What Percent of Your Wardrobe Do You Actually Wear?

[kosui no kaori]

This sounds ridiculous but I'm only comfortable having 1 to 3 bottles of perfume at a time. Maybe ten years ago (when I was 22) I had a larger collection of 7 or 8 bottles but now I'm just not comfortable having so many perfume bottles taking up space and collecting dust, even if they are beautiful.

The way I engage with perfume as a hobby is mostly through samples, reading about perfume, watching perfume content, and sampling in stores if I can. I love what other people have to say about a particular fragrance and see how subjective our sense of smell can be. I don't need to own something I really like.

It just feels more personal to me to have one or two perfumes. Someone can walk into my bedroom and look around...there's my diary and fountain pen, there's the bottle of perfume I always wear, my favorite top, my prized bristle brush etc...it just feels more personal than if my shelf looked like the entire inventory of Nordstrom's...I just pick a vibe lmao

I'm wearing Le Labo's Neroli 36 these days and Un Air de Bretagne by L'Artisan Parfumeur (I like scents reminiscent of the ocean plus I'm in California)...and I have about 10 little samples of various fragrances. Blind buying a full bottle of perfume just by reading about it is something I've never done--it's not for me! Smelling everything inside of a boutique and chatting away with the sales associate is probably my favorite aspect of this hobby

I really enjoyed reading this - I love your perspective, and the way that you enjoy fragrances could quite possibly be infinitely more fulfilling and genuinely enjoyable than simply acquiring a mass collection (and nothing wrong with the latter, either - which I also find personally satisfying).

I applaud you for finding what truly works for you!

 

[kosui no kaori]

I'm currently down to 55 fragrances from just over 115 a few months ago and wear 100% of my collection! Would like to get it down to 50 in a couple of months, it just feels like the perfect number for me. Picking my SOTD became a chore and it was time to get rid of anything that hadn't been worn for a few months. If I don't love something enough to wear it regularly then it simply doesn't belong in my collection! No likes now, just loves and I'm also building up a collection of 50 minis (and back ups of a few of them) to add interest and variety to things! I'm definitely a recent convert to minis because it's fun to just wear something for a few days or weeks and then move on to something completely different!

I love this, @_Nicolas_ !

 

[kosui no kaori]

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

On an average month (not counting February), do you ever repeat a fragrance?

(I don’t think I’ve noticed a repeat in the same month).

 

[kosui no kaori]

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.

I like this method a lot 👌🏻

 

[kosui no kaori]

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.

What a lovely coincidence 😊

Your calculations are very reasonable, and your method resonates with me.

 

[kosui no kaori]

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

This is a great, great point.

 

[hednic]

(I don’t think I’ve noticed a repeat in the same month).

You're correct

 

[showpony]

I started tracking my daily wears January 1, since I resolved then to wear perfume every day. Of my small collection, I’ve worn 87% since I started tracking. Samples and decants, I have no idea.

I have no rotation system, I just wear what I feel like. A few get worn much more than others. Also, I wear perfume to bed nearly every night but for whatever reason I’m not tracking the bedtime scents.

 

[kosui no kaori]

I started tracking my daily wears January 1, since I resolved then to wear perfume every day. Of my small collection, I’ve worn 87% since I started tracking. Samples and decants, I have no idea.

I have no rotation system, I just wear what I feel like. A few get worn much more than others. Also, I wear perfume to bed nearly every night but for whatever reason I’m not tracking the bedtime scents.

Impressive 🙂

 

[StylinLA]

85% is really significant!!

Yes but many, many only worn once

 

[hollywoodforever]

~24 full bottles. That's the number I hope to remain at or around. I wear most of them. I think like everyone, I'll wear one fragrance more frequently for a few weeks, then shift to another...

I also have perfumes that are assigned to tasks. I have a beach scent. I have a nightlife scent. I might only wear them for that particular purpose, but they get worn!

 

[Mark_Trail]

I'm trying to wear each scent at least once a year. Seems that I'm regularly failing a bit short, but out of full bottles I reckon 95% gets at least one yearly outing (not counting back-ups naturally)

-Mark

 

[Franco65]

99.9%

 

[Reiu]

If only counting full bottles: 100%. I also do the seasonal rotation thing a couple of others have mentioned. At the same time there are definitely scents I gravitate to all the time and wear much more frequently than others, and one or two are particularly personal to me. Especially because there are ones so special to me I try to give my nose a break by rotating and going scentless some days, so that I can always enjoy each spray as much as I can.

Some of this comes from necessary discipline with regards to full bottles owing to the fact that I only have one budget but many hobbies competing for the resources of that budget, some of which costs me more than my fragrances hobby does. So I only buy if I'm absolutely sure it's a fragrance I will revisit with some frequency.

Now, as for how much I touch my furtively stashed mountain of samples that I will most definitely never wear again and yet can't entirely bring myself to toss in the trash..........................😶

 

[sagebrush]

All but two of my Wardrobe get worn regularly/frequently, and I should move those two on.
The benefits of designing monthly rotations, and checking 'last worn' dates according to BN.

 

[lfc1892]

I pretty much rotate through most of them except for a few that are not always suitable for work etc

 

[PStoller]

I wear all of them in an unscientifically randomized three-year rotation.

 

[Pippin06]

I'm going to try an experiment. I believe Dior Eau Sauvage edt energizes me some, so from now to the end of May, I am going to only wear Eau Sauvage edt to see if I am more productive each day--including exercising and studying / practicing guitar each day.

 

[JBHoren]

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 proportions might change, but in general, yeah; doesn't mean I'd want to toss the last group -- ya nevah know... ya know?

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

^^THIS^^ Wardrobe stats has been a great help to me... not only in keeping fragrance rotations "even", but also in planning my shaves (which, admittedly, I have neither been doing, nor posting, regularly... mea maxima culpa).

As long as I'm being "honest", those "Wardrobe stats" can be painfully revealing. I've got 95 bottles in my Collection, plus two dozen samples/decants. Ouch! That's a lot of Everclear, or vape carts... or maybe part of fixing that now-years-long bathtub/shower leak. Just sayin'. Anyway, better parfums than pizza, amiright? OK... sometimes, lol.

The point is (and I'm surely not alone in this), I'm not one to sell frags that don't get used so often. They take up space? So what. Who's counting? "Sooner or later", right? One day those (least) Wears/Last Wore are gonna be just right, and that'll-be-that.

Hat-tip to @kosui no kaori for an excellent thread!

 

[Pippin06]

The proportions might change, but in general, yeah; doesn't mean I'd want to toss the last group -- ya nevah know... ya know?

^^THIS^^ Wardrobe stats has been a great help to me... not only in keeping fragrance rotations "even", but also in planning my shaves (which, admittedly, I have neither been doing, nor posting, regularly... mea maxima culpa).

As long as I'm being "honest", those "Wardrobe stats" can be painfully revealing. I've got 95 bottles in my Collection, plus two dozen samples/decants. Ouch! That's a lot of Everclear, or vape carts... or maybe part of fixing that now-years-long bathtub/shower leak. Just sayin'. Anyway, better parfums than pizza, amiright? OK... sometimes, lol.

The point is (and I'm surely not alone in this), I'm not one to sell frags that don't get used so often. They take up space? So what. Who's counting? "Sooner or later", right? One day those (least) Wears/Last Wore are gonna be just right, and that'll-be-that.

Hat-tip to @kosui no kaori for an excellent thread!

GREAT to see you posting, JB!