Last week on the radio I heard about a study that had been done on how the cost of wine — or at least how much people think it costs — affects how much people enjoy it. In the study, participants tasted what they thought were seven different wines. As they sipped each wine, they read information about the wine, including its price. At the same time, researchers monitored their brain’s responses. What the participants didn’t know was that they actually only tasted five wines, but they tasted two of them twice. For these two wines, the researchers first told participants the wine was low cost, and the second time they tasted the wine, participants were told it was expensive.

You’ve probably already guessed the study’s results: when people thought they were tasting a costly wine, they reported liking it better. Not only that, but the pleasure centers of their brains were more active, too. When they drank the exact same wine but thought it was cheaper, they didn’t like it as much.

Of course, my first thought was how a similar study would play out with perfume. What if I took two similar fragrances, one downmarket and one upscale, and asked people to compare them? Would they be able to tell the expensive from the cheap in a blind sniff? Would they prefer the cheaper one if I told them it cost a lot?

For perfume lovers, factors other than price would play in…

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