By: Michelle Young, Opinions Editor
I love fragrances. I spend most of my time working or studying at home, so I primarily wear them for myself to smell throughout the day. However, even a 50ml bottle can cost upwards of $100. You might think that because you like the smell of “cherry blossoms” — and that’s listed on the bottle — you will like this smell in perfume form. Unfortunately, that’s often not the case due to a variety of factors. The same perfume will smell different on different people, and will smell different to different people. You might not end up liking it at all. When bottles are so expensive, and last for multiple years, you want to make sure you like what you’re getting. This is where the importance of “sampling” comes in.
The idea is you should try a certain fragrance on your skin for a prolonged period of time to really make sure you like it before purchasing the whole bottle. Small samples are occasionally sold individually, but are more often sold as sets. The issue arises when you live in Canada and want to sample anything beyond mainstream fragrances.
New York and Los Angeles are known to house multiple in-person stores and locations with a wonderful variety of niche fragrances to try out and sample. However, I’ve noticed Vancouver is very limited. Stores like Sephora, The Perfume Shoppe, and Hudson’s Bay do carry some interesting fragrances you can spritz on yourself for a day, but that’s not the same as a sample bottle. It’s better to get a sample to have a better sense of longevity and how the environment might affect the scent. This is especially important when being mindful of scents that can trigger someone’s scent allergies in public. I personally have a hard time smelling anything in the mall due to the constant mixture of perfumes, and you really shouldn’t be spraying yourself more than once or twice. If I can’t venture out to smell these myself, the logical step is to purchase them online. The problem is that online shopping for samples tends to be absurd.
Usually, sample sets make for a pretty good experience to get a sense of what you like. However, sometimes I’m just not interested in five out of six of these fragrances, and paying $30, or sometimes much more, for one tiny 1.5 mL sample (plus shipping) is unreasonable. When trying to order anything from outside Canada — where the majority of niche perfumeries are — shipping can easily double your $40 order into an $80 order. Part of the blame lies in rising shipping costs, and that’s not the fault of perfumeries. However, at that price, you almost might as well buy a full bottle, which defeats the purpose of sampling altogether. Most sample-based websites like Scentbird are based in the US — which also leads to expensive shipping costs.
The times I’ve snatched a sample set for a reasonable price has shown me how important it is to try it on yourself first. Commodity Milk sounds and smells lovely — until it’s sprayed on my skin and turns sour. I know that fragrance is ultimately a luxury and not a need. Spending $10 on a miniscule sample can at times, also be too expensive to justify. However, especially in Canada, fragrance doesn’t need to be as inaccessible as it is — I just want to purchase a sample!
