FAQs
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We hope the drop-downs below can answer most of your questions. But feel free to get in touch with us on our contact form, by email info@olentium.com or message us on Instagram @olentium.

See our Contact page for our email, phone number and address. We’d love to hear from you.

We ship internationally with some country exceptions*.

Our alcohol Eau de Parfum 15ml, 50ml and Discovery Sets ship worldwide with our courier partner DHL.  Single 2ml samples, not purchased within the Discovery Set, are delivered by regular postal services. Oil-based perfumes  can ship either DHL or regular post.

*However, there are some country restrictions. These are due, for example, to individual countries restricting the import of alcohol, local courier handling restrictions or because our courier partner DHL does not serve those countries.

See Shipping & Returns for full info.

*At present, however, we do not ship to Russia, Belarus, Iraq nor Ukraine.

We offer free DHL Express shipping to the EU, UK, USA and Canada on purchases containing any of the following:

– a 50ml bottle
– 2 x 15ml travel sizes
– a Discovery Set

Order over €250 are delivered free to other international destinations, but otherwise all orders not in the brackets listed above are charged at cost and calculated at checkout.

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Please be aware that if delivery is outside the EU, your purchase may incur customs duties and other local/state/country taxes. We are not liable for these and, unfortunately, we can’t advise you in advance if they are likely to be incurred nor at what rates.

For more information, see Shipping & Returns.

We do offer returns and refunds for specific products and reasons. Perfumes and cosmetics’ sales are final on account of hygiene and health/safety.  See our Shipping & Returns information for full details.

If you receive a product damaged or in an unfit state for other reasons, please get in touch with us immediately.

Yes, of course. We offer 2ml samples vials of our perfumes. A more cost-effective and sustainable way to sample our range is to purchase our Discovery Set which comprises 7 x 2ml sample atomisers. The set is shipped free and you receive a 15% off code to redeem against a future purchase of a 50ml atomiser.

2ml samples are free with each 50ml eau de parfum purchased online. This is to give you the chance to trial our fragrances before opening the larger flacon. If the perfume doesn’t suit you, you can then gift the 50ml to someone else, unopened.

We design and blend our perfumes in our atelier-lab on the Maltese Islands which lie at the centre of the Mediterranean.

Luxury that’s planet friendly and without excess.

Descriptors like natural, botanical, artisan, hand-crafted, niche, eco luxe, eco conscious, hand-blended and more are often used to describe small-scale artisan craft and cosmetics businesses. We realise these terms can be confusing for customers.

At Olentium, we use eco-luxe to describe our ethos and style of products and manufacturing because we strive to use only the finest-quality raw materials whose provenance is as traceable as possible and from reputable supplies – and that we can process into cosmetics with the least harm to the planet.

Our packaging partners use 70% recycled and/or FSC-approved card. We limit the amount of packaging we use by keeping things simple and minimalist and in proportion to the size of bottles, avoiding also excesses such as cellophane wrap.

Our perfumes are composed with a high percentage of natural oils  – up to 41% in Sicilian Suede, for example – and high-quality synthetics from international aromachemical manufacturers. We strive to know the provenance of all materials and work only with reputable suppliers. This ensure we can keep control of the quality and safety of our perfume materials. A natural oil does not necessarily equate to a sustainable, planet-friendly oil. Natural ingredients also contain restricted materials that have allergenic properties. Sustainability is our driver in all we do. Our blog has quite a few posts discussing these issues.

Find out more about our eco-luxe ethos and partners here.

We do! Sign up for our enews to be first to hear of our special offers. As a new customer, you automatically gain 10% off your first order. You need to sign up for our enews first to receive your discount code for a single, one-time use at checkout.

Olentium perfumes contain a high percentage of naturals in their neat blends; on average, across our range this equates to 40% naturals vs synthetic-derived materials.  We dilute and mature our perfume oils in denatured grain alcohol from Italy.

Our aim is to always use naturals first in all our products. But, we believe it is important to create our products with the sustainability of the planet and people in mind.

If a natural ingredient, such as some sandalwood species for example, proves unsustainable or unethical to source and use, we will use a synthetic, safe alternative if we require that material for the design, safety and/or efficacy of the formulation.

We use natural, nature-derived, natural-cosmetic compatible and nature-identical ingredients in our perfumes along with a judicious amount of synthesised aromachemicals to improve the scent profile and longevity of the perfume.  Our perfumes and other cosmetics are IFRA compliant and also safety assessed to comply with EU cosmetic regulations.

You might like to explore this balancing act between naturals and aromachemicals in this article: ‘How perfumers walk the fine line between natural and synthetics‘ in Chemical & Engineering News.

Our perfumes do not contain animal-derived ingredients such as beeswax, honey, civet, hyraceum, castoreum or ambergris.

Ambrettolide, a musk ingredient, in both its natural and synthetic forms is mainly derived from cochineal beetle exudate.  There are some bio-tech versions of ambrettolide, but they are difficult and expensive to source for a small niche perfume brand. We strive to obtain ambrette seed tincture from plant sources, but can’t always guarantee this for each batch. If you would like to know before you purchase, we can advise whether a certain perfume from a certain batch includes plant-derived ambrettolide. Just contact us for information.

If we mention animalics in scent profiles, they allude to the aromas only and are from non-animal, natural and synthetic materials.

Cosmetics and cosmetic ingredients sold in the EU cannot, since a 2013 Directive, have undergone animal testing anywhere in the world from that date.

We do not have certified status for either definition, but do work only with trusted raw material wholesalers and labs who can supply documentation for their ingredients to satisfy our need to source vegan lifestyle-compatible and cruelty-free materials.

Sustainability is a journey  – see the UN Sustainable Development Goals – and one we are embarking on from the outset. As we grow, we can embrace verifiable, certifiable goals and claims about sustainability. At the moment, we are doing what we can at the junctures we can.

We work hard to build robust, transparent trust relations with our suppliers so we can ask them about the sourcing of their materials. It is easier now to get the answers as the climate change crisis, and fair and ethical trade is higher up the agenda.

Lifecycle analyses of product and business carbon footprints are extremely costly for the small business, and we feel governments should provide funding to enable start-ups and SMEs to adopt sustainability principles. So, for now we are ensuring, for example, we use cold-process cosmetic formulation as much as possible to reduce on energy, we reduce waste, pare back packaging and work with suppliers and manufacturers who can demonstrate a clear commitment to sustainability goals.

We advise storing all your cosmetics away from heat, light and humidity. Keep any outer packaging to protect them and also to ensure retain information on the product batch, shelf life, usage and storage information.

Alcohol perfumes have a 3-year expiry date after opening. This is the standard EDP/EDT/Cologne perfumes are assessed for. However, alcohol at the high percentages in our perfumes means that our fragrances should still be perfectly fine to use beyond that date. We advise you to test patch any fragrance you have not worn before.

Some natural ingredients may degrade over time especially if the perfume is exposed to light.  Some of our perfumes contain high percentages of natural ingredients and while we double filter our perfumes before bottling,  some waxy or other sediments may be visible, especially over time. This is perfectly normal and in no way alters the performance of the perfume.

While a perfume’s colour may change, its scent may not. If using any of our perfumes beyond 3 years, trial it on a blotter first to check it.

Scent is a very personal choice. Our eaux de parfum are between 18% and 20% of the neat perfume oil blend in the carrier – either denatured alcohol or a citrus-derived oil for our Extrait Parfum oil perfumes. Some using more base notes may have a stronger, longer-lasting scent profile. Others, using citrus-rich blends, may be less heavy. Floral hearts of perfumes can be strong or light, depending on the kind of floral notes used. White florals like jasmine, tuberose and orange blossom can be quite strong for some people, but others may love their narcotic headiness.

We advise of scent profiles on our product pages to  guide you. We offer sample vials for you to trial our perfumes before you buy and a Discovery Set of all our range. Every 50ml flacon purchased is accompanied by a 2ml sample vial; so you can test the sample first before opening the full flacon.

IFRA, the international body providing guidelines to the fragrance industry, allows higher percentages of fragrance materials in perfumes, which are applied to pulse points only, and to body care products than in face care cosmetics as facial skin is more sensitive.

These, and similar chemicals we list on our packaging, are constituent parts of perfumery ingredients and are found mainly, but not only, in botanical materials. Rose oil for instance contains linalol, and this isolate can be synthesised from other materials including Ho Wood.

The EU has identified some 82 potential allergens in cosmetic ingredients, and cosmetics placed for sale in the EU must list them on their packaging* at point of sale if they are present in the finished consumer product at, or greater than 0.001%. The EU list is up from its original 26 allergens in new regulatory regime coming into force in July 2026. You can read about that here*. Products already on the market before July 31, 2026, can continue to be sold until July 31, 2028, without updated labels covering the potential 56 allergens added to to list.

Our perfumes are also IFRA compliant. IFRA is a self-regulatory fragrance industry body which has its own restrictions on some materials which can be more stringent than those of the EU allergen requirements.

In theory, a perfume with a high alcohol content never really expires. All perfumes, whether natural or synthetic based, will change odor profile over time. Naturals will evolve in their flacons more than synthetics and will last better if kept in their original carton and away from heat and light. Our perfumes are safety assessed for 36 months after opening. This is indicated by the PAO, Open Jar symbol on the packaging.

Ideally, store your perfumes and skincare in original packaging and away from heat, light and humidity to ensure their safe keeping.

Our cosmetics are safety assessed in order to be placed on the EU market. Cosmetic safety assessments and challenge tests (the latter are not required for high percentage ethanol-based perfumes) determine their shelf life or ‘best before date’ which is indicated on the primary packaging and on our website.

Olentium is a luxury brand of artisanal perfumes crafted on a Mediterranean island. Contemporary fragrance classics, gender neutral, high % naturals.

IAO finalist

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