Last Update: 11/2/2023
What are Zoologist perfumes like? Should I "blind-buy" a full-size bottle?
Zoologist perfumes are not your typical mass-appeal designer perfumes. They are creative, artistic, strong, and, depending on your experience with niche and indie perfumes, they could be very daring and challenging to wear. Probably not the kind of scent you’d want to wear to a job interview or on a first date. According to people who have tried them, they wouldn't consider them "beginner's perfumes".We would not recommend buying a full-size 60mL bottle without smelling a sample. As people in the fragrance community like to say, they are not "blind-buy safe".
I have sent you emails asking for free samples, but never received a reply.
Every day we receive a lot of emails requesting for free samples, and we no longer have time to handle such requests. Also, if we send free samples to whoever requests them, it would be very unfair to our customers who pay for them.However, we are quite generous and include free sample(s) with your order if you purchase from us.We also occasionally send free samples to selected reviewers who have an existing website or YouTube channel dedicated to perfumes.
Why is your shipping fee expensive?
We are located in Canada, which has a relatively small population (particularly compared to the United States) living on a vast landmass. Shipping from Canada, whether through our postal system, Canada Post, or courier services such as FedEx and DHL, costs significantly more. In fact, we subsidize a big part of the postage so that it doesn’t appear “insane” when you go through the checkout process on our web shop. For example, shipping a 500g product from Canada to a European city with tracking service via Canada Post typically costs $60-$80, but on our website we say much lower.We suggest that you check out our “Stockist” page and see if there are any shops located near you.
Do you ship internationally?
Yes, please visit our international site, zoologistperfumes.com
How can I determine the shipping cost?
You can figure out the shipping cost by adding an item to the shopping cart, going to the cart page, and getting an estimate using the calculator at the bottom of the page.
I received an email from Canada Post that my package has been delivered, but it isn't. Is it lost?
It is very common that Canada Post sends out a “package delivered” notice a few days before the actual delivery. If you don’t receive the package in two days, please let us know by emailing us at shop@zoologistperfumes.com and we will do a follow up. Your patience is appreciated.
Why are some Zoologist perfumes more expensive than others?
The cost of the perfumery materials in the more expensive perfumes is higher.
Are Zoologist perfumes 100% animal-products free?
With the exception of Zoologist Bee and Hyrax, our products are 100% animal-product free, and all are free from natural animal-derived musks, which often involve animal cruelty. You won't find ingredients from the glands of beavers, musk deer or civets here. Every time we include an "animal musk" in our ingredient list, we put an asterisk next to it and specify that it is made of a synthetic material. Any other materials used in our perfumes are either taken from plants or are synthetics.
Are Zoologist perfumes “vegan”?
With the exception Zoologist Bee and Hyrax, our perfumes are considered vegan. The perfume collection as a whole is not vegan. We never strive to create vegan perfumes, but our philosophy is not to use materials that involves animal cruelty. Ingredients such as African Stones and beeswax are all beautiful-smelling animal by-products collected in nature that do not involve animal cruelty.
Does your perfume contain phthalates?
No, none of our perfumes contains any phthalates.
Do Zoologist test their perfumes on animals?
No, we do not.
Do you use colourants in your perfumes?
Some of our perfumes use colourants:
Generally speaking, the colour saturation in these perfumes will fade away slowly, and some even turn into a different colour over time. This is normal and will not affect the smell of the perfumes.
How come the colour of the juice of some Zoologist perfumes looks much darker? Are they better-smelling or more concentrated?
This is a perfect example of the variances that can occur when a high percentage of naturals are used. Even when the naturals are produced by the same manufacturers (and in this case they are), the colors vary. What we have is the same formula, the same manufacturers producing the natural materials, and the typically occurring variances in the colors of the materials. This is true of all naturals. The variance would only be an issue if the blend was made from synthetics.
What ingredients do you use in your products?
For more information, please visit Zoologist Perfumes Ingredients List
Why do some of the brand-new travel sprays I bought look under-filled? Are they used? The fragrance water level doesn't look like what’s shown in your product photo.
The reason why the travel sprays do not look like they are equally filled is that the volume of each glass bottle is slightly different when manufactured. The volume discrepancy ranges from 10.75ml - 11.5ml. We use an electronic pipette to over-fill each to 10.5ml, which is more than the listed product volume of 10ml. However, bottles with a larger-than-standard volume might still appear to be under-filled. Rest assured, you’re getting more than 10ml from each travel spray.
Are there two different versions of your perfumes? I have seen some bottles such as Hummingbird or Bat with labels that read “Eau de Parfum”, but some read “Extrait de Parfum” – but they smell the same. What’s going on?
They are the same perfume, with the same strength and concentration.
We were inexperienced when we started, and our inexperience extended to naming our products properly. We used to hear from customers that our scents were “beastly” potent and not really Eau de Parfum (typically diluted to 15%), and most of them were not. So in mid-2017 we corrected the labels (but didn’t raise the price) to reflect the true strength of the scents.
The following scents have been re-subtitled:
Why did you redesign your perfumes?
Some of the perfumes we released a few years ago didn't smell exactly like what the creative director (also the perfume house owner) had in mind, but they were interesting and unique enough that we were convinced to publish them. After all, everyone's interpretation of what an animal should smell like as a perfume is different. After they had been on the market for a few years, we wanted to revisit them and give them a new interpretation.
Our sales figures were never the main reason why we redesigned our perfumes. Hyrax, for example, is very animalic and only a few customers love it to purchase a bottle, but we’re happy with the scent.
The original Bat perfume released in 2015, however, was redesigned in 2020 because the business relationship between Zoologist and the perfumer who also sold us perfume compound ended in 2019.
The redesigned perfumes are Bat, Beaver, Dodo, Dragonfly, Macaque, Panda, Rhinoceros. After that, we don't have any intention to redesign any more perfumes, as we’ll strive to publish perfumes that both Zoologist and the perfumer are satisfied with.
How do I tell which version of the perfume I own?
In most cases, you can tell by reading the "batch code" label on the bottom of the perfume bottle or the first line of text on the ingredient list on the travel spray labels. However, in 2018, we started to put batch code labels on the bottom of the perfume bottles, so our early releases – such as the original Beaver, Panda, and Bat – do not have the batch-code labels. The only way to tell them apart is to compare them with the current formulations. (They smell very different.)