Here’s one story: a woman I once worked with heard about my love of perfume and said, “I’ve always wanted to find a signature perfume. Will you help me?” I brought her handfuls of samples, talked passionately about Guerlain and Serge and Dior, and accompanied her to the perfume counter at Nordstrom. She was determined to find a perfume she liked, but somehow I knew she just didn’t get it. Her comments about the perfume she tried were along the lines of “this smells pretty”, “I can tell this is quality” (this polite comment was about Caron Narcisse Noir parfum, which I should have been smart enough to keep from a scent neophyte), and “I don’t know, nothing seems right.” The stories, the nuances, the power of perfume were lost on her. I think she ended up with a bottle of Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely…
I'll start with a disclaimer: this is not a list of the 100 Best Perfumes Of All Time, but rather, a list of 100 fragrances that anyone seriously interested in perfume should try. Put another way, it is meant to encompass a broad range of perfumes, good, bad, pretty, ugly, mainstream, niche, etc, and to provide a sort of general introduction to the subject of modern perfumery.