Do Perfumes Go Off or Lose their Fragrance?

Firstly, let's put your mind at ease...

You're never going to wake up one day, spray your favourite scent and find that it smells of nothing at all. However, if you treat it badly it could smell like vinegar.

Here are our top tips for looking after your precious scent...

Whilst some unopened scents can remain unchanged for centuries, perfume can go off. 

This is because when a fragrance reacts to oxygen it begins a chemical process known as 'Oxidation', where electrons are lost and (in the case of fragrance) the scent is altered.

Expiry dates don't really exist in perfumery, but the average shelf life is around 3 to 5 years. If it's stored badly however, you could ruin a fragrance in a matter of weeks. 

Here are a few tips to make sure your fragrance is nicely stored and won't go off...

1. Keep it cool.

This mean don't keep it in your bathroom where the temperature fluctuates regularly. You can keep it in a fridge, but there's no real need as room temperature is cool enough.

2. Keep it away from direct sunlight.

Avoid leaving it in a window sill, for example. The suns rays may heat the fragrance through the glass and cause a reaction.


3. Use it!

Lots of people like to leave the last precious drops for a special occasion.

However, once a fragrance has been used, there's a tiny amount of oxygen that flows back into the bottle through the pump. It will take a long time for it go off, but in essence (no pun intended) the process of oxidisation has begun. So leave it too and the last drops might smell like a condiment for chips!