In this article you’ll get to know all the secrets on how to buy a perfume for someone else. This way, you will be sure that the fragrance will be a hit!
Buying someone perfume as a gift is a very risky enterprise. What smells good to you might smell terrible and headache-inducing to the next person.
However, there’s a lot of payoff in getting this kind of gift right. So many people stray away from buying fragrances as gifts because of the fear of getting it wrong.
If you get it right though, it can become one of the most memorable gifts that the person has received. Plus, when they wear it every day, that will be a constant reminder of you!
So, we’re here to tell you what to do to make buying perfume for someone else a lot easier than it’s ever been.
Think about Foods and Smells They Like
We wouldn’t recommend buying perfume as a gift for someone that you don’t know all too well. Knowing a person well will provide some characteristics that make selecting a scent easier.
For instance, what kind of food do they like? Are they fans of hot, savory meals? Are they crazy for spice?
Or, does the person have a sweet tooth? Is their weakness candies, pastries, and other kinds of desserts and sweet treats?
Knowing this can help you choose between a spicy perfume or a sweet one.
Go for a Discovery Set
One of the most stress-free ways to gift someone perfume is to get a discovery set for them. This is a collection of multiple sample bottles from one perfume house.
This will allow you to give them a number of different fragrances from the company without committing to any in particular.
We like this idea not for the fact that it is relatively simple to execute, but that it can help develop a person’s perfume choices moving forward. They might love one of the scents in the set and decide to stick with that for years!
Lighter Fragrances Are Safer
If you go for a daring fragrance, you might be very lucky and hit gold. The person you’re buying it for with love it and you’ll win a million brownie points with them.
It is also very possible for it to backfire on you. Lighter fragrances are generally safer because they are more subtle, calm, and don’t throw in any notes that might be polarizing.
Perfumes centered around rose or vanilla tend to be safe choices most of the time.
Personality Can Influence Perfume Choices
Who are you buying perfume for? Are they a young, bold person who loves the nightlife? Are they a beautiful, elegant woman? Are they energetic and athletic?
All of these can make it easy to make an informed decision on the kind of perfume good for them.
Citrus fragrances tend to be sportier, and as such, they work great for athletes and people who are constantly playing sports or working out.
Tobacco and liquor-based perfumes have more of a mature feel to them, making them a good choice for people who pay attention to their fashion, or for older gentlemen.
Don’t Ignore the Bestsellers
There’s a reason bestseller perfumes reach the level that they are at. It’s because they are almost universally loved.
This doesn’t mean that you’ll never find someone who hates popular scents like Chanel No. 5 or CK One. But it is a lot less likely.
Arming yourself with information about the person can make it easier to select from the wide selection of perfumes that have cemented themselves as bestsellers over the years.
Avoid Polarizing Notes
Some perfume notes can be very polarizing. We wouldn’t say that there is such thing as an objectively bad note, but subjectively, there are many that are less safe than others.
Notes such as lavender, coconut, musk, and tobacco can be repulsive to some people, despite being found in some of the most popular fragrances.
If you’re not too sure about the person’s taste, you can stick to floral, citrus, and lighter fruity scents.
However, restricting yourself to safer scents may really limit your choices. We’d recommend taking a risk every once in a while if you feel that a polarizing scent is used masterfully in a fragrance.
Consider the Bottle
The bottle doesn’t actually do anything for the scent; we all know that. But having a beautiful scent with an ugly bottle is likely to have a person keeping it off their dresser.
Perfumes are more likely to be used when they’re where they can be seen, so look for a bottle that looks amazing. This never hurts, especially if the perfume inside aligns nicely with the person’s tastes.
Some designs are polarizing, such as what you’d see with Mugler scents. You can take that risk though, especially if you feel the perfume will outweigh the risk of the person not liking the bottle.
