Nº 39 - Do perfumes have an expiry date?
One aspect that greatly influences the shelf life of fragrances is, first and foremost, the raw materials that were used in their preparation: in fact, the more natural the notes, the more likely it is that fragrances will change after opening, altering their appearance and fragrance; on the contrary, chemicals can remain unchanged for much longer periods.
The mutation time of a perfume is 36 months at most.
Perhaps not everyone knows that the box is the most important protection for our perfume against its most powerful enemy: sunlight. In fact, prolonged exposure triggers real reactions within the elements that make up a perfume, in that they can alter it even if the bottle is still closed.
If the bottle is open, on the other hand, sunlight can further accelerate the natural decomposition of the olfactory elements and often a perfume exposed to sunlight tends to change colour and become darker.
If we want to understand if it is really time to throw away our perfume bottle, the first test to do is to spray it: if the perfume is no longer good, then it will smell different; if after a while we notice strange smells, sometimes even acidic, this means that the perfume has expired.
Written by Adele