Possets is an indie perfume company run by Fabienne Christenson and based in Cincinnati, OH. They're best known for their gourmand fragrances, and in my experience, if you want to explore their collection, you'd better have a serious sweet tooth.
Packaging:
Possets perfumes come in fairly standard packaging for indie perfume oils--amber glass 5 mL or 10 mL bottles with polyseal cap and matte paper label, or the usual clear glass vials with matte paper "flag" labels for their samples. Their label art is colorful and neither exceptionally well designed nor exceptionally terrible. It's been a while since I've ordered a package from Possets, but in my experience, they've come with the scents safely wrapped and bundled in a decorative mesh drawstring pouch.
Selection:
Possets offers two main types of perfumes: "Classic Possets" and "100% Natural Possets," the latter being more expensive, but made of 100% natural components. I appreciate that they've clearly labeled this divide in their catalog--I don't personally care if a scent is made of natural components, but I know many people do.
In addition, they have the usual divide between permanent and limited edition seasonal scents; it looks like there are 171 permanent scents at the moment. The lovely thing about the way Possets handles this is that they select three limited edition scents to add to their general catalog at the end of each season, based on
voting in their forum. They also hold periodic events called "Retours" where older, discontinued scents are briefly available for reorder.
The
Endangered Blends page on the website lists scents with known component issues, where there is a limited amount of an ingredient remaining and no way to obtain more, meaning the scent will be discontinued once the current supply runs out.
Last but not least,
Cambienne is a limited edition perfume with a unique and sort of weird concept: a vat of Cambienne is made at the beginning of the year, and sold until only a small amount remains. Then, at the end of each month, the reserves of Cambienne are blended with new ingredients to create a new variation on the scent, which is then renamed and sold until only the reserves remain--wash, rinse, repeat each month, with the perfume evolving and getting more complex over the course of the year. Cambienne is quite popular and usually sells out fairly quickly.
Some subsets of their catalog to be aware of:
- The "Silver" series consists of their "silver" note (a vanilla musk) blended with other notes--Silver Carnations is one really lovely one, and Silver Bells (a lily of the valley scent) is on my wishlist.
- The "States" series has perfumes inspired by different states in the US. I don't think she has a complete set yet, but not all of them seem to be tagged properly, so you might need to do some searching to find your state if you're interested. Of the ones I've tried, I'd recommend Utah, a sort of Bath and Body Works-esque creamy raspberry scent.
- The "Colors" series has scents inspired by different colors, with an interesting selection including Venus Black, Cadmium Red, and Puce.
Samples:
Samples are available for all permanent scents in a pack of 6 for $12.50 (for Classic Possets) or $22.86 (for Possets Naturals). There are two pre-made packs,
one for newbies and one with a selection of
Orientals. Free samples are included with paid orders.
Quality:
Possets perfumes are a pretty mixed bag for me. There are some wonderful ones in the catalog--you just need to sort through them. The "miss" ratio for me has been pretty high, though. I tend to find them overly sweet and similar to one another, fading more quickly than some other brands I've tried, and often not true to the descriptions.
My recommendations: look for reviews (if you have any particular requests, I'll see if I have samples I can review) and stick with the perfumes described as masculine, dark, or incensey. I burned through a pile of the sweeter, foodie, vanilla or honey-based perfumes, which all sounded wonderful in the descriptions, but which were all weaker, blander, and more cloyingly sweet than I could handle.
Some of my favorites, like The Scent of Angels and
Perpetual Motion Machine, have sadly been discontinued, but others, like
Linden Tea or
The Gingerbread Whorehouse, are still available and definitely worth checking out.
Cost:
Three of Possets' biggest selling points are their pricing, shipping policies, and turnaround time. The 5 mL bottles are $12.50 for Classic scents, $22.86 for Naturals; the Classic scents are very affordable.
Full bottles are available not only in the 5 mL size but in a larger 10 mL size for $18.23 ($34.23 for Naturals).
Customer Service:
I don't think I've ever had to contact Fabienne about a problem, but she is friendly and chats with customers on the Possets
forum (and she's very active in social media in general, with a
blog, Facebook page,
Youtube channel,
Twitter account,
podcast and
newsletter!). Based on her active online presence, I would expect customer service to be professional and satisfactory, but I can't vouch for it personally.
TAT:
I have always received my orders from Possets in a
very timely manner, usually within a few days of placing the order. I watched a video at some point where she mentions that she has part-time, on-demand help with packing orders when she gets too busy, which I think is great--and if she can manage a quick and professional turnaround time, with a catalog of hundreds of scents, I don't quite understand why all indie companies can't do something similar, rather than dragging out their quoted turnaround times to weeks or months. Anyway, I digress; if you need a quick indie retail therapy fix, I would definitely recommend Possets.
Shipping:
The last element in the trifecta of Possets' great strengths: shipping policies. All orders of $75 and over are shipped
for free anywhere in the world, and they offer a choice between first class USPS, Priority USPS, FedEx, or UPS shipping options.
This includes international customers, which is great--too often, indie companies will only offer International Priority shipping at extremely high flat rates. International First Class USPS shipping is far more affordable.
When I added a sample pack to my shopping cart and estimated shipping costs using the website calculator, shipping started at $4.07 for domestic first class mail, $8.55 for international first class mail (I checked these costs using Canada, Italy, and New Zealand as my target countries).
Personal Thoughts:
I'm quite fond of Possets--they put out imaginative limited edition collections, they are very professionally run, and their brand seems spunky and fun--and I have some perfumes from them I really love.
However, the hit or miss aspect of their scents has put me off from ordering anything from them in the last year or so. I can't necessarily tell from reading a notes list if a scent will smell anything like the way it's described, or if I'll like it at all. I remember
Mary Shelley and the
Girls Love... series being particular murky-sweet disappointments to me despite wonderful-sounding descriptions. If I weren't drowning in perfumes already, I'd be more inclined to continue exploring their catalog.
However, since they are affordable, have a sizable catalog, and ship quickly and fairly cheaply, I think they are a great way to explore different scents if you're starting out in the world of indie perfume.
If I were putting together a newbie sample pack from the scents I've tried, I'd suggest the following six:
I've made no attempt here to pick out a variety of scents in different genres or anything--these are just my top six that are in their current permanent catalog.
Are you a fan of Possets? Any recommendations for recent scents I should check out, since I've been out of the loop on their perfumes for the last year or so?
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