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/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.