Testing a perfume in a shop: the method, and the myths to forget

You walk into a perfumery, determined. You smell a first bottle: pleasant. A second: good too. A third, a fourth… and by the fifth, everything smells alike. You leave with a perfume chosen at random, or with nothing.

It is not a lack of experience. It is a physiological phenomenon that has a name — olfactory adaptation — and against which no amount of goodwill can do anything. A method, however, can.

Rule 1 — Three perfumes, no more, per session

Your olfactory receptors desensitise as they are stimulated. After three or four dense compositions, your nose no longer discriminates much: it still perceives odours, but it no longer distinguishes the nuances that are precisely the difference between two perfumes.

Three perfumes per visit is a reasonable maximum. Two is better. If you have five to separate, come back another day. It is frustrating, it is also the only way not to buy blind.

Rule 2 — Coffee beans reset nothing

This is the most widespread tip in perfumery, and it does not hold. A study by psychologist Alexis Grosofsky (Beloit College) did not show any effect of coffee beans greater than that of… breathing air or smelling a lemon. Smelling coffee means adding a strong odour to an already saturated nose, not cleaning it.

What really works is more boring: step outside, breathe neutral air for a few minutes. Time is the only known remedy for olfactory adaptation.

If you cannot go outside, smell the inside of your elbow — a familiar, faint odour, which serves as a reference point rather than a “reset”.

Rule 3 — The strip to sort, the skin to decide

The blotter (the little card) serves to eliminate. It lets you sweep quickly, know what puts you off, and rule out without committing your skin.

But a blotter will never tell you whether a perfume suits you. It has neither your warmth, nor your sebum, nor your pH. A perfume you like on card must imperatively go on skin before any purchase.

In practice: three blotters to sort, then a single perfume on the skin. Two if you place them far apart — one on each forearm, never on the same.

Rule 4 — Judge nothing before 30 minutes

This is the most important rule, and the one everybody breaks.

We analysed the 2,023 scent pyramids in the catalogue: some materials appear never anywhere but in the top. Of the 863 perfumes containing bergamot, not one places it in the base. The same for lemon, mandarin, grapefruit: 100% in the top.

These molecules are light and evaporate in a few minutes. In other words: the first minute of a perfume is the one that is going to disappear. It is also the one that is most alike from one bottle to the next, since everybody opens on the same citrus.

What you will really wear is the heart, which settles in after a few dozen minutes, then the base. Buy on what you will smell at noon, not on what you smell at 10:02 a.m.

Rule 5 — Do not rub your wrists

The reflex gesture: spray on one wrist, rub against the other. Avoid it.

The explanation often heard — “it breaks the molecules” — is imprecise: friction destroys nothing chemically. What it does, however, is very real: it warms the skin and speeds up the evaporation of the most volatile notes. You skip the opening and unbalance what follows.

Spray, and let it air-dry. That is all.

Rule 6 — Test in the conditions where you will wear it

A perfume behaves differently depending on temperature. That is why warm, opulent compositions — ambers, gourmands — are poorly appreciated in an overheated shop in the middle of July, and why citrus seems too discreet in January.

If you are looking for a summer perfume, test it on warm skin. If you are looking for an evening perfume, do not judge it at 11 a.m. A shop is not a neutral context.

Rule 7 — Sleep on it, literally

The best test remains the simplest: wear the perfume for a whole day, and smell the garment the next morning.

What remains after twelve hours is the base — the part those around you will lastingly associate with you. Many perfumes that seduce at the first spray become tiresome at this stage, and the reverse is true too: some compositions discreet at the start prove remarkable at the finish.

Systematically ask for a sample before an important purchase: many brands and shops offer them.

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The recap

1. Three perfumes at most per session.
2. No coffee beans — neutral air and time.
3. Blotters to sort, skin to decide.
4. No judgement before 30 minutes.
5. No rubbing.
6. Test in the context of use.
7. A full day before paying.

One last thing: nobody smells your perfume as you do. You get used to it within a few days — that is olfactory adaptation again — and you will tend to reapply. Those around you perceive it perfectly. When in doubt, spray less.

To prepare your visit, explore the scent families so as to arrive with a direction rather than a list, or go through our questionnaire to draw out a starting profile.