You are not the only one. The internet is devastated, frustrated, sad and looking for answers as to why their favourite perfume got discontinued. Again! I am one of them, but funnily, the perfume that I am disappointed about its discontinuation is a dupe of a super popular perfume, and the original is still getting popular every day, which is Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue. Don’t get me wrong I like it just as much as anyone, but I loved the dupe more.
But why do perfumes get discontinued?
One of the reasons why perfumes get discontinued is because law bodies like the International Fragrance Association(IFRA) are banning certain perfume ingredients. Other reasons can be commercial in nature if a particular perfume didn’t do well in the market as expected.
Can You Buy Discontinued Perfumes?
Yes, you can still buy discontinued perfumes if you are lucky or if you know how to dig deeper enough. While the chance of getting a discontinued perfume on Sephora is low, especially if the perfume has been discontinued for a few years. You may however still get them in stores where people don’t generally come for perfumes. Sometimes local departmental stores may surprise you too.
Here are some other places where you can try your luck.
eBay: No. I have not used it to find vintages myself. But I know a lot of people both online, and personally, who have. Apart from getting discontinued fragrances, you may also get original perfumes of now reformulated perfumes.
Etsy: Etsy is also a great place for buying samples or decants of any perfume, vintage or not. On Etsy too, you can find perfumes with their original packaging, as it is the original perfume which is now replaced by its reformulated version, just like eBay.
Local Sellers: Your local perfume seller might have certain perfumes lying around somewhere. Maybe not the super old ones, but the newer ones. Note that discontinued doesn’t necessarily mean rare – especially a perfume that is recently discontinued. You just have to look for it, and let people know that you are looking for it.
Where Do People Get Discontinued Fragrances For Selling
About how people sell a discontinued fragrance? I think some sellers can be perfume enthusiasts who once time had a huge collection and now are getting rid of it. I also learnt somewhere online that sales representatives who hold onto certain discontinued fragrances sell them online on eBay.
Some might collect them blindly in estate sales, and later sell them for a higher price for people who actually want that particular scent. Some of these are used perfumes, but that really doesn’t stop people from wanting them.
By the way, don’t expect extremely old perfumes to smell great now no matter how expensive they used to sell.
What If You Cannot Find Your Favourite Perfume Anywhere, Anymore
There’s still hope. You might not like this, but you can get your perfumes recreated or look for dupes.
Recreation
- Osmothèque: Are you ready to take a trip to France for the love of your now-discontinued perfume? Maybe a memory attached to your mother or father, and you to revive that memory?
Osmothèque is the place where they preserve thousands and thousands of fragrance formulas for the perfume industry and for perfume enthusiasts like you and me. Its archive is filled with discontinued and revised fragrances, where it aims to collect fragrance formulas of every perfume that is marketed in France.
There are master perfumers who may recreate the scent for you, or you may get a whiff of a certain fragrance. This place can also be adventurous if you want to walk the lane through history – except this time through scent rather than paintings, words, or artefacts.
You have to make an appointment before visiting which makes sense to me.
- Yusuf Bhai: I look forward to meeting this incredible perfumer someday after seeing lots of videos about him on YouTube. Usually, in the videos, a YouTuber goes to his perfume outlet, and they give him a perfume to smell, it can be a designer fragrance which is still very popular or a fragrance which you cannot find it anywhere.
This perfumer then takes a few whiffs of the perfume that you bring and starts creating something similar to it. Whether it is an exact dupe, a better version or misses something, I am not sure. But if you are in India, you can go visit him in Kerala. They say that he can create ‘any’ fragrance by smelling it, and sell it for as cheap as $15 dollars for 50 ml.
I have watched a lot of videos featuring him, and he sounds knowledgeable in-depth about the fragrances.
Dupes
Dupes. Dupes. Dupes. I like dupes.
But I don’t think they make dupes of every perfume. Only the popular ones, because if the market didn’t like the original, which should they spend their money on dupes?
Contact dupe houses or ask on the internet forums if there are any well-known dupes for your favourite perfumes. You may get lucky.
Takeaway
Perfumes are so great at evoking memories that they can instantly bring you to tears if you smell something that your mother or your grandparents wore. The way one whiff of one smell can bring such emotions back that it’s also surprising.
I hope you find something that can bring memories right back to you, and I will update this post when I have more insights about discontinued fragrances.
