How to test a perfume?

We are too often tempted, due to lack of time, to go to a perfume shop once, smell ten perfumes in a row, and choose one after just a few minutes of reflection. This way of doing things is not right because, on the one hand, smelling too many scents at once will simply lead to the saturation of our sense of smell, which will no longer recognize anything. In the end, all the scents will blend together. On the other hand, a perfume evolves significantly over the course of hours, and it is impossible to get an idea of it in just a few minutes, with no less than fourteen scent strips in our hands. Finally, our skin greatly influences the diffusion of a perfume: testing it on our skin is therefore the best way to get an idea of how a scent will evolve on us, something that a paper test cannot faithfully reproduce.

Ideally, we should space out our visits to the perfume shop over time to be able to smell, re-smell, and re-re-smell the perfumes we like. Choosing your perfume is certainly not a trivial matter, and it would be foolish to spend a significant amount of money on a perfume that does not fully suit us.

During each of these visits, test a maximum of 3 perfumes; beyond that, you will certainly no longer know where to turn your nose. Apply a spray of perfume to your skin at the wrist and see how the scent evolves (when the perfume is first applied, only the top notes and to some extent the heart notes will be perceptible; the base notes will only be noticeable after a few hours).

As your visits progress, refine your selection until only two or three finalists remain. During these visits, some tricks like sniffing coffee beans (which has never been scientifically proven) or smelling your own scent at the inside of your elbow would allow your sense of smell to take a break in these often scent-overloaded spaces. However, there is nothing like taking a walk outside to reset our nose, more or less, to zero. Another hearsay claims that our sense of smell is more developed in the morning than at other times of the day and that it would therefore be the best time to test a perfume, we leave you to make up your own mind!

The most optimal way to test a perfume would be to take the time to try it over several days in a familiar environment.