A Guide to Choosing Your Perfect Perfume

A good perfume seems to encapsulate the personality of the wearer perfectly, reflecting and enhancing their natural style and femininity in a subtle yet memorable way.

On the other hand, an unsuitable one can end up being cloying and stifling, and will either be completely overpowering or too quick to fade away, leaving behind only a lingering synthetic shadow.

So how do you go about choosing the perfect perfume? Obviously, there is no one right answer for everyone in this respect. And it's certainly not just a case of "the more you spend, the better the fragrance". There is a dizzying array of scents available at prices ranging from the paltry to the princely, and selecting the one that's right for you is never an easy decision.

The first thing to do is to get down to your local high street and sample some of the perfumes on offer. While it may be tempting to go wild and shower yourself with free samples, this is not a good idea. If you spray all the fragrances you can find about your person, your nose will be swamped and unable to pick out each individual one from the ensuing cacophony of smells.

Instead, ask the sales assistant for some fragrance blotters and a pen. Fragrance blotters are small strips of especially absorbent paper or cloth. If the shop doesn't have these, then ordinary notepaper will do at a pinch. Spray each blotter or piece of paper with a different brand and write its name on the strip.

Although you won't get the full effect of each scent from the strips - perfumes are specially formulated so that the heat of the human body draws out the more subtle elements of the fragrance - you will be able to judge each one independently and get a better idea of which is best suited to your individual taste.

Once you've selected a few that you like, you can go back to the shop and try them on your skin one at a time. Be sure not to rub the scent in after applying, as this can distort the delicate blend of active ingredients and give you a slightly skewed impression of it.

Then - and this is very important - leave the shop. The very best perfumes take time to build to their true aroma, so you have to give them a period to "settle in". Try each of your shortlisted ones in this way, as some fragrances can be exceptionally expensive, so it pays to make sure you're getting the one that is just right for you.

Once you have made your choice, avoid the high street like the plague. As with a lot of high-value goods, you can usually find a far better deal online than you ever will in bricks-and-mortar stores. The process of finding your fragrance at the very cheapest price available is made far easier by specialist comparison sites, which will search the web on your behalf and show you who is selling your preferred brand for the least.

So, when it comes to choosing the perfect perfume, the main thing to remember is to take your time. A good one can be a significant investment, so doing a little research first to make sure you're definitely going to be happy with your final decision is always advisable.

With quality perfume brands growing ever more expensive, deciding which one to buy can be difficult, unless you take the time to think it through and fully evaluate all your options.