FAQs

We’re here to help

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.

How do I contact Olentium?

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

Where do you ship to?

We ship worldwide.*

Our alcohol Eau de Parfum 2ml, 15ml and 50ml ship worldwide with our courier partner DHL. 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 DHL does not operate there.

See Shipping & Returns for more info.

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

Do you offer free shipping?

We offer free standard shipping as special offers every so often. Sign up to our newsletter to find out about our offers.

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.

For more information, see Shipping & Returns.

What about returns and refunds?

We do offer returns and refunds for specific products and reasons. See our Shipping & Returns information for full details.

Please note that cosmetic products must be returned unopened and in pristine condition / packaging to qualify for a refund. If you receive a product damaged or in an unfit state for other reasons, please get in touch with us immediately. We do not accept refunds on 1 or 2ml sample or complementary perfume vials.

Can I test your perfumes before buying?

Yes, of course. We offer 2ml samples vials of our perfumes.

2ml samples are free with each 50ml eau de parfum purchased. This is to give you the chance to trial our fragrances before opening the larger flacon, which you can return to us for a refund (conditions apply – see below) or gift to someone.

Where are your products made?

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

What do you mean by eco luxe?

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 sustainable 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.

Our perfumes are composed with a high percentage of natural oils and a light touch of high-quality synthetics from international aromachemical manufacturers. We strive to ensure we 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. Sustainability is our driver. Our blog has quite a few posts discussing these issues.

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

Do you run discounts / special offers?

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.

Are your perfumes natural?

Olentium perfumes contain a high percentage of naturals in their neat blends. All our products are free of phthalates, parabens, formaldehyde and mineral oil derivatives. 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 tested 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 skincare and bodycare ranges are 100% natural or nature-derived/identical in the sense of the ISO standard for natural ingredients.

Are your products vegan and cruelty free?

Our perfumes do not contain animal-derived ingredients such as beeswax, honey, civet, hyraceum or ambergris. If we mention these at all 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.

Are your products sustainable?

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.

How do I store your cosmetics?

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.

Some natural ingredients may degrade over time especially if the perfume is exposed to light. 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.

How strong are your fragances?

Scent is a very personal choice. Our eaux de parfum are 15% neat perfume oils and our parfum is 25% strength. 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. Every 50ml flacon purchased is accompanied by a 2ml sample vial; so you can test the sample first before opening the full flacon. We accept returns of new, unopened fragrances. See our FAQ below.

Most people prefer, and also tolerate, heavier fragrance percentages in body products such as oils, lotions and perfumes.

Also, 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 as facial skin is more sensitive.

Your ingredients include linalol, eugenol, farnesol etc. What are these?

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 26 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%.

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.

What is the shelf life of your products?

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 skincare cosmetics are safety tested in order to be placed on the EU market. The safety and challenge tests determine their shelf life or ‘best before date’ which is indicated on the primary packaging and on our website.