So how do I know that the perfume being sold on eBay isn’t a fake?  The bad news is there are no sure things on eBay. That’s why they have feedback ratings, policy statements regarding the selling of fake or “replica” merchandise, and articles like the one you are reading.

The first thing I check is the seller’s feedback. Not just the raw percentage number, but also the actual remarks made about their perfume sales.

Second thing to check is the bottle and packaging. I will give Chanel No# 5 as an example since it is so popular in its replica incarnation. The boxes being used are pretty good knockoffs. I was fooled the first time I bought one.

But the bottle had some dead give a ways.  First the bottom of the bottle had a plastic label stuck on it. Real Chanel has the name and other info molded into the glass. The label on the front of the bottle was pretty good, except that the degree zero after the 5 was too bold. And the bottom of the L in CHANEL was too short, not like the long one in the original AVANTE GARDE font used by Chanel. Bad fake have the label too low on the bottle, the upper corners should be equidistant from the corners of the bottle, about ¾’ from each side. The band around the neck: the gold bands were too wide, and the circle around the CC logo was too wide also.


Bottom line, Check it out in comparison to pictures on the www.chanel.com website or one of the reputable venders like PerfumeX or Sephora, or even better if you have the article in you hand, the people at the perfume counter in the mall will help you see the differences.

Does it seem like too good a deal? I bought a 3.4 oz spray bottle of Chanel Eau de Perfume being sold as “Parfum” for $50. Now the biggest discount places are selling 0.25 oz (that’s ¼ oz!) for about $128. The Eau De Perfume is being sold for around $110. So I got a Chinese knockoff for $50 that smelled really close to Chanel but only lasts about 1 hour on the skin.

Now for the problem of vintage fragrances that don’t smell like the spray atomizer you just bought at the mall. What’s up with that? You are probably not being cheated for a variety of reasons. First, all perfume ages, and just like people, some do it more gracefully than others, many improving with age like fine wine, others start to smell kinda funny. Why? Well if the perfume is a real extrait or Parfum without alcohol being added it is made from mostly pure essential oils that are not being broken down by synthetic additives or alcohol. If they are not aging well they usually give off a very noticeable chemical odor that is down right rank or medicinal.

Comparing these vintage perfumes becomes even more sticky if you are trying to compare them to the company’s current production for several reasons. First go but one bottle each of Patou’s Joy, Chanel No#5, and Guerlain Shalimar, in the Parfum, the Eau De Parfum, the Eau De Cologne, and finally the Eau De Toilette. An expensive experiment, but just think how great you’ll smell ☺

In each brand, you will notice something quite disturbing. After about ½ hour of dry down, the perfume, cologne, and toilet water smell different from each other. Are the companies trying to cheat you on the cheaper stuff? Not at all. The alcohol is the culprit. First it smells. Like alcohol! Or more precisely, moonshine, White lightning, everclear. The perfume companies have a special license from the BATF for selling booze for “non-consumption”purposes. (They are assuming you are not going to drink the stuff. But he stuff still smells like booze none the less, and that smell taints the perfume, and now for the bad news. It changes the perfume once it’s on your skin. How? Because each of the components in the perfume evaporate at different rates. This is called their Boiling point, or Flash point. The lower that number is, the more the alcohol make it burn off, so that after an hour the toilette will have more of the top notes and heart notes burned off than in the Eau De parfume. The pure Parfum has almost none of this effect because it doesn’t have any alcohol in it!

So what we have is a situation where a new bottle of Jean Patou’s Joy spray Eau De Cologne will smell quit different from a 20-year-old bottle of Eau De Joy found at a yard sale after grandma kicked the bucket.

Hopefully I have passed along some useful information that will help buying vintage perfumes on eBay more successful for you, and help avoid the more glaring pitfalls. Disclaimer: I am no expert on this subject, have never worked in the industry, and am far from what they call a “Nose.” But I have learned a lot from buying and selling fragrances on the net (and getting ripped off more that I want to remember) and so hope that my experiences can help others. Please email me for any comments, suggestions, corrections, death threats, etc.