philosophy

[JenniW]

I started using Living Grace products about three years ago, probably after the change in the staying power of scents noted by many of you, so I have no experience with the longevity of "old" products, but reading so many critical reviews and forum posts about the "new" scents caused me to do some research.  There are several families of chemicals, namely parabens and phthalates, which give staying power to scents on the skin as well as increased shelf life to products.  These are preservatives and not necessarily listed as part of the fragrance formula of the product.  Research has connected these preservatives to health hazards such as hormone disruption, birth defects, allergic reactions and even possible links to cancer.  They are considered toxic and many companies are reformulating products to avoid them.  Here's a direct cut-and-paste from the Philosophy website: 

"does philosophy plan on creating a paraben-free line?
we have been proactively formulating our products without butyl parabens for several years. only a handful of our original products still contain paraben-based preservatives. we are actively seeking non-paraben, effective alternatives for these products."  So it appears to me that Philosophy is not being cheap, but responsible, in changing the preservatives they use.  Apparently the old formulas were loaded with potentially dangerous chemicals.  If so, they will never go back to the old formulas and that would seem to be a very good thing.   By the way, I love Living Grace, wear the EDP layered with the souffle cream and can smell it all day.

[Moonchilde]

Perfumes and scents have been created and sold for hundreds - well, thousands - of years. They had staying power (likely often better than in "modern" scents) without these particular chemical preservatives.

Fixatives (as opposed to preservatives) give scent its staying power. Preservatives only preserve the scent for longer use/keep it from going stinky, not make the scent stronger or longer-lasting. Fixatives include such things as frankincense, benzoin, myrrh, Peru balsam, vetiver, oak moss, and commonly until recently, animal essences like ambergris, musk, civet and castoreum (beaver). All of the latter have become very expensive over time.

Any company trying to...economize...might decide to stop using them - without minding if there's an alternative or not. They figure people will just use more/buy more. Instead, people just stop buying in favor of scents that DO last.

Scent patents of formerly-famous older perfumes have run out many times over the years, were bought up, changed, and once people smelled it and realized it wasn't the same, never bought it again. The same with old-brand candies. Change it to make it cheaper and it's NOT the same.

[ChynnaBlue]

The Philosophy fragrances do have staying power, but the wearer goes nose-blind quickly.

I applied my Summer Grace body lotion at 6:30am, fresh out of the shower and forgot I'd put it on at all not long afterward. I showed up for an after-hours doctor's appointment around 6:30pm - a full 12 hours later - and the nurse told me how nice I smelled and asked me what I was wearing. I couldn't smell it at all and had to stick my nose right up on my arm to sniff and respond. I came home and put my clothes in the hamper, but left my cardigan out to wear around the house later.

The next day I picked up the cardigan and, sure enough, immediately smelled the Summer Grace on it from the day before.

I don't believe staying power is actually the problem, it's the fact that the wearer (or those frequently in proximity to the wearer) can't smell them anymore. And I don't know if there's much that can be done about that. http://thelibraryoffragrance.com/blogs/news-reviews/18179599-why-cant-i-smell-my-own-perfume#

[CANDLEQUEEN]

---

@ChynnaBlue wrote:

The Philosophy fragrances do have staying power, but the wearer goes nose-blind quickly.

I applied my Summer Grace body lotion at 6:30am, fresh out of the shower and forgot I'd put it on at all not long afterward. I showed up for an after-hours doctor's appointment around 6:30pm - a full 12 hours later - and the nurse told me how nice I smelled and asked me what I was wearing. I couldn't smell it at all and had to stick my nose right up on my arm to sniff and respond. I came home and put my clothes in the hamper, but left my cardigan out to wear around the house later.

The next day I picked up the cardigan and, sure enough, immediately smelled the Summer Grace on it from the day before.

I don't believe staying power is actually the problem, it's the fact that the wearer (or those frequently in proximity to the wearer) can't smell them anymore. And I don't know if there's much that can be done about that. http://thelibraryoffragrance.com/blogs/news-reviews/18179599-why-cant-i-smell-my-own-perfume#

---

Perfumers have actually said this before, that after a while you can no longer smell it on yourself, but other people still can. I worked with a girl who wore Lauren by Ralph Lauren, a nice scent but she put it on before work, and then again after lunch because she said she couldn't smell it anymore, but we could still smell it on her...So maybe ask others if they can smell it on you before reapplying. I recenlty just did that with Beach by Bobbi Brown, and my sister said yes I can smell it, it smells nice and light.....

[ChynnaBlue]

---

@CANDLEQUEEN wrote:

---

@ChynnaBlue wrote:

The Philosophy fragrances do have staying power, but the wearer goes nose-blind quickly.

I applied my Summer Grace body lotion at 6:30am, fresh out of the shower and forgot I'd put it on at all not long afterward. I showed up for an after-hours doctor's appointment around 6:30pm - a full 12 hours later - and the nurse told me how nice I smelled and asked me what I was wearing. I couldn't smell it at all and had to stick my nose right up on my arm to sniff and respond. I came home and put my clothes in the hamper, but left my cardigan out to wear around the house later.

The next day I picked up the cardigan and, sure enough, immediately smelled the Summer Grace on it from the day before.

I don't believe staying power is actually the problem, it's the fact that the wearer (or those frequently in proximity to the wearer) can't smell them anymore. And I don't know if there's much that can be done about that. http://thelibraryoffragrance.com/blogs/news-reviews/18179599-why-cant-i-smell-my-own-perfume#

---

Perfumers have actually said this before, that after a while you can no longer smell it on yourself, but other people still can. I worked with a girl who wore Lauren by Ralph Lauren, a nice scent but she put it on before work, and then again after lunch because she said she couldn't smell it anymore, but we could still smell it on her...So maybe ask others if they can smell it on you before reapplying. I recenlty just did that with Beach by Bobbi Brown, and my sister said yes I can smell it, it smells nice and light.....

---

Yes, and it's not just perfume, it's pretty much any scent. I used to work in a pre-school that also had a day care for kids 2+ and kids through age 7 would come in after school. When I first started, I worked with the after school program. Every day I would walk through the 2-year-old care room to get from one area of the school to another and I dreaded going in there are certain times of day because it was diaper-changing time and stank terribly. (Used diapers went in the trash outside immediately after changing time, but smells linger.) I asked one of the teachers in there how she managed and she said she didn't notice it anymore. I couldn't imagine being so used to it you couldn't smell it.

Until I got moved and worked in that room all day, every day. People would come in and say it smelled and I became the one saying I hadn't noticed.

So yeah, sometimes you can't smell nice things, but believe me, sometimes you're better off when you can't smell what's all around you.

[Brooklynny]

I've heard of this before; it's called "nose blindness."

https://www.yahoo.com/beauty/why-you-cant-smell-your-own-perfume...

I wear Amazing Grace, and even though I've been often complimented on the scent, I couldn't smell it any longer.

[Beaches 1956]

Philosophy has never had any staying power. It has always lost its sent in about 15 minutes after you apply it. They actually admitted that on one of the shows this past weekend with Shawn.

[Moonchilde]

While I think this is a valid contributing factor for some people (it just makes sense) it doesn't completely explain why it doesn't happen with *every* scent one wears, only one (or maybe two). Or why people noticed (and said so on the forums) en masse only about the Grace fragrances.

I wear several fragrances. I *only* noticed the loss of strength/staying power with my Pure Grace, no other fragrance I wear regularly. It was VERY noticeable. Others use all of the other Grace scents and had the same complaint - but no one was making the same complaint about other scents QVC sells. AND the company was sold.

But aside from the company being sold, I JUST came across this excellent article that explains much. To try and give credit proper credit, it's from a perfume website and forums called "Now Smell This", and written by by Robin. I would be happy to give more definitive credit if I could find it. Can't just post the link because there are ads involved :-( It's "shareable" to FB, Twitter and etc. and nothing was stated like "don't re-post, copyrighted, etc.  

Thank you Robin, I learned a lot!

"One of the many hazards of writing about perfumes is that they're not static objects. If you pick up a new bottle of Jean Couture Coriandre, what you'll smell won't be at all what I smelled when I first bought it in the late 1970s. It might not even be the same as what I smelled when I reviewed Coriandre a couple years ago, and found it to be an entirely different animal than the scent I remembered. The Coriandre you smell tomorrow, or next month, or next year, might have changed yet again.

"This has obvious implications for anyone blogging about perfume or reading perfume blogs. When you read a perfume review, unless it's about a perfume that launched recently, you can't be sure that what you'll smell in the stores is the exact same fragrance.

"This article is meant as a very basic primer on reformulation, and most of what I'll cover is well-known to seasoned perfumistas.

"Perfumes get reformulated all the time, and they always have. Why? Well, there are any number of reasons. Sometimes companies substitute cheaper ingredients as a cost-saving measure. Sometimes once-plentiful natural materials become scarce or extinct. And some materials, such as natural animal-derived notes, have been replaced with synthetic substitutes because of consumer preference and/or trade restrictions.

"Sometimes ingredients are found to be unsafe, and sometimes, especially with older perfumes that relied on pre-made specialty bases, they simply don't exist any more. And sometimes, of course, perfumes are reformulated to bring them in line with modern tastes.

It's also important to remember that perfumes that rely on natural materials might have subtle variations from year to year anyway. A crop of jasmine from one year might smell different from the prior year, and a crop of jasmine from one part of the world might smell different from the same plant grown elsewhere.

"Perfumes are being reformulated at a more rapid rate than they used to. Vanilla, jasmine, oakmoss, coumarin, birch tar, citrus oils, heliotropin, styrax, opoponax...these are just a few of the fragrance materials that are restricted and/or banned by IFRA1 or are under consideration for restriction. The most recent set of IFRA standards (the 43rd Amendment) was issued in 2008; perfume companies are supposed to reformulate all existing perfumes to be compliant with these standards by August, 2010. In practice, if you've been doing much sniffing lately, you know that many old favorites have already been redone in advance of the deadline (goodbye and thanks for the memories, Sisley Eau de Campagne2).

"Perfume houses, for obvious reasons, don't tend to publicize reformulations. After all, who wants to hear that their favorite perfume is no longer exactly the same as it used to be? Also remember that a perfumista's idea of reformulation — the perfume no longer smells the same — may not be the same as that of a perfumer or a perfume house. If Australian sandalwood is substituted for now-scarce (and costly) Indian sandalwood, you could argue that the "formula" hasn't changed, but to a perfumista, the result is the same: the perfume doesn't smell like it used to.

"So how can you find out if a perfume has been reformulated? Well, the best way is to trust your nose. Asking a sales associate is usually a waste of time: in my experience, they almost always swear up and down that the perfume hasn't changed even when it's patently obvious that it has. Customer service and public relations departments of the various perfume houses, more often than not, do the same, and this is true even when it's obvious that the original perfume would not possibly meet modern IFRA standards.

"Trusting your nose, however, has its own pitfalls. It's important to remember that the last dregs of your three year old bottle of perfume won't smell the same as a brand new tester even if the formula hasn't changed at all.

Unfortunately, we can't constantly seek out and test new samples of everything we've already reviewed here at Now Smell This. That means you should approach every review, especially the older ones, with caution (which strictly speaking, you ought to be doing anyway). If you do smell a perfume that we've covered here and that you're quite sure has been reformulated, you can do your fellow readers a favor by leaving a comment to let them know.

"1. IFRA is the International Fragrance Association. Here is a brief summary of their mission, from IFRA in a Nutshell:

[IFRA's] main purpose is to promote the safe enjoyment of fragrances worldwide.

"IFRA represents the fragrance industry regional and national associations worldwide. IFRA is the reflection of the industry's choice to regulate itself and and [sic] its activities result in a Code of Practice and safety Standards, which members must adhere to, in order to achieve the objective of protecting consumers’ health and our environment.

"If you want to learn more about IFRA's restrictions on the raw materials used in perfumery, you can see their whole list of standards here. Two excellent resources for those opposed to the IFRA standards are the aromaconnection blog and Cropwatch. You can also take a look at all the articles on Now Smell This tagged IFRA.

"2. I'm not meaning to pick on poor Eau de Campagne in particular; it just happens to be something I smelled recently (and barely recognized). I should also point out that I don't even know if it's a victim of IFRA standards; it could easily have been redone for some other reason."

[GCR18]

I've been using philosophy since 2000 and haven't noticed a difference in the scent.  I spritz some on in the morning.  I don't smell it all day, but once and a while I will get a whiff. 

[Catiele]

I have been wearing pure grace for years. I don't smell it that much but people always remark about it. My husband really likes it and so do my sons. That's enough for me.