Aus Liebe zum Duft: History, Samples and Perfume Discovery

I want to help my customers find fragrances that suit them and make them happy, nothing more and nothing less.

Georg R. Wuchsa (excerpt translated from German)

Looking at a perfume on a screen cannot convey its scent. Yet it is possible to become interested by reading its background, order a small sample and try it on your own skin. The German online perfume specialist Aus Liebe zum Duft has long supported this exchange between reading and smelling.

Its name means “out of love for fragrance”. Internationally, it has also been known as First in Fragrance. Its origins lie in the founder’s pleasure in searching for perfumes he loved, and the difficulty of finding them. Beginning in a corner of a jewellery store, the perfume business came to reach people far away through its selection, writing, personal advice and hand-filled samples.

Contents

Key Facts
The Founder and the Beginnings of an Online Specialist
Selecting Perfumes and Conveying Them Through Writing
1. Choosing With His Own Nose and Connecting With Creators
2. Taking the Fragrance Diary Beyond Product Descriptions
Bringing Sampling Home Through Samples and Advice
1. Time to Try a Fragrance, in a Small Spray
2. Advice on Choosing Perfume, Even From Afar
References

Key Facts

Name: Aus Liebe zum Duft
Founded: 2000
Founder: Georg R. Wuchsa
Origin: Bruchsal, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Business: Online retail focused on niche perfume, decanted fragrance samples, and fragrance information
Current operating company: PWV Online GmbH
Official website: Aus Liebe zum Duft
Associated blog: Das Duft-Tagebuch (The Fragrance Diary)

As of October 2026, the operating company is located at Großer Sand 18, 76698 Ubstadt-Weiher, Germany. Liesa Fuchs, Dennis Fuchs and Georg Oelschlägel are listed as its representatives. This is the operating company’s address, which should be distinguished from the early retail space in Bruchsal.

The Founder and the Beginnings of an Online Specialist

An Eye for Craftsmanship, Developed in a Jewellery Store

Wuchsa grew up in a family of jewellers in Bruchsal. After completing his vocational training and working at several large German jewellery stores, he took over his parents’ business in 1985. He opened a second shop in 1993. Long before establishing a perfume specialist, he was gaining experience in selecting beautiful objects and conveying their value to others.

Perfume was originally a personal pleasure. While searching for unusual fragrances, he encountered the difficulty of obtaining them. In 1997, he began to consider selling them himself. That idea led to the founding of Aus Liebe zum Duft in 2000.

Speaking in 2026, Wuchsa again described his original motivation not as a strategy to exploit a gap in the market, but as a personal impulse to show people perfumes that fascinated him. Just as he appreciated a gemstone’s brilliance or precise cut, he recognised craftsmanship and individuality in perfume.

A fragrance, just like a jewel, can be a masterpiece.

Georg R. Wuchsa, 2026 (translated from German)

From Bruchsal to the Internet in 2000

The first perfume department was integrated into a jewellery store in Bruchsal. Perfume was introduced to customers choosing watches and jewellery as another kind of beautiful object. A 2008 store profile names Lorenzo Villoresi, Amouage, Penhaligon’s and Maître Parfumeur et Gantier, among others. These names illustrate the breadth of the selection at that time, rather than the current stock list.

The internet carried that selection beyond the local shop. In 2020, Wuchsa recalled that neither niche perfumery nor online retail was particularly developed when he founded the business. Finding perfume meant visiting specialist shops in New York, Paris and London, seeking out unfamiliar scents.

Online, he could introduce them to people who did not live in Bruchsal. But the attempt to sell luxury perfumes from a small German town was not welcomed everywhere. Wuchsa remembered scepticism about online retail, compounded by the sense that Bruchsal was neither Paris nor New York.

The store’s history is therefore not only about increasing the number of places that sell perfume. It also concerns making fragrances unavailable locally more accessible, wherever someone lives. Presenting them online, offering advice and sending samples all addressed the same problem: customers could not immediately smell the real thing.

From Advice to Decanting: The People Behind Perfume Choices

Beate Humbert, featured in a 2009 staff profile, had worked for the business since its jewellery-store days. She suggested samples to online customers, helped people choose perfumes in person and by phone, and personally decanted and prepared orders. Explaining the products and deciding what an individual might try were connected within one person’s work.

Benjamin Lang, who joined in March of that year, was responsible for the online presentation and writing. He produced advertising copy, blog posts and product descriptions, and liaised with editorial teams and outside contributors. Translating scent into words was necessary even before people searching for perfume found their way to the store.

CQ of Australian Perfume Junkies documented the sample-making process during a visit in 2017. Staff took the original bottles from the shelves according to each order, placed them on a tray and decanted them at a workbench. Some brands did not provide official samples, making the shop-filled vial itself the gateway to trying a fragrance. At the time, four people handled decanting and reportedly prepared at least 3,000 samples a week. These figures describe the scale at the time of the 2017 visit.

The 2016 Partnership and the Founder’s Handover

In 2016, Aus Liebe zum Duft partnered with the Austrian perfume retailer Nägele & Strubell. This marked a turning point in connecting the online business it had built with a company experienced in fragrance retail.

In a March 2020 interview, Wuchsa spoke about stepping back from day-to-day management. He subsequently sold his stake and left the company at the end of February 2021, as recorded in his official biography. The public announcement of his intention to step down and the sale of his stake and departure were not simultaneous.

Today, Wuchsa is involved in separate fragrance businesses, scent amor and scentnews. Aus Liebe zum Duft is operated by PWV Online GmbH, a subsidiary of Vienna-based PWV Parfümeriewarenvertriebs GmbH. Treating the founder’s new shop as a renamed version of the old one would obscure this succession.

Timeline

Year	Event
1985	Wuchsa takes over his parents’ jewellery business.
1993	A second jewellery shop opens.
1997	He develops the idea of selling unusual perfumes himself.
2000	Aus Liebe zum Duft is founded, developing a perfume department within the jewellery store and an online presence.
2008	A Fragrance Diary article introduces the Bruchsal retail space and online business.
2009	Staff profiles reveal the advice, decanting and product writing behind online sales.
2016	A partnership is formed with Nägele & Strubell.
2017	An independent blog’s visit documents the preparation of decanted samples.
March 2020	Wuchsa discusses stepping back from day-to-day management.
End of February 2021	Wuchsa sells his stake and leaves the company.
As of October 2026	Online sales, samples and fragrance information continue under PWV Online GmbH.

Selecting Perfumes and Conveying Them Through Writing

Choosing With His Own Nose and Connecting With Creators

In the early years, Wuchsa kept in touch with perfume lovers in different places while looking for new scents. The official 2008 profile describes discoveries entering the range after passing the scrutiny of his own nose. Before assembling familiar names, there was the task of finding fragrances he wanted to offer.

As of October 2026, the store states that, as an authorised retailer, it sources directly from brands or their distributors. It offers skincare and home fragrance as well as perfume, but its focus is niche perfumery: fragrances whose approach to creation and distribution differs from the mass market.

One person has not continued choosing everything according to an unchanged set of criteria from the founder’s era to the present. Nevertheless, the store’s role endures: gathering perfumes on its online shelves, explaining their backgrounds and making them available to try.

Taking the Fragrance Diary Beyond Product Descriptions

The associated Fragrance Diary blog developed as a place for stories that could not fit on product pages alone. Wuchsa valued the opportunity to write about brands the store did not carry, or had been unable to obtain.

Not everything can always be explained in a product description.

Georg R. Wuchsa, 2020 (translated from German)

Ulrike Knöll was one of the people who gave that writing a human face. Originally a customer, she attended a forum gathering in Bruchsal. A conversation with Wuchsa there led her to take over the blog, bringing a new concept to content that had largely consisted of press material.

The Fragrance Diary thus gives our company a face.

Ulrike Knöll, 2012 (excerpt translated from German)

For Knöll, perfume writing also includes the writer’s life and interests. She found connections to fragrance in books she had read, music, films and subjects she was researching. She tested unfamiliar perfumes repeatedly, both on skin and on blotters. In her 2012 interview with Parfumo, she described having discretion over her subjects and working schedule, and mixing older perfumes with new releases.

What readers encounter here is more than a list of ingredients. It is a perspective: who the writer is, what interests them, and the words through which they understand perfume. While keeping in mind that this is a retailer’s blog, readers can still discover connections with fragrance they might not have thought of themselves.

Bringing Sampling Home Through Samples and Advice

Time to Try a Fragrance, in a Small Spray

Under the current sample service, the store decants perfumes by hand and labels them. The spray containers hold approximately 2 ml. The official Sample Shopping section gathers the perfumes for which samples can currently be ordered. It creates a sequence in which people read about possible choices and then try them calmly at home.

Sample-only orders are possible, but not every stocked perfume is always eligible. The official FAQ explains that availability depends on replenishing testers as well as permission from the brands. Customers also cannot order several decants of the same scent, because the service is intended to help them try and evaluate a fragrance before buying it.

The small decanted vial does not ask someone to decide hastily whether to trust a description. It gives them time to test a perfume that caught their interest while reading. For an online specialist, this final hands-on step helps bridge a distance the screen alone cannot close.

Advice on Choosing Perfume, Even From Afar

The official website mentions advice by telephone, while the current contact page recommends getting in touch by email or form. Advice covers not only products and orders, but also the search for a perfume that suits the customer.

Asking someone which samples to choose, discovering perfume through a writer’s perspective and testing it at home: the appeal of Aus Liebe zum Duft lies in connecting these three things. Making distant fragrances feel closer requires more than delivery. It involves the store’s work itself: deciding what to introduce, how to explain it and what to help people try.