What Percent of Your Wardrobe Do You Actually Wear?

[hednic]

I have worn everything in my collection at one time or another.

 

[FOXHOUND]

I have around 150 or so bottles in rotation and I do my best to rotate through them as evenly as I can. I have most of them on six different trays like this one, with about 22-23 fragrances on each tray and about twelve or so of the less expensive ones (Armaf mostly) lined up behind the trays.

I do my best to use a fragrance from a tray, and the next day pick a fragrance from the next tray, and so on. When I make my way back to the first tray, I try and pick a different fragrance. I will also incorporate one of the ones lined up behind the trays here & there too. Of course it's not written in stone so sometimes I'll change it up depending on the circumstances, but for the most part this method helps me rotate evenly through all of my fragrances.

 

[Pippin06]

Great thread! Out of my 50 bottle collection, 25 or so get worn from now and then to often--though not in any kind of regular rotation. I randomly choose what I'm in the mood for.

I have 10 or so then get frequent wears (favorites). I do have some I haven't given proper wears yet, and some I rarely wear.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I was thinking about this just the other day so kind of serendipitous that you posted this Kosui.

About 120 frags (bottles) here (not including samples/minis) with 50 in regular rotation. I swap out 10 or 15 from time to time to keep things fresh and decide whether I’m going to be keeping a bottle or not.

Within the last 12 months,
-25 fragrances have had 8 wears or more
-40 with at least 5 wears
-50 with at least 4 wears
-70 with at least 3 wears
-85 with at least 2 wears

I’ve worn 75% of all my bottles within the last 12 months and this is based on recorded wears. There are plenty more wears that I haven’t logged either because it wasn’t convenient or were just a quick sample wear or test.

I would say 25 are my core fragrances that get very regular wears and at the opposite end of things I could happily cull 20 straight away that haven’t been worn in over a year.

 

[N.CAL Fragrance Reviewer]

Probably along the lines of this:

1/3 I use on a regular basis
1/3 I use on occasion
1/3 I never wear

 

[The Cologne Cabinet]

I currently own 30 bottles, 17 decants and 11 samples.

From the bottles, I rotate through 85% of them every 60 days as a few are more seasonal specific. The rest get worn randomly here and there.

 

[AndyL]

I really do try to give everyone equal treatment 😉 Many of my fragrance"wearings" are single digit. Only a few that I have are what I'd consider situational. MFK oud extrait, YSL Tuxedo, Sauvage Elixir.

The issue at the moment is my wardrobe.... how to say... is actively growing, so new fragrances are added into the mix. A new bottle represents a lost opportunity to wear the existing frags. I need a hard stop!

 

[LiveJazz]

I use almost all of mine.

Like you @kosui no kaori I used to neglect large swaths, mainly because digging through storage drawers to access all the options was a pain, so I'd revert back to things that were recently worn and therefore top of mind.

Solution was to bring out scents for display in a seasonal rotation. When I can quickly scan through a nice array of scents that I know are relevant for the season, I'm more likely to distribute my picks.

If given the above setup, I'm still not electing to wear a scent, I know I can cut it loose.

 

[LinePlaneVolume]

I generally rotate by season and do my best to spread the love (using Wardrobe stats is very helpful with that).

 

[CookBot]

I don't need to own something I really like.

Wow You are a very rare bird around here.

 

[Deleted member 26372156]

Wow You are a very rare bird around here.

Smelling samples and talking about perfume is already fun for me haha

Also it's very easy on my salary :' )

 

[ambergeese]

I'm with @eggpudding in that I also don't have a need for a large collection of bottles. I buy samples and only samples, maybe a small decant if I really like something. I have around 11 full bottles, and I want to get rid of 10 of them. The vast majority of these were free PR stuff sent for the blog. I get the impression companies think sending a full bottle will make me grateful and more likely to heap praise upon them. Honestly -- and I really don't mean to complain about getting free stuff -- I find it a little annoying and presumptuous. Samples are great, cheaper and easier for everybody involved, and they're enough for me to try what you're offering. Unless I absolutely adore what you're sending me, I don't want a bottle.

I just decluttered my (actual clothes and shoes) wardrobe this week, so, like many others, this felt to me like a serendipitous question. I haven't gotten to a proper small capsule wardrobe yet (I live in a 4-season climate and do a lot of different activities), but keeping my total count of clothes, shoes, and accessories under 150 I'm now much happier. I feel like I know what I have and can creatively combine things to make outfits, instead of just being overwhelmed. I imagine for some people a perfume wardrobe is a similar experience.

 

[ultravisitor]

I don't need to own something I really like.

Me neither. If I did that, I'd have way, way more bottles than I already have, which is already too many. I do like having full bottles, though, because that way I don't have to feel like I have to limit how much I wear a particular fragrance that I like to wear. I like having the luxury of wearing something like Mitzah for a week straight (or longer) without worrying about my bottle becoming anywhere close to being empty.

I go through phases where I will want to wear something pretty frequently and then will then stop wearing it for an extended amount of time, so just about all of mine will end up gathering dust at some point. I just don't bother thinking about it.

I don't feel any need to treat them all equally in terms of wears. It's not like a particular perfume's feelings will be hurt if I stop wearing it for a while. It's perfume; it doesn't have feelings.

 

[ChuckW]

I own 44 bottles. About 12-15 went into storage a couple of weeks back because they're more cold weather oriented. I'll get those back out in November.

I have maybe a dozen I'll wear two or three times a month. The others I wear probably once a month. I also wear samples and travel sprays maybe once a week.

I'll never empty another full bottle. I have too much juice and I don't hit any particular bottle often enough. I've made peace with it.

 

[AJ1515]

All, but I am at a point where I only buy new bottles--usually--after selling things I don't wear regularly

 

[Ken_Russell]

Generally not following any fixed wearing habits and therefore not able to guarantee an even remotely equal distribution of each fragrance being worn regularly.
Nevertheless, in a total wardrobe nearing 200 different fragrances and possibly more into the low hundreds with backup bottles, samples, scented aftershaves etc. included, at least 10-20% of all fragrances do somehow manage to get a more or less heavy rotation.

 

[dealt7faux]

Probably, around 15%, and those are usually dumb reaches.

 

[Scentologist]

Probably along the lines of this:

1/3 I use on a regular basis
1/3 I use on occasion
1/3 I never wear

I could approximate to something around this conservatively.

 

[kosui no kaori]

Did a little math and it was bit surprising.

Given the size of my collection, I thought it would be way smaller.

Over last year I have worn 85% of my stuff.

But only about 20% were worn enough that I would say "regularly."

85% is really significant!!

 

[kosui no kaori]

All of them. I have a rotation system in place.

Impressive!