Collecting colognes and perfumes and using them daily is a great and rewarding hobby. However, if you are a perfume collector, there is a severe concern over your perfumes and colognes’ shelf life. And does perfume expire at some point? Or not.
If you have just one cologne that you put regularly, you don’t have to worry that much. You can always buy another bottle and continue to enjoy your signature scent.
But, if you are like me, with hundreds of perfume bottles everywhere, you will be interested to know if they can go bad or expire at some point. And how you could prevent that from happening.
In this post, I will try to answer as many relevant questions as possible regarding perfume expiration and how to keep your perfumes safe for as long as you can to enjoy this expensive hobby.
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How Long Does Perfume Last?
Colognes and perfumes consist of chemical components. And as we all know, they can react to various elements like oxygen, heat, humidity, and light.
If you store your perfumes in the right conditions, away from heat, direct sunlight, oxygen exposure, and temperature fluctuations, they can stay with you for many years.
I have a bottle of Xeryus Rouge by Givenchy that’s almost 20 years old. It smells exactly the same as the day I bought it! Many other serious fragrance collectors will tell you the same stories about how their bottle of this or that cologne is still as good as new after 20 or even 30 years and beyond.
I know of many cologne collectors who even have the habit of chasing down vintage bottles of colognes that are, in some cases, more than 40 years old!
However, when you store your perfume in bad conditions, like:
- On the window in direct sunlight.
- In the bathroom, when there is a lot of temperature fluctuations and humidity.
- When you have a cracked bottle that lets oxygen goes in.
You will run the risk of it going bad quickly and spoiling like any other chemical product.
In some cases, you may experience perfume evaporation. It happens when the perfume bottle doesn’t have an airtight seal, which allows the liquid inside to evaporate gradually over time.
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What is the Shelf Life of Perfume?
Most cologne companies determine the official shelf life of their perfumes from three to five years on average. However, this is just a general recommendation and doesn’t mean that these perfumes will expire if kept in appropriate storing conditions, as I stated before.
How Do You Check Perfume Expiration Date?
If you want to know the official expiration date of a perfume, there are a few cosmetic calculators that you can use.
The two most popular are:
You have to select the perfume brand you want to investigate. Then, you will have to put the perfume Batch Code.
The Batch Code of cologne is usually printed on the bottom of the box and the bottle itself.
The calculator will give you the month and the year of manufacture and tell you how long it is left until the cologne is officially expired.
How Do You Know if a Perfume is Expired?
Some signs could tell you if a perfume is gone bad. The first and obvious one is the smell. If you know your scent well, you will notice that it starts to smell different.
When a cologne begins to enter the expiration phase, the top notes usually start to fade away. The reason for that is these top notes consist primarily of light and fleeting ingredients like citruses, which is always the weakest part of the composition.
If your cologne used to be fresh and sparkly when you first spray it, you will start to notice that it goes directly to the heavier middle and base notes, and it starts to lose its freshness.
The second sign is performance. I mean by performance is how strong the scent is and how long it stays on your skin. When you notice that the performance is weakening over time, it could indicate a bad chemical reaction in the composition that leads to a thinner scent.
The third sign I’ve noticed is the thickness change of the cologne’s composition. I have three bottles of my collection that I put on my desk for decorative reasons. Those three bottles were hit hard by direct sunlight for about a year.
When I tried to use one of them the other day, I was surprised by how thin the composition is. When I used to spray one of those colognes on my hand, they made a thick and oily spot for at least half an hour.
But, when I spray one of them now, there is no oily spot whatsoever, and the colognes are immediately evaporating without any traces. I also noticed that the performance of these colognes is getting much worse. And they don’t last on my skin for more than an hour at most.
When you search Google for signs of an expired perfume, you will often come across a change in coloration as one of the signs. However, In my experience, the color change is, in most cases, not a definite indication of a bad scent.
Many colognes will change coloration over time and become darker due to “Oxydation,” which means a chemical reaction between oxygen and the cologne ingredients.
This reaction happens when you use more of your cologne, allowing oxygen to enter the bottle to replace the space. In many cases, it can be a good thing. More on that later.
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Does Perfume Expire if Unopened?
The same rules of the opened bottle could also apply to an unopened one. Unopened perfume bottles can actually stay in good condition for many years if kept in a cool and dark place in their original boxes and away from any temperature fluctuations.
No one can determine exactly how many years; it all comes down to every cologne and perfume component. But the bottom line is that it can stay for a decent amount of time.
What Will Happen if You Use Expired Perfume?
In most cases, nothing serious will happen. But if you want to err on the side of caution, I recommend that in doubt, don’t spray it directly to your skin.
If the cologne still smells nice, you can use it on your clothes or even as an air freshener to prevent any bad or allergic reaction from happening to your skin.
Does Perfume Get Better with Age?
There are clear indications through observation and real-life examples and from experiencing firsthand many different fragrances throughout its lifespan that some colognes and perfumes do actually get better when aging.
The thing is, not all perfumes will experience this effect. The composition of the fragrance itself, the various materials used, and the manufacturing method are all factors that contribute to this strange and fascinating phenomenon.
Maturation
This reaction is called “Maturation,” which means that the perfume matures in its bottle over time and gets stronger. One of the visual indicators of this reaction is that the perfume’s color gets darker with time.
What causes this reaction to happen in the first place is the introduction of oxygen slowly to the bottle after you start using your cologne, and air replaces the space. So it doesn’t happen until you actually start using your cologne regularly.
My Experience With Fragrance Maturation
The most extreme example of Maturation or fragrances that get stronger and better with age is “Creed Aventus.” I bought my bottle of “Creed Aventus” three years ago from a very reputable vendor in my area. When I first got it, I thought I got a fake bottle. The liquid inside the bottle was clear, and the performance was weak.
The scent was hardly noticeable after only half an hour, no matter how many sprays I put. I even called my vendor and complained about the performance issue, but he confirmed that it was bought directly from a Creed Boutique.
I used it five times, then put the bottle aside for a while and returned later after about three months. I noticed that the juice inside the bottle was getting darker, and to my surprise, the scent turned nuclear on my skin, and it lasted and projected for more than twelve hours!
The Batch Number of my bottle is 17S01, and it turns out to be one of the most potent batches of Creed Aventus in the last few years!
Other examples of colognes that experienced this reaction from my collection are:
- Dior Homme Intense
- Mugler Pure Havane
- Mugler Pure Mault
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How to Store Perfume and Cologne, So it Doesn’t Spoil
You may now have formed a general idea of how you could store your precious colognes and perfumes to prevent anything terrible from happening to them. To be on the safe side, take into consideration the following tips:
- Store your perfumes and colognes in a dark, cool, and dry place.
- Keep your perfumes away from any location with temperature fluctuations.
- Don’t put your bottles in direct sunlight at any cost.
- It’s preferable to keep your perfumes away from any source of light in general.
- It’s better not to display your perfumes for decorative reasons. Or you will be sacrificing the liquid inside the bottles over time.
- Don’t put any perfume or cologne in the car because the heat will break it down quickly, and it will become unusable.
- If you have any unopened perfume bottles, keep them in their original boxes. And keep them in the dark and cool place as well.
- Keep your bottles caps on them all the time.
- Try to keep your perfumes in their original bottles as possible.
- If you have to use perfume decants, you should try to use them as soon as possible because they tend to go bad and evaporate quickly.
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Cool Ideas to Store Your Perfumes
If you have many perfumes and you want to save them in good condition for as long as possible, you may consider the following options:
- Your Closet is Your Best Bet: The first and most obvious choice is in a closed cabinet, as long as it’s in a place with stable temperatures most of the time and away from any heat sources.
- In a Refrigerator, if You Can’t Control Your Temperature: The second best option is that you can assign a specific refrigerator to keep your perfumes in it. When you put your perfumes in a fridge, you can ensure a steady temperature all the time without worrying about any fluctuations.
- A Wine Cooler for a More Fancy Option: Many perfume collectors I know use a wine cooler for their most expensive and luxurious perfumes. So consider this a great option as well.
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Final Thoughts
As you can see, there is no definite answer that can apply to all cases on how long a bottle of perfume lasts; it all comes down to many variables and circumstances.
However, the bottom line is that, yes, perfume does expire if stored improperly, but you can actually extend its life if you keep it in perfect conditions.
The other important thing to keep in mind is that you should trust your nose and let it be the judge of whether a perfume is expired or in a perfect fragrant condition.
