Upcoming changes & site updates!

These announcements are going out as short-form bullet points in the February 1st newsletter, and the long-form lives here, because documentation / transparency is rad.

Stuffkin Reformulation

After my last announcement regarding Stuffkin’s slight reformulation, I got a lot of feedback in from even more people who can’t smell it or can’t smell the vanilla, and feedback from others that they couldn’t detect much of a difference between the old version and the last formulation.

The anosmia is due to the large amount of Iso E Super and Cedramber as well as the large amount of methyl gamma ionone. (I’m not sure why, but ionones are in violet, and they are notorious for causing anosmia.) 

In light of this news, I have decided to do a full reformulation of Stuffkin to minimize the reliance on larger molecules, which should reduce the likelihood of people going anosmic. I also plan to make Stuffkin more vanilla forward without sacrificing the airiness that the plushie stuffing accord brings. I’ve already pulled Stuffkin from the samples and it's no longer available on the site.

I am looking for 3-4 people to help me test the prototypes. Prototypes would be shipped to you free of charge and you’ll receive a $10 gift card in exchange for following the testing protocols and filling out a testing form, so if you’d like to volunteer to be a prototype tester, please send me an email at ashe@mythpunkolfactive.com!

Seasonal Rotations & LE scheduling

I’ve been having issues keeping everything in stock and I’m rapidly running out of space, so I’m going to start rotating scents according to 6 month spring/summer and autumn/winter cycles. The spring/summer cycle will be from March through August, and autumn/winter is September through March. I’ll add this info to the FAQ & I plan to add a calendar page w/ a full list of release schedules / rotations.

The first set of fragrances is due to leave the site at the end of February and they will come back in September: 

• Scruffkin will be replaced by its spring/summer counterpart, Puffkin.
• Black Witch Moth Puff will be replaced with its spring/summer counterpart, White Witch Moth Puff.

These scents are scheduled to go off rotation at the end of summer:

• Ghostflower Puff

• Root Beer Float Puff
• Bubblegum Puff
• Dusk Cherry Puff may be added to the spring/summer rotation as well.

I know this may be disappointing to some, but this will allow me to keep running the business and will allow me to keep my TAT manageable. Unfortunately my TAT keeps unexpectedly increasing due to the number of scents that I’m having to restock, and this has had a negative impact on my ability to release new things, so I really appreciate everyone’s patience & understanding! That said, if you have strong opinions about any of the fragrances on the list, let me know - feedback is always super helpful. I kept taking things off the list and putting them back because I feel so bad about this :\ 

This will not affect the Through the Forest Dark collection - those will be available year-round.

Premium Fragrances & charity scents

Perfumes that contain materials that are very expensive, rare, or harder to source will be considered premium going forward. Premium fragrance 5mLs will be $22 and samples will be .75mL instead of the overfilled “1mL“ samples. Since the current samples are technically overfilled, the .75mL will look like a bigger difference.

Charity scents are also having their sample size reduced. They may occasionally be premium scents, but not always. Regardless of their premium status, the sample sizes for charity scents will be reduced to .5mL and won’t be available for free samples. I don’t want to completely exclude charity scents from samples, but this change is necessary to ensure that I can maintain better control over the stock and donate the maximum amount possible from these perfumes.

Moths

To allow for additional experimentation & growth as a perfumer without constantly adding to my general catalog, I will be releasing a monthly moth going forward. I have a backlog of moth ideas and not enough space in the general catalog to do them (plus I’d like the opportunity to release things that are a little weirder or more challenging that wouldn’t be wise to add to the general catalog.) 

Each monthly moth will be available for sampling & full size purchases until they’re sold out, but samples may not be available after the launch month if stock gets low. (This allows me better control over the inventory).

Moths won’t always be premium fragrances but samples will be .75mL to help prevent me from running out of stock early, and they won’t be available as free samples. I’ll always try to be up front if a scent is at risk of running out of stock or unlikely to be restocked due to component issues.

(Black Witch Moth Puff and its spring/summer sister scent White Witch Moth Puff will remain in the Pixie Puffs collection and won’t be moved to the Moths collection, but they will be rotational.)  

Press sample applications

I’d like to start sending press samples in exchange for honest reviews, specifically on different fragrance subreddits (where allowed) and on TikTok. You’ll also receive store credit to purchase a full size of your choice. I don’t expect you to have huge social media following or anything, just be a nice person with a compatible vibe and a demonstrable history of reviews (so I can check them out). I don’t expect everyone to have the bandwidth to do this every time so I’d like a few people across platforms - this would ideally be a regular thing where I’d contact you prior to a collection release to see if you’re interested in reviewing that collection, and ideally you’d have the bandwidth to do 75% of collections or so but I'm flexible on that!