Ryan So

Ryan So is the founder and editor of Perfume Codex. He is a collector and dealer of discontinued, vintage and export-market fragrance, based in Hong Kong, working primarily in the Asian second-hand market.

How the expertise applies here

Most fragrance writing is produced by people who have never handled the bottle. The records on this site are compiled from stock that has physically passed through the editor's hands, which is the only way to observe the things that actually matter to a buyer: fill level and evaporation, packaging revisions, code placement, nozzle and crimp differences, and which batches precede a documented reformulation.

That work is what sits behind 2039 documented entries, 840 note records and the house-level batch code documentation being published here. It is not assembled from other reference sites' prose.

Independence, disclosed

The editor has a commercial interest in the vintage and discontinued fragrance market. That is disclosed deliberately, because it is the obvious conflict of interest in this subject and pretending otherwise would be worse than stating it.

The mitigations are structural rather than promises: no advertising inventory exists on this site, no affiliate links appear on fragrance entries, no brand can pay for inclusion or removal, and commercial links — where they exist at all — are marked as sponsored.

Scope of work

• Compiling and verifying structured records for discontinued and vintage fragrance, especially Asian-market and export editions that are poorly documented elsewhere.
• Batch code rule verification against physical stock, with sources.
• Documenting reformulation and packaging transitions rather than asserting them.

Contact

Corrections and documentation are welcome and are the fastest way to improve this database. Write to hello@perfumecodex.com.