Perfume and the Room

The deadline for entering the samples drawing (two Rosines and Parfumee Au Te Vert) is tonight at midnight US EST! Leave a comment to enter.

If you’re like me, you have, um, probably a few more full bottles than you actually, er, need. The stuff you maybe bought on fleabay or at TJ Maxx, and now you’re out of love with it. Or a few hundred samples you may not get around to actually trying on your skin. Swapping and selling takes time; what to do?

Eureka, I have found it!

There is a product that used to be widely available at retail, Neutrogena’s Fragrance-Free Body Oil. (The scented version still is, but it’s scented with sesame, and the less said about that the better.) I suppose you can still find it somewhere in the brick ‘n’ mortar world, but there’s really no need, as all the big online drugstores have it. It’s not expensive, and actually makes a good base to “hold” scent (as well as being a wonderful winter moisturizer.)

Here’s what I do: pour a couple of teaspoons of the oil into a diffuser. These are available all over the place online (see “Essential Oil Diffusers”) and at retail. Some of them look like a contraption that belongs on the Starship Enterprise, but not all. (Mine, made by Jurlique, is a flat ceramic disk, about the size and shape of a bagel, with a depression in the middle to hold the oil and a heating element which plugs in.) Spray fragrance four or five times into the oil or pour in a mill or so, tip it back and forth to mix, plug it in and voila: a gorgeous room fragrance that lasts for hours.

The oil hardly oxidizes at all. Simply refresh it with the fragrance every now and then.
Here’s the best part: when you’re ready to change the scent, the oil can be used on your skin. Or simply wipe it up with a cotton pad and use that as a drawer, closet or shoe sachet. Start over with fresh oil and perfume.

My favorites to use in this way (so far) are Opium, Tocade and L’Air du Desert Marocain.

There will be more...