QUESTIONS

You get an email with the summary as soon as the order is confirmed. When the parcel leaves, a second one arrives with the tracking number and the link to follow it.

If neither one turns up, look in your junk mail, then write to info@amarmaison.com and we will send them again.

We ship to Italy, Germany and Austria. In Italy we hand parcels to InPost and BRT, and to Poste Italiane in some areas. Parcels for Germany and Austria travel with DPD.

Standard shipping takes three to five business days and costs 5.99 euros in all three countries. It is free of charge for orders of 50 euros or more in Italy, and of 100 euros or more in Germany and Austria. Express shipping, one to three business days at 11.99 euros, is available in Italy only.

These are estimated times: holidays, busy periods or a courier delay can push them slightly. We deliver across Italy, islands included, subject to any limits the courier applies in the most remote areas.

Yes, you have fourteen days from delivery to change your mind, with no need to explain why: it is a right granted by Italian consumer law.

To use it, write to info@amarmaison.com within those fourteen days with your name, order number and the product you want to return; a reason is welcome but never required.

The bottle needs to come back intact, unused, in its original sealed packaging and undamaged, with everything that came with it. One thing matters for hygiene: if the clear film sealing the box has been removed or torn, we can no longer accept the return, so check it before you open the box.

Return shipping is at your cost, and the parcel goes back to the same address printed on the label you received. Once it arrives and we have checked it, you get your refund within fourteen days, through the same payment method you used to buy.

Write to info@amarmaison.com within seven days of delivery, with a photo of the product and of the parcel as you received them: from there we trace the shipment and either send a replacement or give you a full refund, shipping included.

The same applies if what arrived is not what you ordered: that mistake is ours to fix, not yours. You also keep the statutory warranty of conformity under Italian consumer law, which entitles you to repair, replacement, a price reduction or cancellation of the sale, depending on the case.

It is how much perfume concentrate is dissolved in the alcohol. An eau de toilette holds a little, an eau de parfum more, an extrait, or parfum, is the densest version.

It is not a scale of quality but a scale of intensity and of time. The same composition as an extrait stays closer to the skin, is felt less from across a room and lasts far longer; as an eau de parfum it opens wider and takes up more space around whoever is wearing it.

For two reasons, and neither is a trick. The first is concentration: perfumery in the Gulf almost always works at high strengths, close to an extrait.

The second is the materials themselves: oud, amber, resins, woods, vanilla, musks. Those are heavy molecules: they evaporate slowly, so the trail moves in hours rather than minutes. Fresh citrus compositions do the opposite. They land at once and leave early.

It is the resinous wood of the agar tree. When the trunk is attacked by a particular mould, the plant defends itself by producing a dark resin that soaks through the wood. That resin is oud.

It takes years, not every tree makes it, and that is why it is one of the most precious raw materials in perfumery. At first it can seem severe: leather, smoke, wet earth. Then it softens on the skin and turns warm and balsamic. If you have never worn it, give it half an hour before you judge it.

Three at a time, no more: after the fourth the nose stops telling them apart. Try them on skin, not only on paper: paper only ever tells you the opening.

Wait ten minutes before deciding. The first moments are the most volatile ingredients, and they are not the perfume. If you need to reset, breathe into the crook of your elbow or into your own wool: a smell you already know brings the nose back to zero better than coffee beans do.

Where the skin is warm and no fabric absorbs it: the neck, the inner elbow, the wrists, behind the ears.

Moisturised skin holds a fragrance far longer than dry skin, so a plain unscented cream before the perfume is the simplest way to stretch it. One thing not to do: rubbing your wrists together. The heat and the friction break the top notes and shorten the whole fragrance.

Because skin is not a neutral surface. Temperature, hydration, pH, diet, medication: all of it changes how fast the molecules evaporate, and so the order in which you meet them.

On the same composition one skin can push the sweetness forward and another the wood. It is also why you should never buy a perfume on the strength of how it smelled on somebody else.

In the dark, cool, and closed. Light and swings in temperature are the two real enemies: the bathroom, with the steam of the shower, is the worst place in the house.

A wardrobe or the original box is perfect. Keeping the cap on stops the alcohol evaporating and the colour from turning. Treated that way, a perfume holds for years.

Start from what you already like. If a fragrance suits you, look for its materials: vanilla, oud, rose, citrus, musk, and look for who handles them in a similar way.

Then decide how much room you want to take up: a trail felt only up close, or one that enters a room before you do. And tell us. Write what you are wearing now and for which occasion, and we will point you to two or three names instead of a whole catalogue.

You choose the amount, you write the message, and the card arrives by email: to you, if you would rather hand it over yourself, or straight to the person receiving it, even on a future day you set.

At checkout the code goes into the discount code field. the gift page tells the whole of it.

Only the difference is paid, with any other method available at checkout. And the other way round: if credit is left over it stays on the card, and the same code works again on a later order until it runs out.