everything. I wish I could do it on my phone…
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I’ve tried a couple of record-keeping strategies but haven’t stuck to one. At first I used the Fragrantica site’s capability to track what I have, what I wore, what I want, but I haven’t kept up with it. Then I did set up a spreadsheet to track what I have (not what I wore), which I quite like but haven’t kept updated. It includes a column where I remind myself whether or not I’ve blogged about that particular fragrance; but I’d rather do the blogging than the spreadsheet, lol! I’ve tried the app Perfumist, which is pretty easy; has anyone else here tried it?
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I just started using the Perfumist app recently. The features seem pretty limited, though, and I don’t seem to be able to rename or delete lists that I’ve created. Not sure how long I’ll keep using it. I do like that it’s ad free so far.
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I haven’t tried it yet but I’ll take a look now.
For years I fantasize about learning how to and making my DB workable from a mobile device or even paying someone to develop it. But I haven’t moved to the implementation stage :)
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I can’t even keep a daily diary, or what I tried last year, One Second on Instagram. I do admire your statistics, but I am basically a very unorganized person! Also, I test so much, that I find it is not really accurate to judge my favorite perfumes by how much I wear them, because of the testing.
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I do not judge my favorite perfumes at all! :)
I’m not a very organized person as well. But somehow it works out with my perfume hobby. And once I already had several-years-worth records, it would have been a pity to stop.
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Great stats as always! As the 7th person (but could be more as I am responding) to answer your question, I don’t keep track either . I do try to post my SOTD via IG and on NST but I did not record it in a reportable fashion. Technically, I could track the brands worn via #tags but that feels like too much work! In any case, I enjoy my collection and wear what I want each day.
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I don’t know how you manage to post as many pictures as you do! When I do it for 25 days in December for Rusty’s birthday, I get completely exhausted! :)
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You have more to organize to take a picture and you also have to think like a cat, a Rusty cat to be specific. I try to take a picture daily and most times, one shot is all it takes since my standards are “as long as it’s not blurry and it only shows what I want to show”.
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Thanks for the mention! I tend to stick with smaller rotations especially when working through a discovery set, because I often feel the urge to use up samples, while full-bottle loves get ignored for months, which doesn’t make sense. I have an Excel file for keeping track of all my aroma materials as well as bottles and travel sprays that I own, but I haven’t bothered recording samples or things I tried in stores. Now I am recording my SOTD as well, but I’m not sure how long I want to keep that up; so far I have committed to it until the end of January (small steps!).
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10 years ago, when I was going through the active phase of the initial dive into the proverbial rabbit hole, I was exactly in the same situation. And then I realized that it didn’t make any sense to neglect perfumes I already loved and owned while searching for the next “it.” So, I started first with the rule to wear my favorites at least 3 times per week. Over time, as my collection kept growing, I moved completely towards wearing only my favorites while using week nights and some weekends for testing. And then I completely stopped wearing perfumes from samples – not unless it was a “final” stage of making a decision to buy the FB or not.
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I keep records of my collection, when I acquire scents and what I pay for then and when they leave the reservation. But no record of what I wear on a day to day basis.
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I try to record purchases as well, but I’m less meticulous about it. I mean, I have records of all perfume-related expenses, but not all FB purchases get recorded because I forget to do it.
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I always love your stats post Undina! And great way to tie it into the Saturday question. While nowhere as good as you at tracking, I do have a spreadsheet of my full bottles which I keep mostly so I can refer back to if I want to sell things later. I did some pivot tables with the data, just for fun, which was kind of interesting (which month of the year do I normally buy more bottles…). I also keep a scent of the day hand-written diary (in a lovely leather bound book with perfume bottle illustrations on each page that another perfumista made and sold). And finally, I keep notebooks of my thoughts and the notes of the various samples I try. I’m at over 3000 now! Plus separate notebooks where I write about each full bottle I own, where I got it, what I think about it and my own personal 5 star ranking. It is helpful to have these to go back to look at but not as easily retrievable as a database. Once you get to a certain point in collecting it really helps to have some sort of system.
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Why don’t you have a blog?! You’re already doing most of the job! :)
I know that I don’t record everything that I test – just those for which I had samples at home. But my total record count, both owned and tested, is just slightly above 2K. Though, I think I did test another 1K+ in my lifetime, just not on skin.
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I have somewhat updated my wardrobe in Basenotes, but it’s not complete. Maybe some day. I am entering new purchases and the majority of it is in there. I wear whatever I feel like that day, I rarely repeat a scent more often than once a month, but I don’t log it religiously in Basenotes.
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In your estimate, what percent of your collection do you have recorded on Basenotes?
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I would say at least 75%.
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Oh, your discipline and orderliness never cease to impress me, especially after all these years. I don’t keep any records, and don’t wear perfume consistently on a day-to-day basis. I don’t even remember IF I wore it or not, never mind what I wore. I know I did try to pay attention to my SOTDs while on holiday in the summer, but predictably have since forgotten. ;) I still love perfume, but don’t care about the nuts and bolts as it were.
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You should probably do a rotation of your perfumes: get out and put on a tray where you can see them (next to your morning skincare?) 10-15 bottles and decants and just go through them in a month. Then choose the next set, etc. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it if you don’t have to think or choose every morning.
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Funnily enough, I have started to do something like that with a pencil case full of samples…today is Felanilla!
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No records for me. :D No discipline for such a thing. I no longer keep a record of the books I’ve read and that is easier.
I feel so lazy. :)
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i love lists and keeping records, so i make a new list every year. Last years most worn scent was Aromatics Elixir, followed by L´Air de Rien and Scherrer EdT.
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Yay for one more record keeper among us! :)
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