One word: Don’t.

We have been hearing about people saving a bundle buying designer fragrances online. They are not mere savings of a few dollars, but close to 60% or more. How can this be possible?

Simple: They are fakes, replicas, or knockoffs.

We understand that many girls love a scent, and sometimes we can’t always afford it, but if you consider what you are getting, you’re not really saving any money at all.

First, let us explain the concept of knockoffs. The crime involved is a violation of intellectual property. Although one can argue that designer brand names profit from selling a lifestyle at gouged prices (the actual cost of producing a bottle of perfume is between 1/5 and 1/4 the retail price), they are the ones who ultimately created the fragrance and the images that you associate with when you use it. Purchasing knockoffs and replicas, on an ideological level, is not only wrong, but it drains your favorite company’s chances of staying afloat in this tough economy.

Practically speaking, however, you are not getting more for your money when you buy fakes. In perfumery jargon, there is first the top/head note which is the immediate scent that flourishes between 5 to 20 minutes after application. The middle/heart note is the soul of the perfume, and arrives 10 to 30 minutes after application. The final, most difficult class is the base note. They are equivalent to the finish of a good bottle of Bordeaux or Bourgogne (pinot noir). The Base interacts differently with each person’s pH and skin. Once you get past the 1 hour mark, that’s when the men separate from the boys: you will begin to understand why a Chanel No.5 lasted almost 100 years in popularity, when the knockoffs producers were still 3rd world savages.

Now there are many guides online to spot fakes. Needless to say, EBAY, a chasm of designer fake con-artists, provides guides to blowing the whistle on scam artists. However, one needs to understand that the knock-off product won’t disappear if a seller gets caught. It merely gets re-directed to a newly created re-seller.

So how does one steer clear of these fakers? Online guides tell you to inspect the packaging, the alignment of the words on the bottle (which should all be imprinted on the bottle, not stickered), the grammar, the fluid oz. size, and even the color of the liquid itself. They are all good tips. At the same time, the producers of knock-offs have access to these guides as well, so they can alter their products accordingly, and pass the scrutiny of all who follow the published advice. As for the color of the perfume, a basic knowledge of chemistry can enable one to change the foggiest of liquids to a crystal clear solution with a drop of the correct chemical. (i.e. acid in to aqueous solution)

If you were to break down the cost of producing a bottle of perfume, the packaging is sometimes more than the perfume itself; but let us suppose the packaging is authentic, the fake artist can still add water to the original perfume, much as spotty bars water down their good spirits. Don’t be fooled by shrink wraps. All it takes is a hair dryer to make an item look unopened.

We at the organization say, trust your nose! No matter how convincing a perfume swindler can make his packaging, you can never fake the middle and base notes, both which depend on an expert combination of oils to carry the longevity of the afterscent.

We put our noses to the test and tried several of our favorite perfumes from large online perfume stores. You can do this test too, if you decide you want to.

1. Make sure they have a return policy (restocking charges may apply). You will lose some money on shipping and restocking, but you will learn a valuable lesson in detecting fakes. Who knows? You may land an authentic item if you are lucky.

2. When the product arrives, do a test on either arm. On one arm, use an authentic bottle purchased from a department store you trust. At the same spot on your other arm, apply the online-bought identical perfume.

3. Now watch the clock, and either sit and wait, or go about your business. During set intervals, take a whiff of each arm where you sprayed. The longer you wait, the more apparent it will be which is the authentic perfume. It’s a mistake to think the real item lasts longer than the fake. While this is generally true, a fake or knockoff can last as long, if not longer, but the complexity, the layers, and depth of the fragrance, the oiliness, the richness won’t be there. It’s difficult to put in words, but you will understand once you have tried it.

4. For those who do not have an authentic store purchased perfume, either buy one if you can afford it, or visit the department store. Perform the same procedure in your car in the parking lot outside the store, then go in and spray their tester on your other arm. Repeat Step 3. (Note: Once you have determined the authenticity (or inauthenticity) of your online purchase, make sure to patronize that store and purchase the real item. Keep the real dealers in business. If you don’t, they may close down tomorrow.

5. Return the product if you feel it is a fake. Take a loss, learn a lesson, and steer clear in the future. A $20-$30 dollars loss (including shipping charges), in our book is worth the lesson.

6. You may find you can live with a fake. But understand that with a knockoff, in order to make that scent last, you may have to spray 5 times when you only have to do it once with the real deal. Now you walk around stinking like a prostitute because you are worried that it will all wear off 8 hours later. It’s not worth it. Volume-wise, you are using more of the product, even if you are paying less.

Remember. Online stores could be merchants from car trunks in alleys. You spent your whole life avoiding those replica stores in the mall, but their supplier could be the same supplier at your online store, it could even be the same owner! It takes nothing to create a website and only a fee to get their website to the top of the search engine list (called SEO = search engine optimization). Just because it’s the first hit on Google Search results, doesn’t necessarily mean they are legitimate.

Opinions and reviews, similarly, could be written by ghost reviewers who work for that online company. In fact, dummy review sites for perfumes are often set up by the store themselves. We are talking about people who make a living faking. And finally, if you can’t really afford it, consider not faking it yourself and call it the day. Don’t give business to knockoffs. It’s better to feel clean and refresh with an authentic bar of Ivory or Dove soap.

That’s it!

Good Luck and trust your nose! If it’s turning itself up at an online purchase, it’s probably FAKE!

Also a reminder:

“Testers” don’t look as fancy, but they contain the same perfume, if you decide to buy those. Also, consider buying in bulk…3.4 Oz may save you more. If you buy authentic, one spray before you leave your home could last you an entire day.

The concentrations are as follows:
Eau de Toilette EDT contains 4 – 10% perfume oil
Eau de Parfum EDP contains 8 – 15% perfume oil
PARFUM or Perfume contains 15 – 25%
Perfume oil 15-30% perfume oil in an oil rather than alcohol base)

We girls have a running joke at the organization.  People online would often ask us "what do I need to become a Stepford Wife?"

The answer: "A uterus."

This answer is based on the alarming number of transsexuals or crossdressers or whatever deviant groups out there, who associate themselves with our website, life’s work, and philosophy.  We honestly don’t know what the attraction is, but we do know what a Stepford Wife is most undeniably NOT. 

Again, we like to remind casual web visitors that we are not against people living their lives in a peaceful way that does not endanger any innocent families.  Live and Let Live, as we say. But to explain why a person who is NOT a woman can never be a Stepford Wife is a bit more complicated.

My husband Charles is a hobbyist musician, and he’s fond of telling an anecdote about the Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar, a musician many of the proponents of the "British Invasion" idolized.  The Beatles was one of them.

When Ravi Shankar decided to schedule a clinic on the musical aspects of sitar performance.  All the hippies descended on the event, thinking they were going to participate in a hip "happening," do illegal substances, listen to some ‘way out’ music, and go on some ‘trip.’

Well, within 5 minutes of the lecture beginning, half of the hall cleared out.  Shankar went into detail about the complex musical theory involved in performing Indian folk music.  By the tenth minute there was only a handful of actual musicians left.

The moral of the story is this: Shankar’s presentation was geared towards musicians. Casual, passive consumers of his music have neither anything to contribute or derive from the lecture.  They are not speaking the same language.

That’s how we feel about the Stepford Wives Organization.  Sure, we mention clothing, and surrendering ourselves to our husbands.  That’s all fine and well.   But what happens when we converse about nature’s cycles, birth topics, the development of  Lamaze and other options? They are issues only a biological woman can be concerned about and converse on.      

The core of the Stepford idea is a biological woman procreating the family unit, with the husband as the head of the household.  One has to have these basic "tools" to belong. 

Tags: ravi shankar, stepford, biological woman, real woman

It’s no secret. We get frequent hysterical emails from readers who are horrified by what we say at Stepfordwife.com / Stepfordwives.org. It’s no surprise, in addition, that most of these offended individuals turn out to be women. Or so they say. It’s the internet, you never know! But our little secret – the one that makes us chuckle and brush the attack mail off – is this: have you ever noticed that everywhere else you come across an article denouncing the traditional wife, it’s always written by another woman?

We love reading newspaper archives from all over the world. And we never realized why our website had more British fans than American ones. After some browsing around, we found that English newspapers and magazines (and British culture) are still fascinated by the role of the wife. It’s only in the American consciousness that feminism has run rampant. While there’s nothing wrong with that, you can understand why the outrage is set at a higher cooking temperature in the U.S.

Here are two from the Daily Mail:

Honey, you’re out of date: Why men no longer want a 1950s wife written by Olinka Koster. (Notice how all the men in the comments section appear to support the traditional wife, even though the author feverishly claims otherwise?)

What women want in 2010: A husband who’ll be the main breadwinner by Beth Hale.

There’s more if you care to subscribe to Questia.com to or other online article / journal archives website.

As I’ve mentioned above, there’s really no way to tell who is who and what is what online. But we’ve pulled our resources together and actually conducted some research of our own on our friends. A few of the girls in the Stepford Group never miss an opportunity to ask real men what they think. The opportunity arises whenever we are in the company of long time friends who are men, or men who are husbands of our friends. Having known these guys for a long time, we have it on good grounds they are being honest. We’d ask something along the lines of:

“Susan and I was having a conversation the other day, and we were debating the idea of traditional roles in marriage. We seem to disagree on whether men would like the modern liberated woman or the conservative homemaking wife. So let’s see if you can help me with a man’s point of view?

Would you chose a wife who makes as much as you, can pick up and go at any time, whose idea of making wedding plans is discussing the prenuptial agreement, whose idea of dinner is “ordering out,” debates every point and topic with you, has strong opinions she will defend vigorously with Powerpoint presentations until she thoroughly and systematically dismantles your thinking through semantics, etymological deconstructionist theories, syllogistic paradoxes, and modern semiotic analyses, OR would you prefer a wife who deeply cherishes and appreciates what you do, admires you as a man, looks to you as the head of the household, and finds endless ways to attend to your needs, spoil you, and make a warm inviting home for you to return to?”

Do you want to hear their answer?

We have asked men from a wide economic range with varying educational levels. So some of the more enthusiastic responses need to be censored for improper language and imagery. In the privacy of our conversation and in the nonjudgmental atmosphere of anonymity, they all answered one and only one way.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and that means thanksgiving turkey is coming up.

We girls here at the organization have our preferences when it comes to cookbooks, but we all love Jacques Pepin, Sara Moulton, and believe it or not, Ruth Reichl. You will inevitably have a treat by making Pepin’s Autumn Turkey, a favorite among us here at Connecticut where he lives:

Pepin’s Autumn Turkey

We really love Ruth Reichl’s Gourmet Cookbook from 2006:

Gourmet Cookbook

Ruth mentioned that she wanted to compile a cookbook “with every recipe you would ever want.” This sounds a lot like Marion Cunningham’s Fannie Farmer Cookbook, but trust us, there’s a great treasure trove of what you can make from the Gourmet Cookbook, especially since now that the corporation has folded.

A word of advice. Many, many reader have complained about the book’s typesetting. The titles of the recipes are light yellow against white. Yes, we are with you: it’s an absolute pain in the butt. But they are really good recipes. And don’t think about getting the green 2009 edition. It’s totally different, and “dumbed down,” though it’s still a good source for different recipes.

So we recommend you buy them anyway, and use a pen to write out the recipe name OVER the yellow heading that you like. It’s worth the minor trouble, as this is a cookbook to end all cookbooks.

Also, we are always aware of our sister housewives who are having trouble making ends meet. If you can’t sample it in the library, get the used 2004 copy (it doesn’t have a DVD). The DVD only has footage of 4 or 5 recipes. Nothing worth the effort to get the later addition, especially now that the Gourmet is no longer in business.

First off, you should know that the Stepford Organization is in no way a power, role-play group (we don’t even really know what that really means!) We do not believe in role-playing: we believe in living and promoting a conservative, traditional marriage where the man is the head of the household. I have been told the "bdsm" culture consists of many rules, which is not something we do around here. We can’t stress it enough: we are just a group of wives discussing ideas and advice to make our traditional marriages a success. We look at religious guides and old fashioned advice books for inspiration. Once in a while we come up with a clever idea of our own. Here is our favorite:

My sister Carolyn once had a debate with someone over the way we conducted ourselves around our husbands. That person mentioned Carole Pateman’s "Sexual Contract," a feminist analysis of the patriarchal implications of Rousseau’s Social Contract. Pateman talks about the "male sex right" over women, meaning that in the patriarchal configuration, men had broad access to women because of the implicit dominance in the nature of the contract. Well, Carolyn went to school and majored in Women’s Studies Douglass College, so she was able to hold her own. When she told us this story, we put our heads together and tried to come up with a deluxe version of the "male sex right." We thought, if we could serve and please our husbands by giving them unrestricted access to our bodies (which we already do), how do we "supersize" the male sex right? Voila! Blair and Connie almost said it together. "Let’s give them unlimited access to our physical gratification!" And so our very own Stepford Male Climax Right.

Stepford Male Climax Right – The husband has full control over his wife’s access to sexual climax during, before, or after sexual activities together or alone. The wife must ask her husband when she is ready to climax. The husband has the right to refuse, at which point, his wife will acquiesce, and continue the task of bringing him to his peak. This agreement puts the authority of doling out physical gratification solely in the husband’s hands, permitting him to regulate her access to sexual pleasure. An additional benefit is that the wife will eventually develop a subconscious association between sexual pleasure and her husband’s voice, responding – not unlike pets – only to their master’s voice.

Now we have done this for years and our husbands seem to enjoy the high level of decision maker. We secretly think they just want all our attention focused on pleasing them when in bed. We also feel that expecting them to please us would be considered “work.” And Stepford men simply do not work when they are being pleasured.  To be fair, they say yes most of the time, even if it’s in the form of "afterwards."  That simply means after we bring them to climax, and clean them up (we find a warm clean towel, a big kiss and a hearty "thank you" is a favorite among the guys), and tuck them into bed, we’d retire to the bathroom and quickly (and quietly, so as not to disturb them) finish our part of the "contract."

If they want us to peak during the act, then whether we are able to or not, we’ll still manage a spectacular climax just to reinforce their manhood and masculine pride (shhhh! ladies). Then if we need to, after cleaning him, we’ll again head for the bathroom and make short work of it.

Of course, there have been times when a need arises when we’re alone.  According to the agreement, we would still call and ask them if it’s ok that "their little girl gets to have candy."  The more mischievous ones will deny the request for a few days, which often leads to intrepid bouts of begging from the wife until they relent.

I know some of the more worldly readers of our website have claimed this is a variation of female circumcision to limit female physical gratification.  That’s not true.  The Stepford Organization does not support or believe in any physical or genital mutilation.  We have our ears pierced (once only!) and tattoos of any sort are frowned upon.  The Stepford Male Climax Right is a harmless way for us to entertain our men and remind them that they’ll always be in the pilot’s seat.