FAQ

What’s your turnaround time?

Our time to fulfill orders is currently 1-5 business days (Monday - Friday), starting the business day after your order was placed.

 

The turnaround time can be viewed from two places - the banner at the top of the website and from within the cart.

 

Once your order is shipped, it can take 3-5 business days to arrive. 

How are your perfumes packaged and shipped?

Our shipping carrier is USPS. Because our fragrances contain alcohol, we are required to ship via ground shipping using boxes rather than bubble mailers. Our packages don’t require a signature.

 

If you’d like your package to require a signature or ship using another carrier, please reach out to us after placing your order. We can adjust the carrier up until the point of dropoff. Changing carriers may incur additional shipping fees.

Do you offer international shipping?

Unfortunately not. We use alcohol in our fragrances, and alcohol is prohibited by air cargo. As a result, we’re unable to ship outside of the United States or to Hawaii. Within the United States, we can ship via ground to Alaska.

 

We’re unable to ship to freight forwarders or package handlers who will process our packages for air travel.

 

For customers in Mexico or Canada, we recognize there are some freight forwarders who hold packages for pick-up. If you’re shipping to a freight forwarder for this purpose, please let us know to avoid cancellation of your order.

Lost, damaged, or stolen packages + signature requirement options

If your package is lost or damaged in transit, or it arrives with a note from USPS stating that the contents had to be removed, please reach out to us and we’ll issue a replacement.

 

If your package is stolen from your mailbox or from your porch, please also reach out to us for a replacement.

 

If theft has been an issue in your area and you’d like to require a signature upon delivery, we’re happy to select this option with your shipping label for no additional charge - please reach out to us after you place your order.

What materials do you use in your perfumes? 

Our perfumes are Eau de Parfum (EdP) sprays. We use professional grade perfumery materials to make them. Professional perfumery materials fall into one of two categories: aromachemicals and natural extracts.

 

The natural extracts we choose range from sCO2 extracts (supercritical carbon dioxide extraction), fractional distillations, absolutes, resinoids, and high-quality essential oils.

 

Aromachemical is the industry standard term for a single molecule that’s sold specifically for use in fragrance (and sometimes flavor) development.

 

Our perfumer’s alcohol base is a blend of denatured ethyl alcohol and a blend of skin conditioning agents and antioxidants such as 1,3 Propanediol, Cremophor RH 40®, Glucam™ P-20, dipropylene glycol (DPG), and isopropyl myristate (IPM). These will result in a tactile feeling similar to a light dry oil spray.

 

Solgard, a UV protectant, is added to perfumes with citruses to prevent harmful byproducts caused by photooxidation.

Why do your perfumes list “gender expressions” on the product pages?

You can find that information here: https://mythpunkolfactive.com/pages/about-the-gender-expression-tab-on-products

Do your perfumes contain allergens? Are they IFRA-compliant?

The International Fragrance Association (IFRA) is a trade organization whose members are required to produce products that comply with their recommendations for safe usage levels of different fragrance components in their products. Their members are manufacturers - indie perfumers are not eligible for IFRA membership.

 

However, we review IFRA’s safe usage recommendations for all molecules and generally abide by them. We do not currently have any fragrances that are not IFRA-compliant, and safety is something we take very seriously - for example, we tend to stick well-below their recommendations for anything that can break down into cinnamaldehyde and choose to use skin-safe alternatives instead.

 

For tree mosses, we specify directly below the notes list whether the perfume contains real tree moss extracts. Our tree moss extracts are pure, meaning they have not had their atranol content removed. They are still used in amounts that are IFRA-compliant, but we know that many people with tree moss sensitization can still experience issues, even within IFRA’s recommended usage levels.

 

We also take precautions with things like citrus oils that can photooxidize into harmful byproducts by adding Solgard, an anti-UV agent. Otherwise, please see the “allergen and sensitivities” section on each product page for more information. We are still working on completely filling this out, so please feel free to reach out to us if you would like to check on a specific allergen.

 

If you have been experiencing any increased dermal sensitization or an atopic reaction to any product, we would generally recommend to avoid applying any fragrances and to see a medical professional, as atopy tends to be an unpredictable immune system reaction that can cause reactions even to materials you haven’t had reactions to in the past. We are unable to refund perfumes due to reactions.

Are your perfumes cruelty-free?

Our perfumes - and indie perfumes in general, really - are not tested on animals.

 

Our materials are also vegan. Any material that could be animal-derived like musks, ambergris, beeswax, etc., all use vegan accords. We specify below the notes list or within the notes list that these are vegan as well.

 

If we do use a perfume in the future that has an animal-derived ingredient, we will make that clear in and below the notes list. However, we generally prefer to avoid these.

Do you use fragrance oils?

We do not use fragrance oils. We do occasionally use perfumery bases in small amounts as part of accords. We explain the differences between these below.

Fragrance oils vs perfume bases

 

There are a lot of misunderstandings about fragrance oils and perfumery bases. They both use professional grade perfumery materials, but there are key differences between them because they are developed for different purposes and different markets.

 

The aim of this section is to provide clarification about these differences.

 

Perfumery bases are designed specifically for use in perfumes, and their purpose is to replace a material inside a formula with a high degree of specificity and cohesion. Sometimes they're intended to smell like fantasy accords that don't have natural extracts, such as leather, but the idea is that they're formulated to smell like a specific thing throughout the life of the perfume and be blended with other perfume materials without losing those qualities.

 

Most perfumery bases on the market are manufactured by the large fragrances houses like Givaudan, Robertet, Firmenich,Synarome and IFF. These see widespread use throughout the industry. They're sometimes developed using captive molecules (molecules manufactured in-house) or hard-to-find molecules. These have a lot of market stability due to their widespread adoption by other large fragrance manufacturers, and they're typically only pulled from the market when a reformulation is required to comply with IFRA regulations.

 

Manufacturers don't market them directly to smaller companies like indie perfumers - they're distributed through supplier networks, and unless we want to buy 25 kilograms of the stuff, we're limited to what pops up for sale at suppliers who provide "hobbyist" quantities, such as Perfumer Supply House (PSH) and Fraterworks.

 

Some independent perfumers and suppliers have also begun offering their own bases, like Jamie Frater of Fraterworks and Paul Kiler of PK Perfumes, whose bases can be found at PSH.

 

Fragrance oils are designed to be used in a broad number of applications, but the primary purpose is to be used as the fragrance component of a finished product, typically candles and wash-off products like soaps. As a result, there's an emphasis on using materials that work well in wax and don't cause discoloration.

 

These are manufactured by smaller companies like Crafter’s Choice and Wellington. The market and the supply chain is much different. The market for fragrance oils is primarily hobbyists or small business owners who formulate products rather than fine fragrance. They sell directly to this market alongside other ingredients for candle and body product formulations. While some fragrance oils have been around for a very long time, availability and turnover is often driven by seasonal demand and consumer trends, and discontinuations can be sudden.

 

Because they're intended to be used as the fragrance component of a product rather than as a single material replacer, fragrance oils are designed to smell "finished. Even single note fragrance oils that aim for photorealism like "Green Apple" typically contain additions that make them smell like finished fragrances, like muguet materials for floralization and Galaxolide for longevity and softness. Blending multiple fragrance oils together can result in overdoses of materials that create unexpected accords or off-notes.