How we fill your sample

Every sample on DecantGems is a decant: a small amount of perfume that we transfer from the original bottle into a glass spray vial. This page describes how that is done, what you receive and what a decant is not.

The bottle

We start with a full bottle of the perfume, bought by FragranceGems. It is the same bottle we would sell as a full size. Nothing is diluted, mixed or added: what goes into the vial is the perfume as the house made it. One bottle fills a number of samples, and when it is empty we open the next one.

The vial

The perfume goes into a clean glass spray vial with its own pump. Glass does not react with perfume, keeps the scent as it is and lets you see how much is left. The size on the product page is the size of the vial; every sample comes in 2, 5 or 10 ml.

Filling

We fill by hand, with clean equipment, away from direct light and in small runs, so a bottle is open for as short a time as possible. The vial is closed straight after filling. Before it is labelled we check that the pump works and that the vial is clean on the outside.

The label

Each vial carries a label printed by us with the house, the name of the perfume, the concentration and the size. The label is ours, not the brand's, so you can always see which perfume is in the vial and that it was filled by FragranceGems.

Storage

Full bottles and filled vials are kept closed, upright, at room temperature and away from light until they are packed. Once your sample arrives, treat it the same way: keep it out of sunlight and away from the bathroom, and close it after use. A glass vial that is kept like this stays in good condition for a long time.

What a decant is, and what it is not

A decant is the perfume from the original bottle in a plain vial. It is not an official brand sample: the houses whose perfumes we fill are not involved in this, and we are not affiliated with them. We use brand and perfume names only to say which perfume is in the vial; the trademarks belong to their owners.

You do not receive the brand's bottle, box or leaflet. The vial is ours and so is the label. If you want the full bottle after testing, the sample page names it and links to it at FragranceGems or NicheGems.

Testing well

Spray the sample on skin rather than on paper, one perfume per wrist, and give it a day. Smell it in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening, and wear it on a second day in different weather before you decide. Our frequently asked questions say more about testing, and the glossary explains the terms you meet along the way.