Natural ingredients vary from harvest to harvest much like wine vintages, and formulas are also quietly adjusted over time due to ingredient cost, sourcing changes, or new restrictions on certain materials — so two bottles bought years apart, or even in different production runs, can genuinely smell slightly different despite identical labelling.

Why this isn’t usually a fault

Any fragrance that relies on natural extracts — rose, oud, citrus oils — is subject to the same variability as any agricultural product, since the exact chemical makeup of this year’s harvest won’t be identical to last year’s. On top of that, safety bodies like IFRA periodically restrict or limit certain fragrance materials industry-wide, which means brands sometimes have to quietly reformulate a long-running fragrance to stay compliant. Neither of these is a manufacturing defect, but it does mean brand loyalty to an ‘identical’ scent over many years isn’t always guaranteed.

  • Natural ingredient variation between harvests
  • Quiet reformulation in response to regulatory changes
  • Ageing of the bottle itself, if it’s been stored for a long time before sale

Keeping a bottle sealed until you’re ready to use it, and storing it properly in the meantime, is the best way to minimise the ageing side of this variation, even if harvest differences remain out of anyone’s control.

Our guide to how perfume is made goes into this in more depth, and our complete guide to perfume explains why natural ingredients behave this way.