What's your "hit rate" with samples (or blind buys)?

I remember this question being asked in the daily shoutouts a while back, and I thought it would be interesting to get more formal input.
How well are you able to judge if you'll like a perfume before you've smelled it? Do you feel you've gotten better at this over time? What is your process for deciding whether to order a sample of something - or, god forbid, blind buy a full bottle? 😆

After collecting for 3 years, my process has become quite involved. Let's say I want to order a pick-your-own sample set - this is what I do:

First, I shortlist perfumes that interest me based on the advertised notes. Anything with a note I usually hate (or if it's a house I already know, a note I dislike that house's rendition of) gets kicked off the list.

Then, I try to find as many reviews on as many different platforms as possible - Parfumo, the F site, youtube, reddit, etc. Anything with a lot of reviews describing qualities I dislike gets kicked off the list. I also pay attention to the voting on which notes are strongest, the scent categories, and so on - if these votes don't line up with my expectations for the scent, I may kick it off the list as not being what I'm looking for. During this phase, I take notes on what reviewers say about each scent, and color code them - anything I'm certain I'll like gets colored green, while uncertain or "definitely not" scents get colored orange or red respectively. This ensures I don't forget why I decided not to order a particular sample, and also means that I have some other options to fall back on if something is out of stock or I need to add more to my cart to get free shipping or whatever.

Finally, armed with my whittled down shortlist, I then... wait. For at least a month. I've learnt from experience that when I'm in the heat of the moment, excited about trying new perfumes, I can make bad decisions. So I give myself a cooling off period, and if I come back to my list later and still feel excited about all the scents on the list, then and only then do I place an order.

Using this technique I've gotten my hit rate to about 75% at a minimum. I want to point out it's not just about getting a good hit rate, though. This entire process is great fun for me. It's almost more fun than smelling the actual perfumes! It's also a great way for me to indulge in this hobby during times when I can't afford to buy new things, as I can just research and window shop until I have disposable income again.

P.S. I suppose I'd better define hit rate - by a "hit" I don't necessarily mean I want to buy a full bottle (because that just isn't something I really do), but I mean that I really like the scent enough to wear it on a regular basis.

With samples I don't really care since they're relatively cheap. If I haven't tried a particular house, I'll try to get a sample set of a good cross-section of their frags. And of brands I know and like, I'll try to keep up with all their new releases. Of the frags I sample that don't fall into those two categories, I'd say my hit rate is still low, around 50/50, since I really like to experiment and get out of my comfort zone.

With blind buys I used to struggle a lot, and I pretty much swore off blind buying until last year. But since then it's been over 85% (1 miss in 7). Planning on doing at least one more blind buy this year (Oud Luwak II), possibly two (Bois d'Argent Esprit de Parfum) so we'll see if I can keep it up. I think the trick is buying based on the perfumer/house rather than the note pyramid and reviews. The note pyramid and reviews are more useful for eliminating perfumes I don't think I'd like rather than figuring out what I would like, in my opinion.

I think I agree with this to an extent. For me it's more to do with figuring out what scent profiles/notes I like from a particular perfumer. I usually hate sandalwood, but when Pineward does it, it doesn't bother me at all. So I'll avoid anything with sandalwood UNLESS it's Pineward in which case I disregard that note when filtering down my options.

And then there are some that are either love or hate. Serge Lutens is a good example. The ones I love I really love, and the ones I hate I really hate, and there's no particular rhyme or reason to it. (It doesn't help that SL deliberately doesn't release full note lists, though!)

Notes alone don't tell me anything really. Except maybe the ones I really dislike (like vanilla) or love (like Iris and carnation), but even those, when more or less well blended, can sometimes surprise me positively or negatively. For me it is all about the blend and about the scent profile: I skip 'gourmand' for instance.

Like you, I read as many reviews as I can and, also here, I don't need to read about which notes come first or later etc. I like reviews that give me an impression of the scent asif it is a painting of the perfume . I hate it when people are telling which celeb they associate with a perfume by the way, most of them I can't relate to, so then I tend to bow out. Often happens with chypres and characters from Dallas or Dynasty, lol.

With time I get to know the taste of some people on this platform, so I also often check out their ratings when they seem to have a similar taste as me.

Then, when I'm wise, I may sample or - when being impatiënt, greedy or less wise - I blind buy (seldom a succes.. )

When it comes to blind buys (if we are talking about full bottles), I'd say my hit rate is pretty good. Out of 8 full sized bottles I currently own, 4 were blind buys. 2 of them were at least as lovable as I expected, and I ended up liking the other 2 more than some things that I've purchased with my eyes open. But all of those bottles are from Loewe, so I'm not sure how fair it would be to say that my hit rate is 100%. Sure, I was buying them blind, but with a full understanding that I vibe with their vision and would be happy with whatever arrives.

There's also my first non-Loewe bottle that is being shipped to me right now. It will take some time to arrive, but hopefully in a week or two I will own my personal slab of Concrete. I smelled the package that my decant spilled into (which is also why I didn't get to test it on my skin), so on a scale from 1 to 10 I'd say I'm going into it about 3/10 blind. But CdG never let me down thus far, so I'm pretty stoked about it.

But when it comes to samples, my hit rate is around 14%. Out of 200 perfumes I've tested thus far, I kept 28 in my collection. It's great that you clarified your meaning of "hit", because if "hit" was that I tried it and decided to buy a full bottle, then it would be way worse. We'd have to exclude the blind buys from this metric, and I would be left with 4 successful purchases of full bottles based on the samples I've tested. That a 2% success rate.

But I don't really buy samples with a goal of finding a perfume I will love. Sure, it's great when that happens, but first and foremost I'm addicted to the process of trying something new and learning more about it. If I end up enjoying it – that's a bonus. But if I don't – that's still an experience!

So, if we look at it like this, my hit rate goes up dramatically again ◟(ˊᗨˋ)◞

I can totally see this. Each house (sometimes perfumer) has their own way of constructing an accord. Pineward tends to use a lot of naturals, so it might be that you don't mind real sandalwood oil (or at least the variant(s) Pineward uses) but there is some common aromachemical like santalol or javanol that are in most other sandalwood accords that you don't like. It's difficult to tell what a single note smells like if you haven't tried others from the same house/perfumer, much less figuring out how an entire fragrance smells!

After 3-4 years so far, I get attracted to various note combinations, and get excited by different things people say on Parfumo about various fragrances….but frankly, my hit rate hasn’t improved. I think it's just because I'm super critical, but really love the things I love.

I do create mental lists of what I think would be great to try, I don’t really do anything systematically (i.e I don’t really always use the watch list) because if it stays in my mind, then I’ll probably want to get a sample. Again, this is about notes, but it’s going to also be based on talk on the forum here, or potentially on Reddit (to a much lesser extent) and I don’t give a shit what Fragrantica says.

Mostly what happens after that, though, is I start to read through reviews. And, there’s so much stuff I don’t like, so if someone says something is pissy even if they’re the only review that says it, I’m not getting it. Or, if it’s rose dominant. Or, smells like vintage female. Or fecal/oudy. So, I might Want like 20 things, then it gets narrowed down to like 4.

I don’t take anything from Youtube or any other reviews. I personally think they’re all fake save for a very few, and those few often talk about things I don’t want to try right now.

Finally, I pull the trigger.

Hit rate is low, but it’s weird, let me explain….

Smelling anything for the first time, no matter what it is is going to result in me liking maybe 5% of things. If that. I almost never like something the first 2-4 times I smell it.

Starting about the 5th time, I start to understand things that make me want to smell it again. So, for example, Bleu de Chanel Eau de Parfum might make it here (although ultimately I didn’t ever want a bottle). I also find out things that I’ll probably never want to smell again like Layton by this time.

I still keep everything because, I’ve had things take two years to make me like them.

Eventually, I smell things again, 7th, 8th, 9th, etc. It could be weeks, maybe many months before I get here.

So, if we take into account the added time for me to like certain fragrances, I would say I like about 20% of what I sample.

Lastly, I do not like blind buying, and I consider going to the counter, and smelling it one time no different than blind buying (for my nose because, as I said, it takes me a long time). But...I still do it lol. I bought Deified Tony Iommi based on one visit to Saks, took it home, hated myself for getting it. But, over time, it's grown on me. The opposite is Wall Street Eau de Parfum where, once I got it home, I knew I would never wear it again.

Four months in and my #1 rule is no blind buying. I want to, but I know better.

So I order samples of everything before buying a bottle. The past month I have actually tried utilizing ChatGPT to at least get a starting point of what to explore. I lean very heavily into the Fougere/Chypre/Vetiver/vintage styled scents. I find it to be quite entertaining and really opens the doors to other brands. So I usually try to base samples off of that lately with more success than looking around on my own. The "hit" rate using ChatGPT has been pretty successful. Right now it is responsible for my second and Eighth ranked scents from two different houses I never have considered before. 

I would say I don't rely solely on ChatGPT, but like I said, it is a starting point. Then I do the usual research on reviews and find notes about that scent and decide to pull the trigger on a sample. Then, if I love it, I go back to ChatGPT and ask more similar like that. 

Since they are usually cheap enough, I might throw in a couple of wildcards to fill out the order if there is a threshold for free shipping or a discount or something. Just for fun. I'm usually good to throw in something odd from Imaginary Authors if they carry them which is always a wild ride for me it seems. 

I usually give the scent a chance by using the entire decant over the course of days or weeks until it is gone. If it doesn't wow me by then, it's a no buy. The ones I do bottle buy are the ones I get blown away by. I am more "lenient" with some houses than others when I do want to order more samples as I just vibe with certain ones. I am much more apt to order anything Rogue or Nicolai makes, but make a more calculated decision when it comes to Nishane or Fzotic. 

Hit rate to bottle buys are pretty low as my #2 rule is it has to blow me away on first wear. There's way too many fragrances out there that "good enough" is not "good enough" for a shelf spot.... but....

My hit rate to enjoying my samples I would say is really high, like 85+ precent. No joke. There's been very few that have been complete misses or tossers since I starting casually using ChatGPT.

Currently, if my math is right, bottle buy is 20%.

I've had this happen too. Also the opposite way round where I go off something I used to love.

There's lots of scents I've loved from the moment I first smell them, but also others that have needed to grow on me. Often I don't realise I've had a hit until I find myself reaching for it over and over again

Well, with samples, I pretty much get them, particularly Discovery Sets, to just discover the brand. But if it is a pick-your-own sample set, I just search for all the fragrances of that brand and pick the ones that have the notes that interest me. However, if the reviews aren't convincing on that fragrance, I might hesitate including it in the set. But so far, my hit rate has been pretty good, and I can confidently say that I'm getting better and better at just looking at a fragrance's notes and knowing if I'll like it or not.

I buy either sample sets from certain brands or I buy hand picked ones. If I buy sample sets from a house, the hit-rate is either quite high or it’s zero. So you could indeed say that if you have a click with a certain brand, you’ll probably be safe doing a blind buy from them.

I once or twice bought a couple of hand picked ones. Those had a hit ratio of 1/10. But it’s still good fun. You learn new stuff. And save some money for not having bought the full bottles 🙂

I’m not certain. I only have purchased a few Guerlain blind and they all get to stay. I got samples of Shalimar souffle de Parfum and I ran out and bought it; love it. I have a sample of Samsara, orange solaie (?) bosca vanilla forte, Rosa Rossa forte, Mon Guerlain intense and I forget what else. Need to get a sample of Mandarine basilic ASAP. At first Mon Guerlain intense was a no but not I’m not sure. I think with some Guerlain (my favorite house) I have to get cozy with some of the less dainty fragrances (not certain how to explain what I mean.)  l still think I prefer the OG Mon Guerlain though.

Buying samples is very difficult and expensive here where I live so for me it's usually not worth it. From the samples that I randomly get with purchases or from fragrance swaps I sometimes end up loving them and buying a full bottle but that's quite rare. Maybe 10 % or something. When I do blind buying I usually do a thorough research before buying and there are also certain houses that I trust because I love most of their fragrances. I usually end up loving about 97 % of my blind buys, 2 % are "only" likes and probably 1 % dislikes. I think last time I didn't love my blind buy was probably 10 years ago or something actually 😄

I had an idea for a fun game: reverse the process I usually go through to pick samples, and do all my research to pick a selection that I think I'll hate. It would be really interesting to see how well my judgement works in reverse, and how many of the assumed horrible samples would end up becoming favorites! Cause I've definitely surprised myself before

@ScentNebula Hahah, sounds like fun 😆👍 And yeah that has happened to me too, something that I thought I would dislike has ended up being my top favourite and vice versa something I was sure I would love has ended up being a dislike 😂