Dear Friends,
In June 2025, "Raiders of the Lost Scent" reached an unusual milestone.
This site officially reached the three million page views. This is a truly gratifying result. While there are countless blogs, websites and video channels that boast far higher traffic numbers, this is a figure that brings us great satisfaction, because "Raiders" is a "homemade" blog. in the truest sense of the word. And the most interesting thing is that the more time passes, the more the numbers increase.
The only driving force behind this blog was the passion of its founder, who, like many other perfume enthusiasts, was faced with the constant evolution and change of perfumes; therefore, he thought of compiling guides on "how to recognize old perfumes", confident in the fact that "the older, the better".
A lot of time has passed and now we are trying to keep the spirit of the blog alive, trying to publish the vast amount of unpublished articles and to give life to the remaining raw-notes (really, really many). That's right: there is still a huge amount of material to publish. Just to mention a few:
- Questions and Answers with perfume houses ex-employees;
- "A closer look to vintage fragrances" serie: i.e, discussions about a vintage scent, commented by fragrance experts;
...and much other stuff.
This is a real time-consuming work: "repairing" posts, fixing photos, updating infos, making what has already been written more presentable, and obviously posting new articles.
This is why we ask you for a little help, knowing that we can offer you nothing more than work and good-will to continue keeping this blog alive and open. And, above all, maintain this site free-of-charge.
If you think your knowledge of vintage perfumes has improved,
If discovering the meaning of old batch-codes has helped you,
If you were able to benefit from these informations,
If you can offer a small contribution, solely for the time spent keeping up with the blog, then please "offer us a coffee".
The "Raiders" team.
Feel free to write comments or suggestions!
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Some of the comments received over the years and discussions on forums (all names used under permission)
- "Raiders of the Lost Scent": I fell in love with this blog just reading its name! (A.Kosik)
- I love "Raiders of the Lost Scent" because it gives me the feeling that they aren't doing "paid advertising" to anyone. Plus, they never tried to sell me anything. It's like it gives a sense of intellectual honesty. (J. Meyer)
- ...."Raiders" blog can be a bit weird and tough to navigate sometimes. Nothing is obvious right away; you have to go through it line by line, and it can feel clunky. But I can assure you, I eventually got my fragrances cataloged, even though I didn't know anything about them beforehand. (P. Van der Tamm)
- "Raiders of the Lost Scent" feels completely old-fashioned. It doesn't have video channels or real social media connections; it seems like a site from another era. But still, I can always find my answers there". (D. Knorr)
- "When I need to look up a new fragrance, I just go to any of the many check sites; they're fantastic. But if I'm trying to find out about something from way back—30, 40, 50 years ago—I use RotlS, hands down." (F. Clemens)
- Well. I thing that in terms of authority (and in its very small and specific sector) the "Raiders" blog is second to none. (D. Errington)
- "The most amazing thing is how much information you can get for free. Nobody has ever asked me for a single cent." (W. Bernard)
- "...it's a difficult site to follow, but thanks to Raiders I managed to avoid being scammed while buying fragrances!" (M. Butler)
- "...I managed to sell a couple of scents at a $$$ price because by reading on RotLS I understood what year they were produced and therefore demonstrated that they were old-formula vintage fragrances..." (Ebay seller)
- ...thanks to this blog I better understood the history of reformulations and also, in most cases, how to distinguish the old from the new. (C. Mènard)
- "Just a fact: no one had ever published this infos about, say, Jean Patou perfumes before. Nobody, except for those in the industry, had any idea what all those apparently random numbers meant. And we're talking about the most precious perfumes (Joy, 1000) that have ever been created". (E. Johnston)
- The best thing about "Raiders of the Lost Scent" (IMHO) is that it feels like it was written by people who really know their stuff. (R.Costain)
- I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but if I mention in my ads that my perfumes are a match for what "Raiders" wrote, they sell right away. It's like a seal of approval." (A.Brown)
-GUY LAROCHE perfumes (here)
-CACHAREL perfumes ( here )
-ROCHAS perfumes (here)