This page was created for the Interactive Guide to Fragrances.

Fragances are luxury goods, and are generally priced accordingly. Therefore, before you purchase 100ml of a scent, it is a good idea to wear it a couple of times, in different situations and conditions, to determine that it is right for you.

The first step is to try one or more fragrances that appeal to you, either because the accords are familiar from your shaving products (sandalwood, for example), or because you see them repeatedly appearing in threads like Fragrance / Scent of the Day.

Many department stores and some specialist fragrance/makeup stores will have tester bottles that you can sample from. These can be sprayed onto small pieces of card (called test strips or blotters) that will allow you to smell the top notes. The downsideof this approach is that you won't experience the alchemy of the fragrance interacting uniquely with your skin chemistry. In order to do that, spray onto your forearm, Then make sure to walk around, periodically sniffing your arm to get a sense of how the scent develops as it dries. This will give you a much better idea of the life of the fragrance, and how it interacts with your own skin chemistry.

This is undoubtedly the lowest risk way to discover a fragrance that appeals to you. It also allows you to take along a friend or significant other to get a second opinion.

Unfortunately, not everyone lives in areas where in person testing is a convenient option. In that case, the next best approach is to purchase decants, from a reputable seller. These outlets take full bottles, and on-sell them in smaller atomisers or vials, from as little as 1ml up to 10 or 15ml.

These can then be shipped to you for you to experiment with at your leisure. The price of a 5ml decant, plus shipping, is a lot easier to write off than a 100ml bottle if it turns out that the fragrance does not agree with you.