It's the end of an era, friends...
This is your official notice that after January 2025, I'll be closing the Perfume Archives and saying goodbye (kind of!) to all of the vintage Twinkle perfumes from 2015-2022.
Now, hold on...
Before you assemble with your tar and feathers and crudely-fashioned torches, take a deep breath and hear me out.
First, note that I said (kind of!) above:
I will still be making a perfume from the archives to share with you every month via the Surprise Scent Monthly subscription.
I'll cycle through all of the archived scents seasonally, so keep an eye out for the monthly mood board hint on the blog to snag your favorite whenever it comes around.
Don't forget that this way, you can get a 5 ml bottle for $5-$15 dollars cheaper (!!)
I also plan to use the archived fragrances in plenty of body care items for the Off the Menu Monthly subscription, so keep an eye on that for limited edition creations scented with your old favorites.
Second, here's why:
It's been TEN YEARS, which I happen to think is a good long run for fragrances I designed before I even knew how to make perfume.
So much has changed in our world since then. (Pretty much everything?)
On the business end:
Supply chains have never recovered from the pandemic. Prices for these precious ingredients keep going up and up, so it's getting harder for me to keep everything I need to make these scents in stock all of the time. And who even knows how much more difficult it will be for small businesses (many of my suppliers are also small!) to keep up considering the threat of increasing tariffs on these globally sourced ingredients...
I don't want to get into politics here, (or anywhere really,) but it's pretty clear that the moment for Nasty Woman perfume has passed. Even Madam VP. I suppose life moves on, right? But thankfully the opportunity to create something even more beautiful and healing remains.
Truthfully, I've been wanted to make this change for a while. (I even tried once but apparently it was too upsetting. However, I'm optimistic that we've grown out of our angry mob era by now.) I was also afraid because the Perfume Archives are still one of my selling top products by units sold. But after looking into the numbers I realized that while I do sell A LOT of samples from the archives, you rarely come back to buy full-size bottles.
I know that many people prefer to change it up and just sample different scents forever, but that's not an ideal situation for my business. Since you DO buy plenty of full size bottles from my permanent collection, it makes more sense from both a business and creative standpoint to put my time and effort into those fragrances instead.
On the creative side of things:
I want to focus on making more substantial stand-alone fragrances to share with you going forward, and it's hard to work on elevating my craft while I'm stopping (and using up my ingredients) to individually hand-blend 1 ml samples of some obscure thing I made eight years ago. It's not that that obscure fragrance isn't delightful, it's that there simply isn't time for one person to make both.
I don't think you'll be disappointed. I will be un-archiving the fragrances I feel do stand alone. And many of my ideas for new scents are based off of perfumes from the archives! (Like... I want to make Mulholland, but more ethereal and delicate... or, I want to make Date Night, but even more rich and sensual... and on and on it goes in my mind...)
I've already started this project by releasing Smoked Orange (formerly No. 10,) and Tobacco Snow (formerly No. 2,) which happen to be gloriously complex and perfectly unisex, not to mention absolutely beautiful to wear in this cold January air.
I know change can be hard, but it's also an opportunity for growth and exploration and new scent adventures!
Perhaps it will help to think of it this way: when I was 13 I thought that Sun Ripened Raspberry from Bath and Body Works was the height of sophistication. Was I still wearing it at 23? Heck no. (Were they even still making it?) If I had worn the same little body splash every day of my life, I probably never would have had the idea to start making my own perfume!
That's not a drag on Bath and Body Works, or my beginner work, or your taste if you happen to love one of my old perfumes so much that you want to wear it every day. (I love YOU so much for that!)
I'm just saying, I think we can all agree that this has been quite the olfactory adventure so far, and I hope you'll join me for many more to come.
Third, don't forget that you still have the option to recreate your favorite oldie-but-goodie.
This is one of the reasons why I love the Layering Fragrances!
You can wear these in a deconstructed way by collecting the bottles individually, or, I will blend them up for you via the Build Your Own Scent listing. These designs are easier for me to hand-blend for you on demand because I always have the Layering Fragrances in stock.
Here's a lil' cheat-sheet:
Did you know that I also share the actual recipes for these fragrance blends on Patreon?!
Right now, you can buy the recipe for Goddess and Nasty Woman there for $5. Then, you can make as much as you want, forever and ever. I plan to keep sharing more of these simple recipes in the future, so I hope you'll join me there to learn yourself a new craft sometime.
Meanwhile, I suggest taking advantage of January's special offer to take 25% off orders $150+ to get yourself a great big bottle of your favorite.
The code is Goals25
(Sorry, but I've already disabled the sample size because ain't nobody got time to make $150 worth of those for each of you...)
Click here to explore the archives before the month is over!
Thanks for staying up to date, and I'll see you back here with the hint for February's Surprise Scent soon!
Stefanie
