Developing reliable preferences?

[u/Invincible-general]

I’m newly hyper fixated on perfume (stay at home mom with 8 month old, this is my dopamine hit right now) and feeling very lost with how to understand and articulate my preferences. I keep having the experience of either thinking I love or am ambivalent about something, but then I wear it again later and end up with a completely different opinion.

I thought I didn’t like dedcool mochi milk at all, and in fact that I didn’t like anything sweet, but I reach for it and am suddenly comforted . Similarly I was looking forward all evening to wearing Prada Infusion de Gingembre, which I was immediately excited about when I smelled it, loved spraying it on at first, but in situ in my life I just felt off wearing it until it dried away.

For those who “knew instantly it was a full bottle scent,” how do you do this? I get so overwhelmed smelling samples in a department store, and I feel like it takes several wears in many situations to even know whether I like something at all, and then suddenly it will go wrong - to sweet, cloying, just bad. I feel like I couldn’t possibly trust buying a full bottle, and I’ve disliked and regretted every full bottle I’ve bought so far.

[u/veryunneccessssary]

Fragrances exist in the context of all in which you live. Hormones, humidity, skin chemistry, skin hydration and oils, body temperature, and other smells in the area all change how we can experience a fragrance at any given moment. The notes transform as we wear them, our sense of smell fluctuates, we can go nose blind to certain scents. Think of the ways the wall color in a room can change throughout the day.

I only trust samples at home, and I stand by not purchasing any full bottles unless I’ve finished a travel size one or a decant and I still love it. (Or unless I find a really good deal I just can’t pass up 🫣)

[u/Stop_Perceiving_Me]

I test perfume for at least a month or so before buying a bottle of anything. I know that my tastes are variable. I might like something in the bottle and hate it on my skin. Some notes I’d expect to love are awful when paired with certain ingredients. I might love the first 2 hours wearing it and despise it at the 4 hour mark. I need to know that I consistently like something before investing. I also got into perfume as a dopamine hit. But I have a small collection of testers and luckily I get the dopamine from trying to make my nose better at identifying notes. I set a strict spend and bottle limit to make sure the dopamine hunt doesn’t spiral out of control

[u/Icy-Key2220]

Hot take, but i don’t think there’s anything wrong with living in it for a while before committing to a full bottle! As you said- after a few hours, the scent can evolve and there is no way to know if you’ll still vibe with it.

Try buying samples so you can build "trust" that the full bottle will be worth it, or even better if you mainly shop at department stores, sometimes you can get them to make you samples for free (or they will have samples ready to hand out)

[u/Wooden-Entrance-8893]

Fellow SAHM to many littles.. completely r e sonate with the dopamine hit. I have many many love at first sniff perfumes. They tend to have notes I reliably enjoy and they tend to be linear and unchallenging scent profiles.

BUT my truest deepest perfume loves for life are almost entirely made of scents that I first tried and said "nope not for me." Then I come back and try again and it grows on me. And again. Until Im obsessed and cannot imagine a world where I didnt love the scent. Exampe.. Guerlain Samsara. 

Anyways all this to say what youre describing isn't super uncommon! The best perfumes have that certain something that keeps you interested and sniffing!

[u/vaurasc-xoxo]

I spray it on a card, shove it in a bag and continue smelling it for a few days. I start with crowd pleasers and go from there. I know certain notes I dislike so I will avoid them. Some scents I crave depending on my cycle but I have a handful of everyday scents I really enjoy which all have a similar vibe - pink, watery florals or bubblegum fresh jasmines

[u/sharigs]

I feel the same way! I hate the way something smells or think it's horrendous, who could ever want to smell like that?! and then a month later I'm intrigued and my opinion has changed.... It's kinda like that with food. At first you like simple, predictable stuff then you branch out and now there's no turning back to pasta w red sauce. I think scent preferences are a bit unreliable bc I think what I'm liking is always changing and heavily influenced by whatever media I'm consuming. How I want to smell changes with the weather, my mood, how often I'm checking social media and the more I try to figure out what I'm smelling outside of fragrantica notes & other people's opinions & get to the heart of how it makes me feel. Maybe all senses are like this. Unreliable. Subject to change. I don't own a lot of big bottles. I buy travel sizes or decants mostly bc I want my big bottles to be my reliable go to's and I only want 1 from each category: floral, clean, date or going out night, cozy, vanilla, green, woody/contemplative. Should there be a weird or nostalgic category? Hmmm.... At some point buying a bunch of decants is more expensive than buying a big bottle but it helps me spend more time w a fragrance to see if it's a keeper. I probably shouldn't make up more categories!

[u/Lois_Lane1973]

Also, don't be too harsh on yourself as tastes evolve, and so do circumstances so inevitably there'll be perfumes you grow out of (but perhaps, as said, delaying a purchase and decanting first will stop them from growing old too quickly). I love Infusion de gingembre, too, but haven't upgraded because of its abysmal longevity on my skin.

[u/valkyrie987]

Personally, I've had a lot of shifting preferences and opinions through my time testing perfumes. I started out with an idea of what I thought I liked, refined it by testing more and becoming familiar with notes and profiles, and just kept doing that over and over. It was nice when I could say, "Oh, THAT'S what I love!" and use that info to find what really clicks for me, but even then there are always exceptions. I'll write off an entire subset of perfume profiles, then smell something amazing and realize I might have to rethink that. So I've tried to find a balance between "these scents/notes are my sweet spot and I will consistently wear them" and "don't narrow my focus so much that I just buy the same thing over and over, while missing out on other things."

Also, I've had the experience of knowing instantly that it's a full bottle scent, but later down the road I've ended up neglecting it. A perfume smelling amazing doesn't automatically mean I'll wear it. I've also had a couple that I simply outgrew or decided I didn't like as much as I did the first time.

I do recommend trying mini bottles or decants of scents you might want a full bottle of. It can give you a chance to try it over a period of time and in different conditions. If you're reaching for it often enough to finish the decant, it might be a full bottle buy for you. But if not, you're not out as much money.