The following is an actual conversation between a friend and me.
"Wait a minute, are these... I mean, how many! Do you remember them all?"
"Hahaha... That’s even a question? Of course I do."
"But do you really wear all these perfumes?"
"Yeah, come on, it’s not that many. It’s a very small collection."
"Collection? Well, if you use them, it’s not a collection!"
And just like that, my black belt in being always ready to answer proved to be entirely undeserved: I was left speechless.
What did she mean, not a collection?
That one offhand comment stuck with me.
So, since there’s no passion without a bit of self-doubt, I started asking myself: What truly makes something a collection?
The Fine Line Between Hoarding and Collecting
Humans have always collected things, even when things were not the thing: from necessary prehistoric goods or tools to more modern items like stamps, coins, records, shoes, postcards, sugar packets, you name it. According to a 2024 UnivDatos study, half of humanity is squirrelling away something, and the global collecting market, it seems, is worth nearly $450 billion (yeah, billion, with a B).
Why? Probably because our brains are still operating like our cave-dwelling ancestors: accumulate now, survive later. But current collecting isn’t about mammoth meat anymore, it’s about meaning. A collection doesn’t just speak “stuff”. It says: This is me. A collection is a mirror.
But it’s also a bit of a power trip. The thrill of hunting for the rare, the beautiful. The “impossible to find” gives the collector the same rush as a gambler hitting the jackpot.
And then there’s the joy of organising, arranging, classifying, curating. When the background noise of the world comes to the forefront of our minds, a collection can serve as a therapy: it’s our own little universe with rules only we understand.
Like they do in the Middle East, with attars stored like treasure. Or, like the Japanese incense ceremony, where collecting is a form of meditation, a sense of control.
However, whether we collect for survival instinct or love of beautiful things, there’s still something murkier behind perfume collecting.
Perfume collecting can become a way of self-curation, yes, but also self-avoidance. That quiet hope that the next bottle might say something truer, sharper, more “us” than the last.
For that reason, lest we forget, its dark side isn’t exactly negligible.
If we’re being really honest, a kind of addiction steps on the court, too.
The chase of the thrill of falling for a scent is our daily dose: we chase it today, then chase it tomorrow again, and the very next day again, and again. Every time we hope to re-feel what we felt the first time.
And like junkies, we recklessly up the dose: a new perfume, a rarer bottle, a more obscure note.
Yet, the more we collect, the harder it gets to be surprised.
No wonder, then, the line between collecting and obsession gets incredibly thinner.
When our hobby eats all our money, all our time, and most of our living space, that’s no longer collecting, that’s our – in this case – perfumes staging a coup d’état in our lives.
Perfumes: Hobby or Collection?
And this is where I started wondering: Where does my perfume wardrobe stand?
I’ve been in love with fine fragrances since day zero, but when I first started to think it could also be a hobby, I’ll admit, it was mayhem. I used to buy everything.
New niche brands? I need them all. A trendy note? Give me ten. That Habanita vintage bottle? Mine!
My shelves turned into a miniature high-end version of Sephora. And still, I wasn’t satisfied.
Then, someone more experienced and wiser told me: a collection isn’t just a pile of things. It needs some kind of logic, a personal “code”.
So I gave myself three rules (not universal, so “don’t [necessarily] try this at home”):
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Every perfume must be wearable and meaningful – it has to speak to me, not to Instagram.
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No chasing trends – if everyone is hyping a note or a brand, I’ll probably skip it.
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No bottle over a certain price tag. (Otherwise, I’d be collecting bankruptcy notices.)
Once I cut the impulse buys, something shifted. My shelf started to look less like an uncontrollable mess and more like a curated story. Now, yes, I can finally call it a collection without blushing.
Because it’s crucial to note that not everyone’s collecting for personal pleasure positively. Especially online, the pressure to try everything is real. There’s always a new launch, a new bottle hyped to the skies.
Some people (often the same ones lamenting the impossibility of keeping up) are caught in a cycle of content and consumption, where every unopened box is both a flex and a chore.
In the algorithm-fed West, we’re taught that collecting means stacking, stockpiling, displaying. That more is more.
But when collecting turns into this kind of performance, what exactly are we curating? A shelf? A brand? A feed?
So, What Is a Collection, Really?
Although what makes a collection a collection is still debatable, in all likelihood, a real collection is not just about how many bottles (or stamps or toilet brushes) we own. It’s about the story we tell through them. Perfumes, especially, aren’t meant to sit under glass like fossils. They’re living things: we can use them and still call them a collection.
Yet, if we’ve got 200 (very likely meaningless and without personality) bottles gathering dust, bought just because they were cheap, or expensive, or made us feel belonging to the cool gang, then maybe it’s time to ask: Do I have a collection? Or just a crowd of perfumes pretending to know me?
And most of all: Do I really like perfumes?
About Marino
According to official records, Marino Bombini edits books about history and politics by day and writes about perfumes by night.
More likely it’s the other way around.
Somewhere in between, he pretends to understand cinema, tennis, fashion, and architecture, only to live up to what someone once said about him: “a quiet watcher with refined claws”.
And he’s still wondering if that was a compliment or a warning.
You can find Marino on Instagram at @saynotoambrxn.