Sample’s smelling different from full bottles.

Hi,

Recently since I moved into buying niche fragrances I started taking advantage of the discovery kits from the likes of Parfums De Marly and Xerjoff and I had a feeling that the 2ml sample bottles with their rubbish atomiser were causing issue with performance even when you spray like almost the entire thing on leaving your skin wet still seems to be unable to give justice to what a full bottle not only performs like but smells like also!

When I sampled Soprano i didn’t even get all the full stages that this fragrance can give you. There is an entire hours worth of the fragrance that the sample skips. I honestly was paranoid thinking I had been given a wrongly created sample where the wrong juice went in to the wrong sample bottle or worse the bottle ended up with the wrong fragrance inside it. Lol.

Has anyone else experienced this also and if so which fragrances come to mind and is this something I am going to come across a lot with niche fragrance samples because it would make sense as to why I found Alexandria II to be horrible when looking at those notes should be something I would normally enjoy a lot but now realising that the sample is only able to give part of the smell that could be why I felt the way I did when first trying it.

The only sample bottles that I find to be really good are the ones in the photo. They give out just as good a blast as some regular bottles and with a company like Xerjoff and their prices I would expect that kind of level if this is going to be a regular occurrence between sample and bottle. It’s honestly almost a completely different fragrance but you do get to the sample bottle smell at one stage from the full bottle and was when I had a sigh of relief that it was indeed the same stuff.

Because of the shock in difference I wasn’t even sure if I liked what I was smelling but once I got to the dry down for a few hours I decided to do fresh sprays to see what I thought for the 2nd time and luckily I do like it. Imo the real thing is much more masculine than what people say.

So, have you ever had such a difference between sample and bottle to the point you ended up sending it back or selling it or any other kind of outcome that made you wary of them in future?

These sample bottles here in this picture are the best!

I really don't know, haven't sampled enough perfumes that I actually bought to be able to compare them to a full size bottle. But I can somehow imagine that a 2 ml size bottle does something to the chemistry of a perfume. I often read about people, saying they don't like the first sprays of their, new purchased, perfume, but love it after first few sprays. Maybe that is even more of an issue with these 2ml size bottles? Maybe a scent 'as a whole' can't develope like it should in such a tiny bottle? And how about the material of those sample bottles, compared to the material of a full size bottle?

I'm not a chemist, so just guessing....

This may happen as samples are more likely to leak or at least allow air exchange in comparison to product bottles. In some cases samples or decants have poor quality seals where plastic may contaminate perfume.

@Ringtale  & @Pblonski 

Yeah I think you could both be right about a couple of things like the bottle size and them being made of  a different material like plastic, as I have heard of the Dua brand fragrances coming with a burnt plastic smell in a lot of their fragrances. People seem to assume it’s the alcohol reacting with the plastic. 

I personally don’t get a burn smell but it could be something. 

Hi @Mitchcraft 

My boyfriend suggested that the fact that a perfume is being transfered into an other bottle, will mean it will get in contact with air (and I think that, when this is done in - for instance - a perfumery, also with other scents floating around in the shop maybe) and that this may affect the fragrance...

Whatever the case...it's better than the other way around: Would be worse if a fragrance in a full size bottle would disappoint in comparison to the sample But I also find it alarming; I always feel as though sampling is the best way to be able to judge a fragrance...   

And how about people that use travel size bottles to be able to re-apply- or take with them their perfume on a vacation etc....? Do they experience bad performance of their perfumes or have different experiences with different sizes/materials of those bottles? You'd actually expect that if all this matters...