Here are 5 Easy Steps to Choosing the Perfect Perfume or Cologne for You.

Step 1 – Establish a Budget

Some Perfumes and colognes can be had for as little as 15 – 20 USD. Used or open-bottle fragrances can be bought at deep discounts from sites like eBay. Buyer beware! Shady sellers sell fake used and/or vintage fragrances.

Sometimes they sell legitimate vintage perfume bottles but fill them with a modern formulation, or a different perfume entirely. Always check seller ratings and reviews before making a purchase.

Don’t be pressured into buying high-end perfume if it’s not in your budget. Sure, the expensive stuff tends to be better quality, but that doesn’t mean you’ll love the scent.

There are numerous low-cost options for perfume buyers on a budget. You don’t have to buy high-end perfume to get a good-quality fragrance that you love.

Inexpensive Perfume Isn’t Necessarily Bad.

Expensive Perfume Isn’t Necessarily Good.

Step 2 – Identify the Fragrance Family You Like Best

This is where things tend to get complicated, but we’re going to use a simplified method. We’re going to use a perfume-Family chart with four, main, fragrance families.

Once you learn to identify the four primary families, you can work on identifying the subfamilies.

A) Identify scents that you like that are also commonly used in fragrances.

• Freshly Mown Grass/Green Scents
• Freshly Cut or Age Wood/Woody Scents
• Herbs/Spices
• Citrus Fruits
• Flowers
• Sweet Fruits (e.g. Apples, Pears, Melons, Berries etc.)
• Water (e.g. Ocean, Freshwater, Rainwater)
• Foods/Beverages (Coffee, Chocolate, Toffee, Candy etc.)
• Leather

B) Refer to a Fragrance Wheel to find your favorite fragrance family.

It’s always best to refer to a perfume wheel or chart, but we’re going to use a quick-and-easy identification of the four, main, fragrance families and a couple of add-ons.

Understand that it’s a perfume’s most dominant scent note that identifies which perfume family it belongs in.

The Fresh Family

Green Scents:

Green scents fall under the Fresh family of fragrances. The Fresh family is dominated by masculine fragrances.

Green grass, green leaves, green plants and green vegetables are all green scents. Pine, or evergreen scents, can fall under green fragrances or woody fragrances depending on the other notes in the cologne.

Citrus Scents:

Citrus scents are also in the Fresh family of fragrances. They are bright, zesty, and clean-smelling. Citrus is a separate category from fruity fragrances.

Aquatic Scents:

Any scent that’s reminiscent of water is an aquatic perfume. Aquatics are also known as marine, oceanic, or ozonic fragrances.

Aquatic perfumes can smell like the ocean, an ocean breeze, the beach, freshwater, or rain.

The heavy smell in the air just before, or just after, rainfall is ozone. If you like that smell, then you want an ozonic perfume or cologne.

The Woody Family:

If it smells like fresh-cut wood, aged wood, patchouli, sandalwood, cedar wood, pine, balsam, or leather; it’s a woody cologne.

The woody-fragrance family is dominated by masculine colognes.

The Floral Family

Floral Scents:

If a fragrance smells like a flower, or a bouquet of flowers, it’s a floral perfume. The floral-fragrance family is dominated by feminine perfumes. They can smell similar to light soft flowers like roses, or spicy rich-smelling flowers like jasmine and gardenia.

Fruity perfumes are often categorized with florals as they are light and sweet, and often have floral notes supporting them. These are fragrances that smell like sweet fruits and berries, excluding citrus as citrus is a subfamily of fresh fragrances.

The Oriental or Amber Family:

The terms oriental and amber refer to the same family of perfumes, with oriental being the older term.

Oriental perfumes tend to be deep, rich, dark, and sensual-smelling. They contain exotic flowers and spices, and make heavy use of animalic scents like musk and ambergris. They are generally complex fragrances with many notes.

Vanilla is often a very prominent note in oriental perfumes.

This fragrance family is dominated by feminine perfumes.

Musky Perfumes:

Musky fragrances are often included in the oriental family, but can also be woody or floral depending on the supporting scent notes.

If it’s a musky fragrance that you want, ask specifically for musk when you go shopping. Don’t try to categorize it further unless you want a musky perfume with specific supporting notes like wood or flowers. A knowledgeable salesperson should be able to help you get what you want.

Edible Scents:

An edible scent is one that smells like food or a beverage. Edible perfumes are called gourmand.

Gourmand fragrances are usually included in the oriental-perfume family. Gourmand perfumes that are rich and dark like coffee or chocolate are oriental, but gourmands that are sweet, fruity, and candy-like are in the fruity subfamily.

If you want a rich, dark, edible scent, then look for an oriental gourmand. If you want a light, sweet, edible scent, then look for a fruity gourmand.

Gourmand perfumes are often unisex.

Spicy-Herbal Scents:

Herbs and spices are used in all fragrance families. These scents can often be categorized as woody, oriental, floral, or green depending on their notes. If the fragrance is spice- or herbal-dominant, it can often be put in its own family.

Depending on the chart or wheel, these perfumes can be put in the fougere family, which is large; or the aromatic family, which typically falls between the fresh and woody families and is often considered a subfamily of the fougere.

Early examples of fougeres were considered feminine. The modern fougere is considered masculine. The fougere is the most popular men’s fragrance family.

The classic fougere will have citrus notes, lavender, and oakmoss. An aromatic fougere adds herbal, spicy, and/or woody notes.

The fougere is a very broad fragrance family that borrows from the main four. It’s not an isolated fragrance family, but one that’s connected to all the others.

Step 3 – Seasonal Perfumes

Skip this step if you’re not interested in seasonal perfumes and just want to wear what you like.

Some perfumes smell best in warm weather, others in cold weather.

Members of the fresh and floral families tend to smell the best in warmer weather. Members of the oriental and woody families tend to smell best in colder weather. That said, some perfumes can be worn year round.

Perfume Dilution Classes and Seasonal Perfumes

Dilution class refers to how much pure-perfume oil is in a perfume. The more perfume oil in a fragrance, the longer-lasting and stronger-smelling the perfume.

Cold weather favors strong-smelling perfumes. Warm weather favors lighter-smelling perfumes.

Higher Percentage of Perfume Oil:

• Perfume
• Parfum
• Eau de Parfum
• Extrait, or Extract

Lower Percentage of Perfume Oil:

• Eau de Cologne
• Eau de Toilette
• Splash
• Mist
• Aftershave

Step 4 – Go to a Store and Look for, or Ask for, Perfume or Cologne in Your Preferred Fragrance Family

Limit yourself to smelling 3 – 5 fragrances. Your nose will get tired if you test too many colognes or perfumes, and you won’t be able to pick out scent notes as accurately. You could end up regretting your purchase.

Sniff the cap, not the bottle. Sniffing the open bottle will have the full force of the top notes, and whatever alcohol is in the perfume, go straight up your nose, which can burn.

Sniffing the inside of the cap will give you a better idea of what the perfume or cologne smells like when it settles down.

Consider Using a Wipe Before Using Your Wrist. Perfume wipes are known by several names: tester strips, perfume blotters, odor cards, and more. They are thin strips of paper that are designed to test perfume without changing the scent.

Spray the perfume or cologne you want to test on the wipe. If it gives you a headache, triggers allergies, or you simply don’t like it, move on to the next fragrance.

If you like the scent on the wipe, try it on your wrist. Some fragrances will smell essentially the same on skin as on the wipe. But many will change after mixing with your body chemistry—some change for the better, others for the worse.

Step 5 (Optional)

Once you’ve identified your favorite fragrance family, look on video sites and/or perfume encyclopedia sites like Fragrantica or Wikiparfum to make a list of perfumes or colognes to test.

Return to Step 4 and take your list to the store with you. Or, if you’re adventurous, blind-buy some perfumes online and hope for the best

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