Have You Ever Bought a Perfume from a Surprise Sample? – Undina’s Looking Glass

Smelling perfumes at a store and then getting a sample to decide if we want more, or ordering a sample of a perfume we got curious about, is the regular route new perfumes take to join our collections. But sometimes perfume or beauty orders come with samples we didn’t choose ourselves. This week’s question is about those samples.

Saturday Question #279:

Have You Ever Bought a Perfume from a Surprise Sample?

Would you have tried it if it hadn’t been sent to you? Do you still have that perfume?

My Answer

I came up with this question earlier this week while unpacking a package from Sephora.

The main reason I order online instead of going to the store just a 10-minutes drive from where I live is that I can choose a couple of samples with any order and get another larger sample with a minimum purchase. Had they made it easy to do the same in store, I would have saved them money on delivery and gone to the mall. But since they don’t, I order online. The samples that I choose are always skincare or makeup. I haven’t done an exact count, but it feels like in one out of two orders they substitute the requested sample with a perfume sample. And I don’t like when that happens: I just don’t know what to do with those mass-market perfumes. I try them when they arrive even though I know that I won’t like them. I don’t. And after that, they just sit in my drawer. Unlike a lotion that I can use on my hands or feet if I don’t want to apply it to my face or a makeup sample that is a one-use packet that I’ll try and forget, there’s no use for perfumes I don’t like. But it’s hard to throw away a full sample.

Mentally going through all the years and samples, I can think of a single perfume that fits that question – a long-discontinued Tiempe Passate by Antonia’s Flowers. As I described in the post My First Niche Perfume: Tiempe Passate by Antonia’s Flowers, I got a sample of this perfume with another purchase at a store that didn’t even carry it. So if it weren’t for that random sample, I might never have tried it. I still have that bottle and wear this perfume from time to time.

How about you?

Have You Ever Bought a Perfume from a Surprise Sample?