Shopping for brand name fragrances can be a confusing experience. You go to the fragrance store to buy a gift set of White Shoulders for your grandmother, and you end up spending hundreds of dollars on fragrance products, wondering what just happened.

Or maybe you've gone to the fragrance store to buy a brand name fragrance, but once you got there you were overwhelmed by the variety of brands available. After awhile, they all start to smell the same, and the experience starts to give you a headache. You flee, without buying anything. Let's take the confusion and mystery out of shopping for brand name fragrance.

Before You Go

Before you leave your home, decide exactly what it is you want to buy. Scented shower gel, dusting powder, spray cologne…knowing what category of product you will purchase this time around will give your shopping trip focus.

If you already have a signature scent – the only scent you wear – then you know which brand you'll be shopping for. But if you like to mix it up and wear a variety of different fragrances every time you dress, your choice of brand name fragrance will not be quite so clear. If that is the case, think about fragrance ads you've seen recently.

Did you find any one of them intriguing? The fact that you even remember a perfume ad means that it caught your attention, and you should at least look at that brand and try the scent on. Does one of your friends wear a fragrance that you love? Have you gotten a perfume sample in a magazine or shopping bag that you especially liked? Thinking the decision through before you go to the fragrance store will make the shopping trip much less confusing and much more enjoyable.

When You Get There

Like any shopping expedition, if you are on a budget, you should decide how much you are going to spend before you go to the fragrance store. Brand name fragrances cost a little more than the no-name and up-and-coming brands, but the confidence you get from knowing you are wearing the very best brand name fragrance is well worth the added expense.

Never buy a fragrance without trying it first. Upscale fragrance stores provide plain, absorbent paper cards for this purpose. Spray a bit of scent from a sampler bottle on the card. Smell the card immediately after you spray, and then smell it again ten minutes later to see how it ages. You should not try this with more than two scents at a time, because if you carry more than one card in each hand, the scents will mingle, and the scent you buy won't smell the same as the brand name fragrance that you tried at the store.