DIY: How to Open a Sealed Perfume Bottle

Because it’s a Monday, let’s get down to business and do something un-glamorous. (Tee hee hee!) So I have a bottle of Givenchy Reve d’Escapade perfume that I purchased a while back. It smells like roses and fruit tea, and I absolutely adore it. It also happens to be a limited edition that is no longer in circulation, so you can only imagine my grief when I accidentally knocked the bottle from my nightstand. I was relieved to learn that the thick glass bottle didn’t actually shatter, but the sprayer broke off with its tube still awkwardly stuck inside the stopper. Because of that, I couldn’t replace it with a spare sprayer.

Givenchy Reve d’Escapade in happier days

Luckily, I was browsing YouTube videos and thought to search for instructional videos on how to pop busted bottles open. I found 2 useful vids that I will link below, and I will recreate the steps here with photos. (Recreate, because I didn’t initially plan on documenting the process. But I might as well give a rough guide…)

 You will need:

• Long-nose pliers or Needle-nose pliers
• Nipper (hardware nipper, not the one for manicures)
• Pliers, regular (optional)
• Safety Pin or other similarly pointy object
• Tissues or moist towelettes
• Beaker, measuring cup, or small funnel
• Empty spray bottle

Tools of the Trade

Warning: Do at your own risk. You are working with glass bottles and tools, so extra caution should be exercised. Also, I am just sharing my own experience for reference. What worked in my case may not work for you.

Step 1: Take the cap off the defective perfume bottle. You will see a ring at the base of where the sprayer should be. Use the long-nose pliers to pull that upwards and off. Once done, the crimped base of the sprayer will be fully exposed.

Before

After

Step 2: Use the sharp edges of the nipper to lift at the crimped base, alternating with the safety pin. If you can’t find an opening, try using the regular pliers to grip at the sprayer and wiggle back and forth to try to loosen it. Lift the crimping until you get to more than halfway around the bottle. By then, you should be able to just remove the sprayer revealing the lip of the bottle. (Note: Don’t grip the pliers too tightly as this could cause the lip of the bottle underneath the crimped stopper to break.)

Safety pin action

Step 3: In my case, my pliers accidentally broke a bit of the bottle’s lip off. Cleanup time! Use the tissue or moist towelette to thoroughly wipe away any broken glass bits that could get into the perfume.

Wipe down

Step 4: Pour the contents of the bottle onto a beaker, then transfer that into your new spray bottle. Other wise, you can also directly pour the perfume into the new spray bottle by using a small funnel.

Step 5: Et voila! You can finish that bottle of perfume now.

I was surprised to learn that my 50 ml bottle of Givenchy still contained 40 ml of unused perfume when I poured it onto the beaker. What a waste it would’ve been, if I had just left the perfume in that state.

Note: From what I’ve seen, metal crimping (as in this case) is harder to remove than plastic. But I have yet to try with the plastic crimping.

For the YouTube instructional videos I watched to prepare for this, you can check out how to open a bottle with plastic crimping HERE (via GossipAminat) and a bottle with metal crimping HERE (via Paolo Gomez).