Three years ago, I switched my website to Shopify. While this made the website way more user friendly, it also forced me to seemingly increase my pricing. In reality, what truly happened is that while you were all used to them being presented in USD (which reflected the true cost of my raw materials), they now had to be shown in CAD. This made the prices look higher by about 30%. Not a good thing for sales. Even though there was no real price increase!

I tried everything to make this less confusing and reduce its effect on my sales. For example, making the price visible in USD conversion (but still customers would be billed in the end in a seemingly "higher amount" because it charged them the value in CAD). Besides being confusing to the eye, I imagine it also did not add to the credibility of a business who increases their amount at the checkout ;-) Sigh...

Not surprisingly, this has hurt my business quite a bit, so I'm trying to change this, although this will continue to affect my business. I have recently went through the entire website, and brought back the "original prices" when everything had a price that reflects the actual value of it, and was viewed and billed in USD. So that you will be able to see the true value of each item, what I did was go through the ENTIRE WEBSITE, and create a "sale" on each product, by reverting the prices to the numbers you are all used to from the good old days (and still showing the original amount that it should have cost), only that this will be in CAD.

Needless to say, this will make me lose a lot of money per product - but I hope will win some new customers (and bring some of you back). This is not an easy step for me, and one that I have been debating with myself ever since the website has started. Because, the fact and the matter is, that my raw materials pricing has only increased. For example: 3 years ago, the price of an ounce of jasmine was just a little over $100. Now it is more than $200. Similar price increases are found in everyone of the core ingredients that I use across most of my creations - rose, vanilla, and more. The prohibitively costly raw materials such as boronia, osmanthus, champaca etc have gone through the roof, and still I stick to my old formulae and never compromise. If I ever reformulate it is only to make a perfume BETTER - never cheaper.

Part of my values (which are not listed anywhere formally), are that I don't particularly have any interest in making my perfumes an "unattainable" item, something that only celebrities and oligarchs can afford. Neither do I want everyday people who feel the pressure to be like celebrities or oligarchs need to break their banks and go into debt to obtain them. I want real people like you and me to enjoy my very real perfumes: creations that come straight from my heart... and hopefully also touch yours.

Neither do I ever have any interest in mass marketing (and producing) them. I create everything in small batches, and sell them in small sizes that allow anyone to afford them - at least once a year on your birthday or anniversary, if you save up a little bit (but most likely more than that). Most of my sizes, when used daily, will last you anywhere from 6-12 months.

Another thing is the actual volume in containers vs. the amount listed: my roll-on bottles changed, and even though when I purchased them as 5ml bottles, they take 6ml to fill. This may sound like a small change, but when we're talking about a parfum at 30% concentration, this is adding up a lot to my costs... So consider yourself lucky to get one extra millilitre, and for way less money than ever before... Ditto the miniatures, they are usually filled with more around the 5ml than 4ml. But I just didn't want to make a big deal out of it and increase the cost. So there you are.

So, this is all good news for you, and I hope this will allow you to
purchase this perfume you always thought was too expensive... Even though you probably didn't know it was the same price as it was 3 years ago...