announcement re: trinket evaporation & potential solution

howdy everyone!

first off, for my fellow ffxiv nerds, happy dawntrail early access week! we’re two days out and i can’t play / didn't pre-order, so i shall live vicariously through those of you who did.

now that i’ve outed myself, i have an announcement about changes to the trinket packs to address the evaporation issues that people have brought to my attention!

i've made a post on reddit that you can find here and i've also announced a new gift program that you can read more about in this separate blog post.

also as a heads up before we get into it, i'm removing trinket packs from the site this weekend to change to a new bundling system that will actually track sample inventory. right now that inventory isn't tracked which has been an absolute nightmare, haha.

the issue

i learned my perfumes are evaporating. this is due to the amount of headspace in the trinkets and is exacerbated by heat, humidity, and sideways storage. as a maybe intermediary fix, i’m increasing the volume of all trinkets to 2mL. 

full details

after i learned about this a couple of weeks ago, i did some of my own experiments (which admittedly were not scientifically rigorous) and i spoke to some perfumer friends who confirmed this was happening with their samples.

it looks like the evaporation is worse in environments with high humidity and fluctuating temperatures (my studio for one thing, but also my bathroom). the evaporation was also worse for trinkets with low fill levels & trinkets stored on their sides. interestingly, some of the perfumes with a high volume naturals basically evaporated out to an extrait; i noticed the perfume was extremely similar to the concentrate. others with a low fill level and a low volume of naturals evaporated out to nothing.

BUT, the silver lining of all of this is… y’all, i thought i was actually losing my mind. this explains so many customer service mysteries, like mysteriously empty vials that clearly contained perfumes at some point while the packaging shows no evidence of leaks. i’ve also been getting emails about trinkets with drastically different fill levels (outside of the premium/regular difference) and i’m like, damn, surely i would have noticed underfilling by THAT much?

i felt like something fucky must be going on. it didn't ever occur to me to think people were lying (that'd be a very dumb thing to lie about), so the only thing i could think of is that i get pretty severe optical migraines where i frequently lose the center of my vision, and i don't always realize it if there's no head pain (super fun to discover i'm having an optical migraine while driving), so on top of being very astigmatic, i do sometimes have trouble seeing fill levels.

anyway, i also noticed that the number of incidents increased around the same time i began increasing compound percentages, which also corresponded to the change in seasons.

i’ve been really stressing about how to fix this because i needed to ensure that people got what they paid for, especially with a more limited collection like PETRICHOR X, and i also really didn’t want to give up the reusable trinket lads. they’re a good happy medium between people who prefer spraying and those who prefer dabbing with wands, and.. they look so trinkety :( 

the solution(s)

• perfumes in the trinket packs will be filled to 2mL and will be eau de toilette (EdT) strength to (mostly) compensate for the increased volume. 
• i’m introducing EdTs to the full size options, and i will be adding options for 10mLs of both the EdTS and EdPs. i’ll also be adding information about what to expect from performance for each strength. my goal is to have these posted by next friday.
  
• i somehow left this out before, but if you want regular strength, i'm happy to fulfill those requests. i mean this kindly but it's an "at your own risk" type of thing haha - just leave me a comment at checkout (or email me if you use the Shop app). to compensate for any evaporation in transit, you will still get the overfill i mention below in the EdT strength section! it'll be the same exact overfill someone getting an EdT would receive, just without the alcohol top-up. i'm switching trinkets to a bundler app thing (vs. the custom-coded dropdown i've been using) so if i can add regular strength options too, i'll do this.
  
• i may also start offering "baubles" - little two-three packs of 2mL full strength perfumes. this would be a good happy medium for people who want just a few perfumes and prefer full strength, but don't want to invest in full size bottles. idk if anyone would actually be interested in that as an option, so definitely let me know if it's something you'd like to see!

it’s important to keep in mind that as each trinket’s volume reduces, the likelihood of evaporation increases. i don’t think there’s any way to negate this completely, but the best thing to do is store trinkets upright in a cool, dry location without sun exposure.

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here’s a FAQ i threw together -  i’m sure i’ve forgotten some details so hit me with any questions or concerns you have!

this will be cleaned up & added to my permanent FAQ as well . please feel free to raise any other questions or concerns with me here or via email and i'll make sure to include those in the main FAQ page when i post it.

FAQ

how is the EdT % determined?

so, there’s no industry standard definition of EdT / EdP / extrait; it’s really more about how the perfume performs. and an increased concentrate is not necessarily a good thing due to the inverse correlation between projection and longevity. projection requires volatility, so the higher the % of concentrate to alcohol, the better the longevity at the expense of projection. (i actually preferred the EDT version of a few things, like Bubblegum Puff. y’all, it’s so damn strong. it’ll outlive us all.)

anyway, the exact compound strength of my perfumes varies, so the exact action i’m taking will depend. for most perfumes, they’re getting overfilled by .5mL to 1mL and then topped up with the base. for example, paper moon is already very delicate, so for now i am overfilling these samples by a lot, and then topping them up. in my next batch of paper moon (which is now, erm, this weekend), i’ll be increasing the normal compound strength. that will help ensure that there is enough of a difference between the EdT version and the EdP to justify both.

i spent today packing orders and weighing out each trinket, testing it, and recording the exact weights, EDT %s, and the corresponding volume levels so i could be consistent with the full sizes. i’ll be doing the same tomorrow with orders and finishing the rest of the perfumes in the catalogue this weekend as well.

is this a permanent change?

is anything in life truly permanent? but, honestly, i don’t know. right now i’m viewing it as permanent. my primary goal is to make sure that people are getting what they paid for. and it’s way easier to assess a perfume when you have plenty of it at a lower strength than not enough of it at damn near concentrate levels (not to mention safer). but, if this turns out to be a shitty idea, i'm fine with backtracking. this is new to me and i think adaptability is key here.

are evaporated perfumes that reverted back to concentrate still safe to use?

it’s impossible to say for sure since we don’t know the actual strength. i will say that for severely skin sensitizing things like the cinnamyl alcohols, i think IFRA’s recommended levels are too high and i usually don’t get anywhere close to the the limit. scruffkin might be an exception with its peru balsam content, so if you have a cinnamyl alcohol sensitivity and you notice that it’s extremely thick now, please take care and do a patch test first - rinse it off with soapy, cool water if any irritation occurs.

what if i previously bought a bottle of something increasing in strength?

well, all perfumes were going to be increasing in strength, but in light of this, i'm halting those plans. for now, only paper moon will be increasing in strength, and that will be effective as of this weekend instead of happening in phases as previously announced.

everyone has a different threshold for tolerance to these types of changes. some people won’t care at all, some might find it unfair that others get a stronger perfume for the same price without the gradual rollout that i'd planned. neither feeling is wrong or right, so i’m more concerned about rectifying this on an individual basis than on imposing the same standard for replacements or refunds or whatever. if you feel like you're more in the "hm yeah i'd like a fix" category, i totally understand - reach out to me and let's talk about it.

what if i have an evaporated sample of something that can't be obtained anymore like stuffkin?

please reach out to me and let me know - i keep quantities of all original formulations for comparison's sake. also, the OG stuffkin will always be available as a special order since i use stuffkin's accords in other perfumes, so, it's not lost forever!