perfume bottles
alenkadr/iStock/GettyImages

Expensive perfume is a luxury. It creates an atmosphere of beauty around its wearer, and can be a delight to those near her. It is also an investment in future happiness. You want that costly fragrance to last as long as possible. Stored properly, your pricey perfume can retain the enchanting qualities that first attracted you to it.

Banish Sunlight

While it is tempting to display that gorgeous bottle on your dresser top, doing so can expose your perfume to sunlight. Over time, sunlight will alter the fragrance and and darken its color. To keep it safe from harmful rays, store perfume in a dresser drawer, in a corner of your bedroom or other part of the house that does not receive any sun exposure, or in the closet where you dress. Save the original box that the bottle came in, and use it. This will provide an extra layer of protection against harmful UV rays, as well as oxygen and heat.

Minimize Oxygen Exposure

Just as oxygen gradually turns the flesh of a sliced apple brown, so does it destroy the scent and decrease the longevity of your perfume. Make sure the bottle's cap is tightly secured when you are not applying the fragrance. If it goes missing, find a substitute that closely approximates the original, or use clingy plastic wrap to cover any openings. When shopping for expensive perfume, keep in mind that spray bottles are preferable to roll-ons or splash bottles, because they lessen the perfume's exposure to the air.

Prevent Evaporation

It's hard to believe fragrance can evaporate out of the small openings of most perfume bottles, but it does. Even spray bottles should have a cap to prevent the scent from slowly evaporating out of the tiny hole. That precious, expensive perfume belongs on your body, not in the air. Remember that each time you remove the cap, a bit of oxidation and evaporation may take place, so keep it on as much as possible.

Avoid Heat

Heat corrupts perfume, so the steamy bathroom, while it may be windowless, is not the ideal storing place. Some people like to store their fragrances in the refrigerator. Due to some inevitable evaporation, however, the perfume can actually scent the food inside. A dresser drawer is usually a sufficiently cool, practical and accessible storage place.