Under Control

Pure perfume oils are far more sophisticated than perfume with fillers. Never offensive or overpowering, long lasting and balanced. They occupy only your own private space and leave a gentle trail only where you choose.

Pure Perfume Is Better For You

Just like jewelry, pure perfume oils vary tremendously in quality. We have put an enormous amount of effort into selecting the best possible quality pure perfume oils of every type. If you have been to our shop, there is no need to explain. But, for those of you who have not visited The Fragrance Shop, here is what makes the difference:

Just Say 'NO' To Alcohol

All commercially available "perfumes" are actually perfume oils with fillers. The fillers are usually mostly alcohol, sometimes with water. The alcohol filler has two main purposes:

First, and foremost, it causes the perfume oils to evaporate faster than they would by themselves - up to 10 or 15 times more quickly! This gives the impression that the perfume is 10 or 15 times stronger than it actually is. That is why, when you first put on a fragrance, the aroma may sometimes seem overwhelming to those around you. It is also why the scent is almost all gone within one or two hours. The perfume oils have evaporated along with the alcohol!

The second reason for all those fillers is just 'good' marketing -- a bigger bottle containing fragrance plus fillers seems like a much better value than a smaller one of pure oil. This illusion is further reinforced by the strong, short-lasting, alcohol driven aroma.

What's Wrong With Alcohol Any Way?

First, it doesn't smell very nice. It tends to kill off some of the nicest notes in many fragrances which in pure form are truly delicious.

Second, it is not very good for you. Perfume fillers generally use ethyl alcohol, sometimes called ethanol. Your body considers ethanol to be a poison and many people who think they are allergic to perfume are actually allergic to the alcohol in the perfume

Third, alcohol is a drying agent -- used by industries all over the world as an additive to make thing evaporate very quickly. Unfortunately for you, as the alcohol evaporates, it also takes away the fragrance and your own natural body oils along with it, drying your skin as it goes!


With Pure Perfume, your scent can last all day long!

Our oils last on both your person and your dressing table as well. Pure perfume oils last most people 6 to 24 hours, depending upon skin type, evaporating naturally during the course of the day or evening. But, just as important, pure perfume oils will also last and last in the bottle. Many people are not aware that perfumes with fillers spoil! Industry experts say 6 to 18 months is the usual shelf-life of a perfume, depending on the components and their quality. But, pure perfume oils will retain their fragrance year after year.

Formulas for Designer Fragrances are well-kept secrets,
but trained, experienced, fragrance professionals can generally pick apart the elements of most fragrances. Augmenting these skills with modern chemical techniques, such as the use of gas-liquid chromatography, helps make it possible to match a given fragrance with the same or better oils.(1)

We carry over 800 different perfume oils. These duplicate the scent of all the famous fragrances from ArpegeTM to ZinoTM. None of our perfume oils contain alcohol or misleading fillers. They contain only the oils that underlie many of your favorite fragrances.

Because of the mystique surrounding the fragrance industry, you might think that fragrances are the private property of the designers, but the courts have held that fragrance is something that belongs to nature and not to any individual. Therefore a fragrance cannot be patented or copyrighted and a manufacturer cannot prevent someone else from matching or improving upon any aroma in whole or in part.

Of course, the brand name of a designer fragrance can be copyrighted or registered and others may not use that name to their profit. That is why we are so careful to point out that we are not offering the orginals - we call ours "Oil of ...." to make the difference clear.

We are very proud of what we do. Day after day, customers tell us our versions smell better than the originals. Perhaps the lack of alcohol or, in some cases, higher quality oils makes the difference. Ounce for ounce, our perfume bottles contain fifteen to twenty times as much pure perfume oil as the typical Eau de Toilette, but choosing pure perfume oils is not so much a question of saving money, as it is of getting your money's worth.




(1)See, for instance, The Chemistry of Essential Oils, David G. Williams, Micelle Press, 1997.