Finding Your Signature Scent

With the perfume market heavily saturated with hundreds of brands and scents, it can be hard to find a perfume that really speaks to you. When you find one that you truly like, it often becomes your "signature scent" - a standby that smells good on you, so you wear it often.

I have some tips that might make your search for this treasure a little easier. Some of these might be, and hopefully are, no-brainers, but you would be surprised by how many people come to the counter I work at and have no idea where to start or what to do.

Here are my tips and tidbits of info for finding your signature scent:

• Perfume that is on the little sample paper inserts from magazines WILL NOT smell the same once you try it in the store. Those have been pressed into those magazines and have been sitting on the paper for who knows how long.
• Do not wear any perfume when you go to look for a new perfume.
• Let the people working at the counter help you! You may not want or need their help right away, which is fine. Look around and see if anything grabs your attention. However, the people working are there to help, so don't be afraid to ask them questions or seek them out!
• There is no way you could smell every perfume at the counter at one time. Fragrance "specialists" at the counter can narrow down ideas and make suggestions based on the types of scents you like (floral, fruity, woodsy, etc.) or notes you are looking for in a fragrance (vanilla, patchouli, etc.).
• Do not pick fragrances based on name brands. Just because it's Chanel or Coach, doesn't mean you'll like it. It's fine to smell it, but don't count on liking it just because of the name.
• The same goes for picking fragrances based on the fancy or pretty bottles.
• Do not try to smell the perfume by just sniffing the nozzle on the bottle.
• Also, please don't spray the perfume into the air to smell it. Once you spray it, the smell lingers and can affect how you smell the other perfumes. Also, people working at the counter have to smell it long after you've walked away.
• The best way to test out perfumes is to spray them on blotter cards. If there are not any lying around, ASK for some!
• Write down the names of the fragrances you spray on cards so you do not forget what they are or mix them up. Many times someone brings me a blotter card with something sprayed on it and asks me to identify it. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. 
• Wave the card lightly a few times to try and eliminate the alcohol scent. Wait a few seconds before smelling the card. 
• If you're not sure about the scent, come back to the card after a few minutes because the scent may change.
• Do not spray anything on you that you haven't smelled before or didn't try on a blotter card first. If you don't like it, you're stuck wearing it until you can wash it off.
• Most counters should have coffee beans out for you to clear your nasal passages after smelling each scent. USE THEM!
• If you find the the scents are all starting to blend together or you can't smell them very well even after smelling the coffee beans, you may need to walk away and come back later or another day to be able to better judge the scents.
• Once you have narrowed it down to a couple scents you like, try them on. Lightly spray one on each wrist. I would not do this with more than two scents because the smell may be too overwhelming or they may mix together.
• If you have decided on one scent that you think is the winner, still TRY IT ON! I can't tell you how many times women come in to return a perfume they thought they liked only to try it on at home and hate it how it smells on them.
• Wear it on for AT LEAST one full hour to see how the scent reacts with your body chemistry. There are countless perfumes that I love the scent of, but they just do not smell great on my skin.
• Once you find a winner, make sure to ask about any gift sets the fragrance might have. They are almost always the best deal/value. If there are no gift sets, there may be lotions, shower gels, or travel sprays you can buy separately.
• If someone working at the counter took the time to help you pick out a fragrance, try your best to buy it from them. Most counters make commission. If you come back a different day to buy it or at a later time and they are not there, tell the person working who helped you and ask if they could credit them. 

I do want to mention that even when you find your signature scent, it most likely will not be around forever. Perfumes have an average shelf life in stores of two years. Some are out longer than that and some are out less. You may find a perfume you really like and find that it isn't sold anymore the next you go to buy it. This can be super frustrating. In a case like this, I would search the internet to see if you can find it online. If not, search online to find suggestions of similarly scented perfumes.

I also want to direct you to an wonderful article Beautylish posted a few weeks ago. It discusses considering the other side of the counter and thinking about the salesperson. It was very relatable to what I experience at work, and I just wanted to share it with everyone. You can check it out here. To sum it up, here is a quote from it:

Be careful not to waste a salesperson’s time if you don’t intend to buy. [If you're merely just browsing] you need to communicate this to them so they will leave you to your own devices rather than waste their time trying to sell you something. You wouldn't go into a restaurant and take up a table ordering water for hours, would you?

Do you have a signature scent? Comment below and let me know!

Don't forget to subscribe, follow me by e-mail, or subscribe to my feed to keep up-to-date with my blog if you enjoy it.