Why a decant first, and the bottle later

It's happened to everyone: you smell a perfume in a shop, fall for it, buy the bottle, and a week later realise it just isn't working for you. It's not your fault, and it's not the perfume's. The problem is that the first impression is almost never the whole story. A perfume isn't one scent but three, and they take turns through the day.

Top, heart and base

When you apply a perfume, you first smell the top notes: the lightest and freshest, like citrus, pepper or mint. They're loud, but they don't last long. Then the heart opens up, usually flowers, spices or fruit, carrying the perfume's character. Finally, the base remains: wood, vanilla, musk, amber, oud. It lasts the longest, and it's what the people around you notice hours later.

On a paper strip in the shop, you usually only smell the opening. You make your decision based on the first few minutes, yet you'll be wearing the base all day. That's why a perfume that “smelled perfect” so often turns into something else entirely an hour later.

Your skin is part of the perfume

The same perfume doesn't smell the same on two people. Your skin, its warmth and how dry or oily it is change both how a scent develops and how long it lasts. That's why a friend's advice or an online review is a good starting point, but not the final answer. The only real test is your own skin, over a full day.

You don't choose a perfume by its first five minutes, but by how it smells at five in the afternoon.

How to test a decant

A decant is a small spray bottle we fill with perfume from an original bottle in our collection. The scent is the same; there's just less of it. Here's how to make the most of it: wear the perfume all day, not just for an hour. Try it on different occasions: at work, in the evening, in the cold and in a warm room. Ask someone close how it smells on you. And don't spray two perfumes on the same spot, because they'll mix.

5 ml is enough to wear a perfume several times and really get to know it, while 10 ml is a good choice once you know you like it but aren't ready for a full bottle. If you want to compare several scents, get at least three 5 ml decants: the site automatically takes 10% off. To start, you could pick one fresh, one sweet and one fruity-musky, say Hawas Ice, Khamrah and Erba Pura, and see which direction suits you best.

And if you're not sure where to begin, our blog has guides to scents for cold days, gifts and oud.