Buying a fragrance you can't smell sounds like a gamble. It's less of one than it looks. Perfumers describe scent with a shared vocabulary of families and notes, and once you can read it, a product page tells you most of what a sniff in a shop would. The rest you learn by wearing it, which is what a small size is for.
1. Start with what you already love
The best guide to what you'll like is what you already wear. If a fragrance has worked for you, look for others in the same family with similar base notes. Every one of our scents is listed under the fragrance that inspired it, so you can search our range, or use the scent finder, with a name you already know.
2. Learn the six fragrance families
Most scents belong to one or two families, and most people return to the same one or two again and again:
- Fresh: citrus, mint, sea air and green notes. Clean, easy, and the safest choice for an office.
- Floral: rose, jasmine, peony and orange blossom, from bright spring florals to deep, spiced roses.
- Fruity: blackcurrant, pear, cherry and pineapple, usually with something warmer underneath.
- Woody: cedar, sandalwood, vetiver and oud. Dry, grounded and long-wearing.
- Amber: resins and warm spice. Rich and enveloping, and at their best in cold weather.
- Gourmand: vanilla, praline, coffee and tonka. The scents people lean in to smell.
Work out which one or two you keep coming back to and you've narrowed thirty-one scents down to a handful.
3. Read the notes from the bottom up
A fragrance is described in three layers, and each one shows up at a different time:
- Top notes are what you smell first. They're bright and mostly gone within half an hour.
- Heart notes are the character of the scent for the next few hours.
- Base notes are what's still on your skin at the end of the day.
A paper strip in a shop mostly gives you the top notes, which is why so many people fall for a scent at the counter and go off it by lunchtime. You live with the base. When you read a description, look at the base notes first.
4. Buy a small size first
A sample tells you more than any description. Our 3ml roll-ons start at £5.99 and give you around sixty wears: a week or more on your own skin rather than two minutes on paper. It's the cheapest honest test there is, and if you love it, the bigger bottle will still be there.
It matters for another reason too. For hygiene reasons, fragrance usually can't be returned once it's opened, and that includes ours, so testing small makes more sense than guessing big. Our returns policy has the detail.
5. Test it properly
- Wear it on skin, not paper. Your skin changes how a scent develops.
- Give it a full day. Check it after ten minutes, two hours and six hours. The opening and the dry-down can feel like two different fragrances.
- Wear it on a normal day. A working day tells you more than an evening on the sofa.
- Ask someone close to you. Your nose tunes a scent out after a while; theirs won't.
- Try it more than once. Heat, weather and your mood all change how a fragrance comes across.
6. Use the scent finder
If you're starting from scratch, our scent finder asks five quick questions (who it's for, oil or spray, what it should smell like, when you'll wear it and how noticeable you want it to be) and then suggests three scents that suit.
7. Read reviews for the right things
The most useful reviews talk about what a product page can't show you: how long a scent lasts, how far it carries and how it changes through the day. "Smells amazing" tells you less than "still there at six o'clock".
8. Match the season and the occasion
Fresh and citrus scents shine in the heat; ambers, gourmands and ouds come alive in the cold. If you'd like one scent for work and another for evenings, our scent wardrobe shows what your collection already covers and what's missing from it.
The bottom line
Know your family, read the base notes, start small and wear it properly. Browse all 31 scents in both formats, or try a 3ml roll-on from £5.99. UK delivery is free over £30.