While I do love to swing by the department store or Shoppers Drug Mart’s beautyBOUTIQUE (Sephora’s a bit crowded for my liking) to try out perfumes, there is something I particularly love about having a sample at home, because then I can try out a perfume multiple times at my leisure, at different times of day, and under different conditions. The main drawbacks are that samples are not always free, especially for rarer and niche scents, and that the samples usually do not come with sprayers. I find that a perfume sprayed often gives a different impression than a perfume dabbed.

However, the benefits outweigh the negatives, so I occasionally round up an order of samples from an online perfume shop like Luckyscent, that offers decanted samples of many (most?) of the niche perfumes they sell. I have in the past used sample-only outfits like The Perfumed Court—Surrender to Chance is another, though I can’t remember whether I’ve actually placed an order with them—but in recent years, their shipping costs to Canada have become too prohibitive. FragranceX is another option for official carded samples, though their selection is very limited and I typically just order full-sized bottles from them. (I am not affiliated with any of the aforementioned sites.)

It’s probably been about four years now since I placed a big sample order—I wasn’t interested in trying perfumes while pregnant, since your sense of smell can apparently change during this time, and then after the kids were born, I was simply too tired to even think about perfume! But now, especially after the holiday season when perfume gift sets are everywhere, I’ve gotten back into the swing of things.

Reviewing: Luckyscent

Here’s my first Luckyscent sample order in a long time. I love this US-based online store with a wonderful selection of niche scents. Their shipping to Canada is very reasonable (a flat $8 for my 16-sample order) and they ship very quickly. I received my order in just five days (three business days)! I also included two samples from a newer Canadian line, Zoologist; if I’d ordered directly from Zoologist’s site, my samples would have cost more, as well.

All fragrances I selected are eau de parfum concentration, and prices are in USD. The 0.7 mL samples (basically your typical 1 mL sample vial, but they’re never actually filled up all the way) each cost $3–$5. The perfume links I added all go to the Luckyscent page (again, I’m not affiliated), where I also got additional details on each fragrance.

The only fragrance I wasn’t able to get a sample for that I’ve been wanting to try for ages is Serge Lutens La Fille de Berlin. It was, sadly, out of stock.

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