The Scent Crimes Series: No 9 - "Snapped: Women Who Fill" - 2.5ml Glass Atomisers Behaving Badly (Again)

Mr Bonkers recently suggested that we kick Sky, our satellite channel provider, into touch, as we aren't watching nearly enough TV to warrant the £60 a month. One of the programmes I will miss is a crime series called "Snapped: Women Who Kill". Apart from anything, I have always appreciated the portentous semi-colon in the title. The other day my friend Clare wrote on Mr Bonkers' Facebook wall, warning him that he may regret this decision:

"Having watched all those episodes of 'Women who Kill', Vanessa knows all the best techniques. You don't want to upset her...I'd restore Sky, smartish".

But really, it is okay. I am fully behind the decision and not about to run amok in the living room wielding a semi-automatic rifle. Or for that matter a knitting needle, mini-stapler or Estée Lauder lip gloss, all of which items sundry airlines down the years have construed as offensive weapons and summarily confiscated from me.

But what did get me mad the other day were some more technical difficulties while decanting. I don't know this for sure, but I may be the most prolific blogger in perfumeland on the subject of various decanting issues: from bottles that only spray at a funny angle, to swivelling nozzles and overspray problems, tricky viscosities and curious arrangements of insulation tape. On this recent occasion, a 2.5ml glass atomiser was getting up to its tricks again - well, different tricks, in fact.

Yes, the usual trick of these particular vials is to resist having their tops put on altogether, even if you follow to the letter the method outlined on the Accessories For Fragrance website.

No, this time something most peculiar occurred. I was trying to consolidate my small samples of Armani Sensi - an underrated jasmine floral I have already reviewed on Bonkers - into a single 2.5ml atomiser, as I quite fancied spraying it for once. My only other stocks of this scent are in the form of a miniature with a tiny aperture, so there was no hope of transferring its contents - that will forever remain strictly a dabbing receptacle.

But I had a couple of ml in 1ml vials to combine and managed to get them into the 2.5ml atomiser okay. Then I had some trouble getting the top on, but in the end I managed to bodge it in after a fashion, applying lots of brute force (though I didn't deploy the geode this time). But the fit bothered me still - for some reason I doubted whether it was properly in - I hadn't heard it do that click thing it is meant to do, and it was also sitting at a slightly funny angle.

So I set about trying to take the top section off again: pulling it this way and that, trying to twist it or prise it off with my fingers. I was just about to go and take a knife to it when I had the bright idea of trying to bite the top off . Apart from anything it felt like a way to release the annoyance I was by now feeling - and after all, it is a tried and tested method I use with those dangly plastic tags from the dry cleaner's that you remember to remove just as you are going into an important meeting.

Well, I am not sure I would recommend biting as a technique of atomiser disassembly, because the whole top sheared off, leaving the rest of the mechanism still firmly stuck inside the vial, like the stinger a bee deposits into your skin. I have not yet tried to get it out again. other than half-heartedly upending the darn thing to see if any perfume comes out the tiny hole in the atomiser tube / "stinger equivalent" (it doesn't). I will have to try taking a knife to the plastic rim embedded in the glass base at some point, but I sense it may be messy.

And the worst part about biting off more than I could crunch? Getting perfume in my mouth - not much, obviously, as you can see from the photograph, but enough to know it is not something that - notwithstanding its alcoholic base - will displace my favourite tipple of G & T any time soon.




Mugshot photo from crimeinvestigation.co.uk, photo of a vial having its top inserted from accessoriesforfragrances.com, photo of bee sting from Wikipedia, photo of Sensi mini from Ebay, other photo my own.

The Scent Crimes Series: No 8 - 2.5ml Glass Atomisers With Plastic Tops

I have been decanting for a year now, mostly as part of the MUA swap scene, and after Christmas I thought it would be nice to upgrade my 2.5ml size atomisers from all-plastic to those with a glass base and a plastic pump mechanism/top. So I invested in a pack of 50 from the online retailer from whom I have very happily bought most of my previous decanting supplies. Imagine my dismay when the pack arrived and I found I couldn't get the top of the atomiser to fit onto the bottom. Okay, okay, the word "crime" in the context of an ill-fitting bit of plastic is perhaps a little excessive, but I was - and still am - very exercised by this problem.

I immediately fired off a perplexed email to the company's customer services:

"I recently ordered some decant supplies, including 50 x 2.5ml glass atomizers with plastic sprung atomiser tops/closures. I have wrestled with the top and the bottom of several of these today and I don't think they are meant to go together - the plastic ring will not engage with the glass base at all, the way a plastic dipper closure would have done - the sort you shove in, rather than an atomiser top. The 5ml ones I have ordered before are all in plastic and the top screws into the bottom fine. With this mix of glass and plastic, there is no thread for the top to screw into the base, if you follow me.

Please advise, as I cannot get any of these to fit together, though I am familiar with atomizer mechanisms of various kinds."

The company replied promptly to my plea for help:

"You are not the first person to have problems getting the pumps to seat in those -- myself included.

If you look at the 2.5ml Glass Atomizer on the webstore and scroll to the bottom, there are photos and instructions on how to get them to go in. Everyone reports that after they get one seated, they have no more problems. The bright side of this is the tight fit means they are less likely to fit (sic - a Freudian slip? - FS). I would recommend doing one without perfume in it and then wiggling the pump to remove it and repeating this a few times. You should be a pro by that time.

Other than this problem, hope you are having a great day on that side of the pond."

Well, that was a nice, helpful email! And there is indeed a detailed page of instructions on the supplier's website, including close up photos of how the atomiser should look before and after closure. The bottom line is that what is required to make the top fit into the base is SHEER BRUTE FORCE APPLIED BY A HEAVY OBJECT.

I had a go using a variety of heavy objects that came to hand - a fat book, an earthenware mug, a rolling pin - but the one that worked best was that familiar household utensil, a geode! You think that is a strange choice of weapon? Ah, but my dear, late mother used to tenderise steaks with a lump of amethyst, so geological implements clearly run in the family... The geode was unbelievably heavy and the top of the vial did eventually snap in after a few failed attempts - it required extreme force to be applied whilst holding the base perfectly upright on a non-slip surface.

So far, so good, and I informed the company of my progress to date:

"I have managed that now but it was quite hard work, trying a variety of techniques/solid objects to get both the pump and the collar to go down properly. I am apprehensive about doing it with a perfume in the vial at the time, though as you say, with practice it should get better! It does look like a good fit - it is just getting to that point that is a bit of a black art. : - )"

Notwithstanding this successful test run, I could see trouble ahead. For it was all very well ramming the atomiser into an empty vial, but what on earth would happen when there was perfume in said vial? Surely the very action of depressing the atomiser to "set" it in its base would activate the pump and simultaneously deliver perfume - multiple times, if the geode didn't do its masterful business on the first attempt.

Reader, it did deliver perfume, again and again, as I was trying to decant a spot of Cuir de Lancome for Gblue the other day. Within seconds I had been hit in the eye, the neck, the elbow - I was covered in the stuff. And my trusty tool was also impregnated with the scent. This may be the first - and hopefully the last -time anyone in the history of the English language will utter the words: "My geode reeks of Cuir de Lancome".

Should I have first taped up the hole in the nozzle with duct tape before forcing it in the base? But wouldn't the pump have sprayed anyway, and just wetted the inside of the tape? And holding my finger over the hole wouldn't have worked, any more than the little Dutch boy plugging the dyke. Maybe that isn't a good analogy, as he did manage to stem the flow, didn't he, at least for a while?

Can anyone help me? I have about 46 of these things left and urgently require a reliable MO! Tips on removing odour from geodes would not go amiss either.