If you’ve read any of my other articles, you’ll probably know that I’m really into smelly things. Nice smelling things, that is! Air freshener, diffusers, perfume, scented candles, you name it, nice smelling things are my favourite.
I know there are people out there who can’t stand fragrances and prefer the air to just smell of nothing. But my acute sense of smell really struggles with anything that smells bad – and I can assure you a lot of things (and people) do not smell good.
So my house is full of the gorgeous scents of diffusers and air fresheners and not a day goes by that I do not wear perfume. Wearing perfume is my own personal defense against the bad smells.
When I encounter something or someone that upsets my delicate sense of smell, I simply lift my hand near my face and breathe in the scent of my wrist which has been generously doused in perfume.
I know perfume is not for everyone but, as I’ve explained, it’s a daily necessity for me. And I have quite a large collection! One of my favourite ways to while away some time at a shopping centre or chemist is to ‘try on’ new and different perfumes from the fragrance counter.
But, the thing with perfume is, perfumes all smell different on different people, I’m not sure what it is but the way a perfume reacts with your skin can make it smell better or worse on different people.
Spraying some fragrance on a strip of paper will give you an idea if you like the scent, but you won’t truly know if it’s the right perfume for you until you have tried it on your skin. And you really need to let it sit on your skin for a while before you truly know what it smells like on you.
I recall a memorable trip to Chemist Warehouse where a friend and I tried on many different fragrances. The initial spray of one particular perfume I thought was quite unpleasant but, later that day, I kept smelling that particular spot on my arm and became quite obsessed with the scent that I had originally disliked.
The only problem was, I couldn’t remember which perfume it was! It might have been Calvin Klein Obsession – which would make sense as it made me quite obsessed with sniffing my arm (!) but I haven’t had the chance to try it again since and see if it’s the perfume I’m coveting.
Many people like to find a signature scent and stick with it for life and, when you find a perfume that you love, it’s easy to see why this is appealing.
I find, however, that my nose will start to get bored of a scent after a while, to a point where you barely even notice the scent.
I think my brain needs different scents to make it more alert and make the scents more noticeable, which is why I usually have a collection of perfumes, maybe 8-10 fragrances at a time in my bathroom drawer, so I can choose to spray on whichever one takes my fancy on any particular day.
There are some, like Estee Lauder’s Beautiful and Elizabeth Arden’s True Love which I always have, so I guess you could say these make up part of my ‘signature scent collection’. But I do like to chop and change and add new fragrances in and out of rotation.
Skylar Perfume
A few years ago I discovered Skylar perfumes. I absolutely adore these perfumes!
Their entire collection is on my permanent wish list/ gift suggestion list that my family all have access to and I’ve been lucky enough to receive some test sample kits as well as some full sized perfumes from them a few times – and I have been absolutely thrilled and delighted each time!
Skylar perfumes offer a pure, clean scent that is hard to describe, but there isn’t a single one in their collection of sample scents that I would be loath to wear.
If you have the chance to try some Skylar scents, I couldn’t recommend them more. They will always be a part of my scent collection however I have two reservations about them. One, because their perfumes are ‘clean’ or naturally made, I find that their scents don’t last as long as I would like them to.
If I’m wearing a Skylar scent and need to have a sneaky sniff of my wrist to disguise a bad smell I have encountered, if it’s a few hours after application, I might not be able to smell anything. So, if using Skylar perfumes, you’ll want to reapply your scent regularly.
Secondly, when I first discovered Skylar I was so excited to learn that you could join their ‘Scent Club’ and be sent a new fragrance every month on subscription.
I never ended up signing up for their perfume subscription though because they’re a USA based company and, by the time I did my conversions to Australian dollars, it was going to be quite an expensive club to be a part of.
Also, their scent of the month would always be in a roll-on format. Not a deal breaker, but I definitely prefer to spray my scent on. So I never did sign up for Skylar scent club but, if you need hypoallergenic perfume that’s vegan and cruelty free, I strongly recommend you buy a discovery set from Skylar.
You’ll get 5 perfumes to try, you can even layer them together. Then, if there’s a particular one you like, you can buy a full sized bottle or two.
Recreation Bondi Beach Scents
My next stop in my own perfume discovery journey was when I found Recreation scents. I really thought this one was the answer to my prayers, it seemed a similar idea to Skylar in that they make clean, vegan perfumes, but they are based right here in Australia in Bondi Beach.
All prices are in Australian dollars and, while they don’t offer a subscription box, they do have a sample box available for sale. I bought the sample box which includes 5 small sample bottles of some of their fragrances.
I was so excited when my sample box arrived but, unfortunately, I didn’t really like any of the scents. The first one I tried ‘This Love Of Mine’ was OK but I was hopeful that the others in the box would be even better.
Unfortunately, they only got worse for me. Plenty of other people seem to like their fragrances so, if you want to try a locally made, cruelty free perfume, you could give them a try, but I won’t be buying any more perfume from this company.
Scent Box Review
Just when I’d almost given up on my idea of finding a perfume subscription box in Australia, I was targeted with an ad from Scent Box.
Rather than making their own perfume, Scent Box offers you a wide range of perfumes to choose from (from designers and well known labels), that will be sent to your door every month on a subscription basis.
The perfumes come in a spray bottle but not the original perfume packaging. Instead you’ll get a month’s supply of scent which has been siphoned off into a Scent Box spray bottle. They got me in by advertising that you get a month’s worth of fragrance for just $13.23.
I thought that was a pretty good deal to give me a lovely new scent every month. But then I read the fine print, $13.23 is only the price for the first month, then it increases to $21.72 per month after that.
I was already pretty excited by the concept at this stage so I decided to go for it. After all, this was scentbox.com.au and the prices were in Australian dollars so at least I knew how much I would be spending each month.
Wrong! Once I signed up I discovered that the prices listed were an estimate based on the exchange rate and that my credit card will actually be charged in US dollars each month.
I was not happy to discover this as I really wanted to be buying from an Australian company and paying in Australian dollars. But, while I could have cancelled, I figured I had already come this far and I really wanted to do a review of a perfume subscription box available in Australia.
Despite my card getting charged in US dollars, Scent Box is currently targeting an Australian subscriber base so I figured there might be more of you out there, like me, who want to know if Scent Box is any good as a perfume subscription when you live in Australia. So, I went ahead and signed up. The things I do for this blog!
I signed up for my subscription to Scent Box on the 28th of February and was advised that my monthly shipment date would be the 7th of each month. So I had to wait a week before my first fragrance was even shipped.
I received no emails or other notification that my order had been sent, so when it got to about the 10th of March, I logged back into my Scent Box account to see if there was any news. According to my subscription account, my order had been shipped on the 7th as planned so I just had to be patient and wait for it to arrive.
The fact that it still hadn’t arrived by the 17th of March confirmed in my mind that the perfume was coming all the way from the USA.
My mental ‘to-do’ list for Monday the 21st of March was to check in with Scent Box again to see if there was any information on the progress of my order but, before I had a chance to do that, I discovered a package on my doorstep!
In this era of sustainability and environmental warriors I know we’re not supposed to be impressed by fancy packaging anymore, but I can’t help it – the packaging is seriously impressive! It’s a shiny gold bubble wrap envelope!
And the packaging continued to impress with every step of the unboxing process.
The spray bottle or atomizer is classy and well made, and very easy to use once you figure out that there is no lid to pull off! You just need to twist the top and the spray nozzle slides up like a lipstick – it didn’t take me too long to figure that out (learn from my experience!).
On the bottom of the canister is a little sticker with the details of the perfume you have received. This will be handy when my perfume collection grows each month so I’ll be able to tell which scent is which.
It is only a fairly small size which means it will easily fit into a handbag to refresh your scent but, on the flip side, probably won’t last very long.
It is meant to contain 1 months worth of fragrance so it will be interesting to see how much (if any) is left by the time my next order arrives.
While I was impatient for this one to arrive, now that the ball is rolling, I should receive a new fragrance around the 21st of each month, so it hopefully won’t feel as though I have to wait too long between scents.
Unfortunately I can’t let you have a sniff of my perfume – wouldn’t that be great if I could create a scratch and sniff blog? So, you’ll just have to take my word for it that my first fragrance smells great.
As Scent Box only offers well known brands of fragrance, I’m guessing all the scents will smell pretty good as they’ve already been tried and tested to make it this far in a competitive market.
I’m going to wait another month before I post this as I want to have 2 orders worth before giving my final thoughts on the pros and cons of subscribing to Scent Box.
Final Thoughts
OK, so I’ve actually waited another 2 months to complete this (mainly because I got really busy with some other parts of life) so that means I have now had 3 deliveries of perfume from Scent Box. My second perfume was Miami Blossom by Escada, it’s nice but possibly a bit too sweet for me.
When my third delivery arrived I was a little disappointed to see that they no longer ship the fragrances in the fancy box packaging. It still came in the gold foil packet but then the perfume spray bottle was just in an ordinary box.
I can understand why Scent Box have done this – it is no doubt a lot more economical to ship their perfumes packaged this way. If I hadn’t seen the original packaging at all I’d still be fairly impressed with the way the perfume was packed, I was just a bit spoiled by seeing how beautifully they used to package it.
On the plus side, my third perfume is simply divine! So much so that I am considering buying a full sized bottle to add to my collection. If you’re interested, it’s Jimmy Choo Floral and I love it!
Honestly, I have wavered about whether a Scent Box subscription is worth it or not. On the plus side I love receiving a new perfume to try each month and the spray bottles are beautiful and easy to use.
The negatives for me purely come down to the fact that the fragrances are being sent from overseas and that I am having to pay for my subscription in US dollars. If an Australian company opens up that can offer a comparable service at a comparable price I would switch over in a heartbeat!
Eventually my perfume collection will get too big and I’ll have to stop, at least for a while anyway. But, for now, I love getting my new perfumes each month too much to stop my subscription just yet.
If you’d like to try a Scent Box subscription for yourself (I know you’ll love it!) simply click here to get started.
By the way, a Scent Box subscription would also make a fantastic gift for someone you know who likes to smell great!
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