I have come to an exciting and satisfying decision regarding my advent calendar for 2023!
I had been feeling somewhat downcast, as I had no compelling desire for any particular advent calendar—and that seemed to me to be an extremely unsympathetic problem to be having, especially right now.
I nevertheless continued to be downcast, and thought to myself: “If only I could find a good PERFUME advent calendar! That would be my FAVORITE BY FAR!” I spent a little time looking online, but a lot of the fragrance advent calendars were eye-crossingly expensive, and associated with brands/houses unfamiliar to me so who knows if I’d even LIKE them; and often the calendars included things that were not perfumes but instead perfumed things such as candles and lotions—which is FINE, but not what I am hoping for.
In my research, I found Immortal Perfumes, which does have an advent calendar, but I’m reluctant to take such an expensive plunge with no previous experience with the brand. I saw a lot of intriguing samples, though, so I posted on Bluesky (where I am primarily located now that El0n Mu$k has made such a cock-up of Twitter):
That got no bites. But Suebob replied:
So I poked around on Illuminated Perfume, and found many samples I wanted to try from THERE, TOO!!
…Which led me to an idea. I have purchased advent calendars (actually countdown-to-Christmas calendars, as they start on December 1st and end on the 24th or 25th) in the past, and several of them have been constructed so charmingly/sturdily that I have KEPT the empty calendars, with the thought that I may someday REFILL them for myself or for others.
AND THIS IS MY MOMENT!! I can buy some samples from Immortal Perfume! Some samples from Illuminated Perfume! Some samples from The Perfumed Court and/or Surrender to Chance (they do decants—custom samples)! I can add in the five Pacifica Wanderlust samples (Target link, Amazon link) I’d already bought for my own stocking! And I can jumble them all up in a bag, and choose randomly and without peeking, and look away obliviously as I fill all the compartments of one of my nice little saved countdown-to-Christmas calendar structures!! And have a lovely, lovely, exactly-what-I-want advent calendar!
I am MORE THAN OPEN to suggestions for other perfumeries and perfume samples/samplers!
I have been wanting to do this for years! I don’t want samples from one house; I want to be surprised by samples I have pre- selected for myself.
Obviously you need to be in marketing. I have never once thought about procuring an advent calendar before now.
This totally made me want to get an advent calendar. Are there any candy ones you recommend that are good? Usually I have a little wooden one with doors that I add candy to and my two kids alternate days with it, but it’s always candy that’s readily available around the holidays. I also do the virtual advent calendars that I read about here so many years ago!
I enjoyed TRYING the See’s Advent Calendar one year—but it wasn’t a good value, candywise. I’ve thought about ordering a custom box (approx 25 pieces) and putting them into an empty calendar!
I make my own countdown calendars every year! I have an over the door shoe hanger, with 24 pockets, and I bought festive number stickers off etsy to label each day. My husband and each of my kids has a different assigned color, and I wrap their daily surprise in their color tissue paper and tuck it into the assigned pocket.
It’s usually like, fun candy! Erasers! Festive sprinkles! Dollar store silly things that tickled me! My husband gets tiny bottles of liquor and random fishing stuff from Bass Pro I found on sale.
Our nightly December tradition is to read a Christmas book and then get your advent surprise. I looooove how customizable it is, depending on how interests change (and what I can find for cheap that year)
Oooh, I love the idea of using a shoe organizer! I have a proper holiday-themed wooden Advent calendar, but the drawers on it are so tiny that all you can really fit are a single small chocolate or candy – so this would be a great alternative!
I just got Pacifica Island Vanilla the other day and it’s divine.
Sucreabielle (sp?) has tiny samples available of all their very interesting scents!
penhaligon’s! https://www.penhaligons.com/uk/en/categories/fragrances/discovery-sets/scent-library-000000000065186518
BPAL!
https://blackphoenixalchemylab.com/
TBH, I haven’t bought anything from bpal in at least a decade but I enjoyed the rabbit hole while I was in it. I love the OG scents inspired by Alice in Wonderland.
What a fun solution! I am so happy for you! I don’t have any suggestions, as I have used the same perfume for, literally, decades, but I look forward to hearing about your sampling.
Jo Malone has several sample sets you can buy from $20 (Sephora, Amazon). I love everything she makes.
There is also a company called Scent Split that makes mini sizes of expensive perfumes. They offer 1ml, 2ml, 5ml and 9ml sizes. They stock hundreds of brands
Jo Malone is the best! Im usually very picky about perfumes, but I like almost everything I try of hers. Fig and Lotus Root is my go-to.
Oooh. I might also suggest, if you run out of perfume samples you’re *really* enthused about, filling a day or two with chocolate. :-)
(I get to make a present box for a friend again this year. It is an enormous amount of fun to do! Hunting and gathering and assigning days so that different pairs of entertaining socks do not appear on consecutive days and wrapping everything and deciding on how to tag them with dates this year… It’s an expensive hobby; I budget $60 for the presents [my friend is fine with used books instead of new books, and is delighted by weird snacks, etc.] and then the postage to send the box is *whew* depending on how heavy the box is that year, but it is at least three months of fun for me between the finding-things time and the anticipation time and the friend-being-excited-about-that-day’s-gift time, so…)
(but I wish I had a sturdy, reusable advent calendar! That would be awfully fun to fill. But the wooden ones I’ve seen are super-spendy, sigh…)
You might like Nui Cobalt (https://nuicobaltdesigns.com/). They won’t have Christmas/Yule perfumes for a little while yet (probably soon) – but you can usually order any of their in-stock scents in sample sizes. I also like the little exhortations to “wear this for xyz purpose” in each scent description. Have fun!
In a weak moment, I ordered the See’s advent calendar for myself even though I knew the custom box is still the better deal.
Melange Perfume has both solid and liquid perfume samples for $3-7.
On the way other end of the scale, CB I Hate Perfume samples are the same size for $40.
Neither gives me a headache in mild quantities, if you are a scentsitive kind of person.
My very favorite perfume now is a wee dot of CB’s To Smell a Flower (daffodils and damp earth) with a dot of Melange’s Lilac Peony Tobacco. It is earthy lovely spring.
I LOVE this for you.
I never buy myself an advent calendar and in general I spend November and December in a low-key state of panic about how much I’m spending on the whole shebang (gifts, ‘magical’ core-memory kid activities, hosting, etc etc etc) and the environmental impact of it all. And trying to rein things in enough to strike a balance between a generous hospitable Christmas and a consumerist shitshow….
But! I’m always super jealous of other people’s lovely special calendars. Maybe I need to convince my husband to surprise me with one…
Solstice Scentsmakes a lot of very intriguing perfumes including many food based ones (Blossom Jam Tea Cakes, Victorian Picnic, Pinyon Truffle).
I love this! I spent a lot of 2020 trying to find a perfume I liked as much as a discontinued, much mourned scent, and the result was that I had a lot of samples left over, so I made an advent calendar for a friend. I think she enjoyed it? Although I bought stuff that had certain notes that might not have been her first choice. Still, I like to think it was a fun run-up to Depressing Christmas. I assume it’s even better as a countdown to Fun Normal Christmas.
The leftover samples (yes, I bought a LOT) were great for travel, once we were traveling again.
Whoops — I picked scents by reading https://www.fragrantica.com/ to figure out what was close to other perfumes I liked and ordered samples from https://www.fragrancenet.com/
Alkemia perfume! They have samples :-) Cute idea
I LOVE CocoaPink perfume. I’ve tried several of their samples and one of those I loved so much it has become my signature scent (Black Marshmallow). My last pregnancy every nurse and doctor commented that they knew I was there because I always smelled so good.
That’s such a fun idea! I just got some perfume samples from https://fyrinnae.com/, and they smell really good. I’m not normally a perfume person, but they have really interesting ones. They also do little samples of their eyeshadows which look really pretty!
I don’t do perfume. I wore Liz Claiborne fragrance in college, because EVERYONE did. I think I’m allergic to perfume and now that college is over, I guess I’m not willing to torture myself. I’m allergic to cats too. I love the idea of creating the advent calendar of your dreams though. I hope you have a wide varity of options and that you feel pleasanty surprised every day.