Welcome to perfumeniche.com

 
"She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight."
                                                                       Raymond Chandler

We are Gwen and Kay, two perfumistas making our scent journey in the cool, clear North.  We are also BFFs - we hang out together a lot, travel together - so we try, buy and share fragrances.
 
What started out as a shared interest grew into a hobby, and has now become our obsession.

We’ve spent many evenings with a glass of prosecco, a little cool jazz playing in the background, spritzing, sniffing - “How does this smell on you?” and, sadly, sometimes scrubbing.

Over the past few years, we’ve tried hundreds of samples, and when we deem a fragrance ”full bottle worthy” (FBW), one of us has tracked it down and bought it. We now own a lot of really great perfumes, and we continue to buy bottles of what we think is the best of "niche" as new scents are launched.

With so many exciting discoveries, we can’t help but talk about our passion with other friends. Wherever we go, people ask “What is that perfume you’re wearing? Where can I get that?” So we end up sharing a bit of our “juice” with friends. But the circle has grown, so we've started this website to let other perfumistas buy and try samples from our collections, and share their experiences with us, too, through Comments.
 
WHAT WE DO
 
We blog
Mondays and Fridays we post an article about a scent from our collections, and add it to our decant sample program. We're not scent experts, so these aren't critical reviews. We love all our fragrances  - that’s why we bought them! But we describe how we think they smell, and share our stories about why we love them - maybe you’ll rediscover an old flame, or fall in love with a new scent.
 
On Wednesdays we post Nose-to-Nose, a commentary on topics that come up through the week.
 
We sell
We sell .7 ml decants from our own bottles in our collection because the only way to experience a fragrance is to try it on your own skin. We take the fragrance from its original bottle and decant it into a smaller brand-new, 1 ml sterilized glass vial so that you can try it on your skin to see if you like it.
 
Through our decant sample program, you'll have access to some of the world’s greatest niche scents, hard-to-find fragrances, and classic favourites. Every Monday and Wednesday on the blog, we'll announce a new fragrance addition to the sampling program.
 
Click on the Fragrances tab and you’ll find our personal descriptions of each of the fragrances we currently offer from our collection.
 
Let's be clear (this is a disclaimer!!)

• We don’t sell bottles of any fragrance - just .7ml decants. We only sell decants  from the perfumes we've bought.... because we love them.
• We don't re-sell manufacturers samples.
• We don’t represent any perfumers or distributors, so we don’t have every scent from a whole line of perfume.
• We aren’t being paid to promote any product or scent.

 
If, after sampling a fragrance, you decide that you must have it, i.e. it is FBW (full bottle worthy), and you can’t find it, e-mail us and we will direct you to the best source we know – retailer or online source.

We provide
A place for you to learn about scent, and to share your fragrance experience with others. Click on the section called Resources, under My Perfume Notes (see top right), where  you'll find a Glossary, and fragrance FAQs. You'll also find two great tools we've created - Handmaps and My Sample Perfume Notes - so you can keep track of, and record your own scent experiences.
 
We hope you enjoy perfumeniche.com, and visit us often. Leave your preconceptions behind, look around, see what’s on offer, read the Blog, share your experiences and discoveries (just remember - the comments will be monitored), and join the circle.

It’s just us.