How do you all use your perfume decants and samples?

I’ve started building up a little (read: massive) stash of samples and decants and I’m curious how everyone else handles theirs.

Do you try to use them up before buying full bottles? Only use ones you’re on the fence about? Rotate them like part of your regular collection? 

Do you ever declutter them—and if so, when? Is it when you know you don’t like something, or do you sometimes declutter before they’re done so someone else can try it?

I’d love to hear your “sample/decant strategy,” if you have one and what you do with the decluttered ones. I’ve been considering printing off little accord pyramids with the bottle showing for each and putting it with the sample in a tiny plastic baggie so people at work or family or friends can dig through and find something they might vibe with  

I rotate them like they're part of my regular collection. I've learned the hard way that sample bottles are prone to evaporating so I want to use them while I can!

I often use up a lot of things before buying a full bottle.
I also use things I'm unsure about, but if I'm unsure about something, it means I don't need it, so at that point I'm not really interested in it anymore.
I don't use them much as part of my regular collection. They're often things I really don't need.
If I want to organize my things, I'll include them as an extra when I sell the bottle. They're not the kind of thing you can sell by themselves.
I store samples in tins in a cool, dark place, but to be honest, there are a lot of things I don't need. If I could try them in the store, I wouldn't have bought them.

I don't want to own things as much as possible, so it's stressful. So I try not to order samples, and I only buy bottles that I absolutely want. I'd rather miss out on a good perfume than have unnecessary things.lol

I've found that if I don't test them as soon as I get them, it's easier to forget they exist - which leads to evaporation like @kittea mentioned. So I have to use it or lose it 😅 and I agree with @Akira1005 about excess stressing me out too - so good idea to create a strategy @ssydlo !

I don't enjoy wearing fragrances just to use them up (I only wear fragrances I really love), so I won't hold onto the sample simply to wear/use up. I usually know first or second try if I'll love something enough to want to get a full bottle, so I normally don't use up my samples - I send them to others.

But I think your idea of baggies for friends is great! Maybe splitting them up by scent type (gourmand/fresh/aquatic/fougère/etc.)?

I remember ordering my first batch of decants. I wanted to use them all up before I’d buy any other. But the thing is, only a couple of them are great. And only one of the 10 resulted in a full bottle.

So how I look at them now is that they are great for building experience. Discovering what your taste is. Discovering what you really REALLY like before shelling out the dough. But I don’t bond with them very much and have no issues with passing them on once I’ve worn them.

I rarely keep mine. I'm very picky when it comes to fragrances – I end up keeping barely 10% of all the things I try. 4%, if we only count the fragrances I end up purchasing full bottles of.

What would I need hundreds of loose testers of things I don't like for? So I give them away. Same with discovery sets, same with miniatures. Friends, acquaintances, family members – anyone who expresses interest gets saddled with a baggie of fun little potion bottles. I know that I could theoretically sell them and get some of my money back (especially the discovery sets, since those are often... a lot), but I have neither time nor energy for a side hustle. So why not bring some joy into lives of people I like instead? 

Plenty of people sing praises to perfumes I avert my nose from. I think it's better to find them a home where they will be actually loved and used as intended than just store them in my Scrooge McDungeon. 

I have loads of samples & decants and always have a plate on my coffeetable with samples I'm going to try/test the coming period. When they are tested they go back in my sample-storage and I choose the next ones to take place on the coffee table. It happens rarely that they will be completely finished/emptied. Some of them are exactly what I'm looking for in a fragrance and then end up in the list of purchasing a FB

I always give purchased samples (sets) to perfume friends who I know will appreciate them, or because they are curious about a certain house. Especially since my taste is quite broad, with an emphasis on the unknown, it is better to give these samples to perfume friends who appreciate them than to someone who actually has no interest at all in these kind of fragrances.

I cherish the decants that I have received from perfume friends worldwide over the years and will therefore never, ever give them away. I know how much time and material ( and shippingcost) goes into creating a personal box with several decants (of the sender's carefully curated own perfume-collection), completely based on the preference of the recipient. These decants are all stored in separate storage boxes, with the name of the sender on it, and the vials are only removed when they are completely empty.

If I receive a sample set from someone who sends it to me to discover these scents/a specific house, and this person explicitly states that I can forward it to another perfume lover, then I do so.

In addition, many years ago I bought an empty, very beautiful bottle in which I combined several gifted & tested samples/decants. The end result is so exceptionally beautiful and this bottle therefore has a special meaning to me. It reminds me of the special friendships that can arise between people who share the same passion.

Mainly, I am more invested in decants/samples because I want to try as much as I can without having to buy a FB blindly which I might not even like enough to get to wear all of it. 

Secondly, I pretty much give each sample a week in which I test it and by the end of the week, I'll write a review for it. After that, that sample sort of joins my "free to wear" box, where I just wear it outside my usual testing process, depending on the situation, weather, mood, etc. 

I do give away some of them to my cousins after I'm done reviewing them, particularly with scents I'm not too fond of, but that my cousins might enjoy. 

After I have decided if I am going to buy or not and have my own little review of them, I like to put them against each other in a battle. 

I will spray one on one arm and one on the other and smell between the two. I pick up different notes and it can be sort of an interesting experience to see how each one develops and it sort of prevents me from going nose blind switching between the two scents. 

I figured, I have these samples, why not have a little fun. It sounds dumb, but it's one way to use them up. I have odd working schedule and hours so I don't use samples on days I work. But on my days off, I like to do some fun stuff like this.

Samples/decants obtained while investigating whether I'll purchase a full bottle will be used for travel if it's a fragrance I ultimately purchase. Samples obtained from perfumerys are piling up because I often forget about them.

First I'm of course testing all the samples that I get. If the fragrance is just ok and I feel I don't need it, I will put it away waiting for a possible future swap with someone because most likely someone else will enjoy it more than I do. If the fragrance is amazing and it's available in my country, I will keep the sample as long as I will get the full bottle. Sometimes it takes a long time for me to actually buy the full bottle or sometimes I find afterwards something similar but even better, so it's good to have the sample as a reference and test once more before buying to be completely sure I'm still wanting the full bottle. If I get the full bottle, I will either keep the sample as a travel size packaging for it or swap it away if I'm not needing a travel size. Sometimes the fragrance that I have a sample of isn't available in my country at all but I love it and want it. In that case I will keep the sample and wear it sometimes but very sparingly so that I won't run out of it.

Only a few of them are worth using up and even fewer are worth keeping. It also depends on the season and climate. Patience is your friend, but it doesn’t hurt to apply copious amounts of perfume before bedtime either. 

I take the easy way out with the rest of the samples I don’t use. Fragrantica has “traveling sample boxes” where people can sign up to get the box shipped to them. They get to put in and take out samples and then send them to the next person in line after them. I have one now, and I kid you not I only took ONE (1) sample and put in 70! But hey, at least I didn’t blind buy!

Oh by the way! Depending on where you live and what the rules are for each organization, you can *possibly* donate unused or gently used samples to shelters. 

Most of my samples and decants get left unused. I can put them in three different groups:

1. The ones I like instantly and get a full bottle soon after. Once I have my actual bottle, I prefer to wear the fragrance from the bottle than the decant because in my "weird" mind, the bottle is part of the fragrance wearing experience.

2. The ones I instantly dislike and I know I would not like them ever. I usually try to sell them, especially if they are samples from the brand/discovery set.

3. The ones I'm not very sure about and try multiple times. These are the ones that get used the most.

I think I'm close to developing my 3rd strategy.

Strategy 1 was to eliminate stuff that I didn't like within the first few months.

Strategy 2 developed because I found that some things I come back to, I end up literally in love with. In fact, 90% of my bottles are things I didn't even like at first, but now love.

Strategy 3 is...I think I know more about what I like, and won't like. Even things I don't like now, I can tell I might like them later vs. things I just don't really care for because they're mid, not my profile, or just plain stink.

For example, I do not really like Overture Man right now. But, I see myself potentially liking it in the future. However, I've had my sample of Safran Colognisé for a long while now, and it doesn't stink at all, it's just I don't really desire to wear it. I should give it away.

Tengo tantas muestras oficiales, decantadores y botellas pequeñas de 5, 8, 10 y 15 ml que casi nunca toco mis botellas grandes. Esa es mi estrategia: usar los decantadores a diario y llevarlos conmigo cuando viajo, por supuesto. Aunque a menudo no los uso todos y los regalo cuando vendo un perfume.

I really like the idea of that traveling box of samples. Is there anything like this here, on Parfumo? If not, can and may we organise one?

I'm only in the beginning of my frag journey, and I already have about 30 samples to give away. Also buying decants of some frags that are hard or impossible to find in my city is pretty pricey, and discovery sets also aren't cheap. Taking into account what frag nerd I seem to be, a sample box might be a perfect way of testing and exploring for me. And I personally prefer sharing over selling.

I just turned one sample into a hair perfume (dilute it with distilled water, rose water and orange blossom water) because it had such short longevity on my skin.

They do this in the German version of Perfumo! It's called a "wandering letter". I'm really excited to try my first one soon, Halloween themed.

Many thanks for the info! 🤗 I tried the search function, but seems like it is restricted to the English version of the forum, that's why I didn't find it. I'll try to join the traveling boxes in the German community. 

You have to switch to the Deutsch version of Parfumo. They are called "Wanderbrief" and it is usually assumed for calculating postage costs, that participants live in Germany. I would like to start one in the English speaking forum, but I don't have enough experience yet. I've just signed up for my first one. 

If I end up purchasing the fragrance I will use the original sample for travel or if a friend compliments it I’ll give them the little sampler so they can try it for themselves. If I like it but not enough to buy it, I’ll use it until it’s gone just so it isn’t wasted. In doing that I’ve found that I actually really liked a fragrance that I was just meh about at first because of its wearability. If I don’t like it on myself I usually will ask friends if they want it and give them away 😅