The Scent Crimes Series: No 18 - Tantalising convex bottoms

'Does my bottom look convex in this?'

I have just had a quick look at past entries in The Scent Crimes Series, and of the previous 17, a surprising seven tackle assorted irritating aspects of perfume packaging. I was saying to Val the Cookie Queen only the other day that I seem to be becoming more and more easily annoyed these days, and that it doesn't take much for something on Facebook to set me off: from the eerily well targeted ads for brow lifts, wide fitting shoes and funeral plans, to the generalised ranting, humble bragging, cryptic cliffhangers, inexplicably inflammatory terms of endearment (especially 'my lovely' and 'hun'), not forgetting the self-help memes - and even (when I am feeling particularly curmudgeonly) the surfeit of cute animal videos. Though sometimes it is a video of a squirrel nibbling on an acorn before falling over in ecstasy, or an otter doing backstroke with its baby on its tummy that is precisely the tonic I need for these unfortunate bouts of misanthropy.

But yes, it would seem that perfume packaging also has boundless ways to wind me up. For those who have come latterly to Bonkers, here are a few of the past titles to give you an idea:

No 6 - Opaque Perfume Receptacles
No 11 - Bombastically Big Boxes
No 12 - Impregnable Perfume Miniatures

And possibly my top peeve!:

No 15 - The infuriating shape sorting puzzle that is Cuir de Lancôme packaging

And then the other day I was thwarted by perfume packaging in yet another way - namely by a miniature bottle of Estee Lauder Amber Ylang Ylang, to be exact - when it failed to yield up its remaining drops on account of the convex surface of the inner bottom of the bottle. In vain did I tip the mini this way and that; the precious few drops of scent simply slid out of reach to one or other corner, beyond the pumping range of the admittedly very short tube.

Now it is because I so rarely finish anything bigger than a sample or small decant - most of my full bottles will probably have gone off before I do so, with a handful of notable exceptions - that I was caught on the hop by this. But it was all the more frustrating as I was in the mood to wear Amber Ylang Ylang at the time, and there was no other way apart from activating the nozzle to get the juice out. In fairness I do also have the same issue currently with a bottle of Clarins Foundation, to which I am quite tempted to take a hammer in my piqued state. Such drastic action would only hasten the run off of the last drops of Amber Ylang Ylang, mind, so I am well and truly snookered on this one. All that is left is to take a moment to enjoy the beaten gold top, whose stippled allure partly drew me to this scent in the first place...

Hmm, on closer inspection, I see I have a concave bottom problem going on with the Clarins...

Have you found yourself thwarted by this troubling phenomenon of tantalising convex bottoms?

It is of course also a problem if you are estimating fill levels prior to hosting a split or selling on a partial bottle of perfume - how do you account for the missing juice where the glass bows out? All oddly shaped bottles are tricky in this regard, come to think of it - well anything that isn't rectangular or squarish and with an even thickness of glass throughout.

Argh! I just learnt that this Amber Ylang Ylang has been discontinued - cue more annoyance! That is a great shame, as it was a fine example of a sweetly comforting gourmand scent with its tenacious base of amber, sandalwood, and vanilla.  Here is a link to Angela's review on Now Smell This. She does admittedly call it the ultimate 'cashmere sweater scent', but I will overlook that ;), as it was back in 2008, and Angela may well have been one of the first people to use - if not indeed coin! - the phrase that has gone on to become the doyenne of perfume cliches (well, if you are a crabby old stick like me, that is).

And if you aren't bothered by tantalising convex bottoms particularly, do you by any chance find yourself more readily irritated these days? I blame middle-age hormones - what's your excuse if so?