Have you ever opened a brand-new bottle of your favourite LeRêve Parfum and thought, “Hmm… this smells a little different to my last bottle?”

You’re not imagining it.

One of the questions we hear most often is, “Have you changed the formula?” And while we completely understand why you might wonder that, there’s something interesting happening inside that beautiful bottle on your dressing table.

Yes, perfume can change over time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it has gone bad — in fact, sometimes it can make the fragrance even more beautiful. Let’s talk about what’s really going on…

First things first: How is LeRêve Parfum made? To create your beautiful bottle of LeRêve Parfum, we combine our highly concentrated perfume essence with cosmetic alcohol.

If you know LeRêve, you’ll know that we use a much higher concentration of perfume essence than you’ll typically find in an Eau de Parfum or Eau de Toilette. That’s one of the reasons our Parfums smell so rich, vivid and long-lasting.

The alcohol isn’t there to add fragrance. In fact, it’s essentially odourless. Its job is to act as the carrier — helping the fragrance molecules move through the air so that you, and everyone around you, can actually experience the scent.

Once the perfume essence and alcohol are blended, the magic really begins.

Meet maceration — perfume’s beauty sleep. The freshly blended Parfum is left to rest for around four weeks in a large, sealed vessel.

This stage is called maceration. Think of it as giving all those individual fragrance ingredients some time to get acquainted. They settle, blend and develop together, allowing the finished fragrance to become smoother and more harmonious.

After maceration, the Parfum is chilled to around 2°C. This allows any unwanted impurities to separate from the liquid, which are then removed through filtration.

Only then is your gorgeous LeRêve Parfum ready to be bottled. But here’s the interesting part… The story doesn’t end when the bottle is filled. Your perfume keeps evolving.

Perfume is a little bit like a living, breathing creation. Once it’s bottled, it can continue to mature and evolve over time. The fragrance may subtly change as the different components interact with one another. That means a brand-new bottle can sometimes smell slightly different from a bottle that has been sitting in your perfume collection for months or even years.

And this is often when we get the question: “Have you reformulated it?” Nope! The formula hasn’t changed. Your perfume has simply had time to mature.

Perfume historian and writer Elena Vosnaki has written about this phenomenon, explaining that fragrances can subtly change inside the bottle as they mature. This can mean that when you finish an older bottle and replace it with a new one, you may notice a difference between the two — even when there has been no change to the production batch or formulation. 

So when you eventually finish an old bottle and replace it with a brand-new one, you may notice a difference simply because the two bottles are at different stages of their fragrance journey.

Is an older perfume better? Well… that depends on your nose!

Some people love the brightness and freshness of a newly bottled fragrance. Others adore the deeper, rounder character of a fragrance that has had time to mature. And because fragrance is so personal, there’s no right or wrong answer. In fact, many people prefer their older bottle without even realising why. They’ve experienced the gradual evolution of the fragrance so slowly that their nose has naturally adjusted to it. A brand-new bottle, on the other hand, can seem noticeably different simply because it hasn’t had the same time to develop.

There’s another fascinating little piece of the puzzle. All perfume essences contain natural ingredients, and natural ingredients can vary slightly from one harvest or season to another.

Think about strawberries. A strawberry grown in one season might taste slightly sweeter, more tart or more fragrant than one grown the following year. Soil, rainfall, temperature and growing conditions can all influence the final result.

The same principle can apply to natural ingredients used in perfume. For fragrances containing prominent natural notes, these subtle variations can sometimes be detected by a very experienced nose. So, while our fragrance formulas remain the same, the natural ingredients within those formulas can have their own tiny variations.

And then there’s vanilla… Why has my vanilla perfume changed colour? Natural vanilla is famous for deepening in colour over time. In fact, a perfume containing a significant amount of natural vanilla can start light and gradually become quite dark. This is completely normal and is one reason we often hear questions about fragrances with prominent vanilla notes. The colour may deepen as the fragrance matures, and the scent itself can become richer and deeper too.

But perfume can go too far… While maturing can be a beautiful thing, there is a difference between ageing gracefully and actually spoiling. Perfume doesn’t come with a simple ‘use by’ date like a carton of milk, but it can deteriorate over time — particularly when it hasn’t been stored properly.

The biggest enemies of your Parfum are:

• Sunlight
• Strong light
• Heat
• Humidity
• Oxygen
• Frequent temperature changes

All of these can speed up the ageing process and potentially alter the fragrance.

This is particularly important with delicate, fresh fragrances containing lots of citrus or other light top notes. Heavier fragrances with woody, nutty or rich base notes tend to be more resilient.

How should you store your LeRêve Parfum? Treat your perfume like the precious little luxury it is. The best place for your Parfum is somewhere cool, dark and relatively stable in temperature. A bedroom drawer or cupboard is perfect. Keep the lid securely on the bottle when you're not wearing it and try to avoid leaving it sitting in direct sunlight.

And while we know your perfume bottles look absolutely gorgeous displayed on a bathroom shelf, the bathroom isn't actually the best home for them. The heat, humidity and constant temperature changes from showers and baths can accelerate the ageing process.

Some perfume lovers even choose to store their fragrances in the fridge. It's certainly preferable to leaving them on a sunny windowsill in a steamy bathroom!

So… should you worry if your perfume smells different? Not necessarily! A subtle difference between an older bottle and a brand-new bottle doesn't automatically mean the formula has changed. It could simply be the beautiful, natural process of maturation. Your perfume may have spent months quietly developing while sitting on your shelf, and when you open a fresh bottle, you're experiencing the fragrance at a different point in its journey. And honestly? That's part of the beauty of perfume.

It's not completely static. It can evolve, deepen and change character — just like our own memories of the fragrances we love.

And one final piece of advice… Don't save your favourite perfume for a ‘special occasion’. Wear it. Spritz it. Enjoy it. Let your favourite fragrance become part of your everyday life. After all, perfume was made to be worn, adored and enjoyed — not kept hidden away in a cupboard waiting for the ‘perfect’ moment.

  

Reference: Fragrantica – Dear Fragrantica: How Does Fragrance Maturation Work? by Elena Vosnaki