Which Perfume Is for Me? The Free 30-Second Scent Quiz
Which perfume is for me?
Half the people who stop at our market stall say the same thing: “I don’t know anything about perfume — what would suit me?” So here’s the exact way we answer it face to face, turned into a 30-second quiz. No notes charts, no jargon, no wrong answers.
It works just as well if you’re choosing a perfume for someone else and can’t let them smell it first.
How to choose a perfume without knowing anything about perfume.
This is what we do across the stall every weekend, and it beats any notes chart. Three moves, and almost everyone lands on something they love.
Start somewhere broadly likeable
For us that’s Phantom — lime, black pepper and sandalwood. Clean and sharp, and it suits almost everyone. It’s the bottle we hand people when they have no idea where to begin.
Ask one question: darker or lighter?
Too soft? Go darker and warmer, towards Amber & Spice. Too heavy? Go lighter and brighter, towards Fresh. That single question does more work than any fragrance wheel.
Repeat twice, and you’re there
Two or three steps of darker-or-lighter and you’ve found the shelf that’s yours. You don’t need to know what a chypre is. Nobody does — including most people selling perfume.
Scent families, in plain English.
Perfume people talk in families, and ours are named so you can guess what’s inside without a glossary.
Fresh
Clean, bright, daytime. The safest place to start if you’re not sure what suits you.
Floral
Soft and romantic, running from delicate and airy through to warm and honeyed.
Vanilla & Sweet
Cosy, warm, a little bit dessert. Where most sweet-leaning people end up happiest.
Woods
Earthy and grounded — the “smells like a nice person” shelf. Wearable anywhere.
Amber & Spice
Rich, warm, evening. This is the family that lasts the longest on skin.
If a starting point helps more than a family does, Men’s Cologne and Women’s Perfume gather the scents each group reaches for most — doorways into the same eighteen, not separate ranges. Everything we make is unisex by design.
Which perfume lasts the longest?
The honest answer nobody selling fragrance wants to give you: if you want a long lasting perfume, concentration matters far more than price or brand. A $300 designer bottle at 12% oil will fade faster than a well-made eau de parfum at 22%.
Look at the concentration, not the label
Most designer eau de parfums sit around 10–15% perfume concentration. Ours are blended at 20–25% — roughly twice as much — which is why a morning application is still quietly there at dinner.
Heavier families last longer
Amber, oud, vanilla and wood molecules are physically heavier, so they evaporate slower. Citrus is the lightest and the first to go. If longevity is your priority, start in Amber & Spice or Woods.
Oil outlasts alcohol
A roll-on perfume oil sits on the skin and releases slowly — it projects less but holds on longest. Spray perfume travels further across a room but burns off faster. Same scent, different job.
Same scent, three ways to wear it.
Every scent on this page comes in three formats at the same strength. This is the bit that confuses people, so here it is plainly.
Eau de Parfum
The classic alcohol spray. Best projection, the way most people picture wearing perfume, and the format to pick if you want people to notice.
Alcohol-free spray
The same perfume in a coconut-derived base instead of alcohol — not a dilution, and it projects just as strongly. Because there’s no alcohol flashing off, there’s no sharp dry-down: the aromatics sit in the oil and unfold evenly from the first minute to the last. No sting on sensitive or freshly shaved skin, and it ships anywhere in the world.
Roll-on perfume oil
Quiet, close and long lasting. Goes on the pulse points, lasts the longest of the three, and travels in a bag without leaking. Browse the perfume oils.
And if you’re wondering about the strength ladder more broadly: parfum is the most concentrated, then eau de parfum, then eau de toilette, then cologne, with body mists weakest of all. We only make at eau de parfum strength and above — there’s no point making something that disappears by lunchtime.
How to find your signature scent.
A signature scent isn’t something you calculate — it’s the one you stop noticing you’re wearing, because it just smells like you. Two honest tips from years of watching people find theirs.
Ignore most of what you’ve read about body chemistry. Skin makes a small difference to how a perfume wears, but it doesn’t transform it. If you love it on the card, you’ll almost certainly love it on your skin.
Wear it a full day before you commit. A scent that’s perfect at first spray can get boring by 3pm, and a slow starter can quietly become the one. This is exactly why the 10 ml exists — it’s a real bottle, not a sample vial, and it gives you a fortnight to decide.
Choosing a perfume as a gift, sight unseen.
It’s easier than it looks, because you’re not guessing their perfume — you’re reading their house. Here’s the shortcut we give people at the stall every weekend.
Candles & baked things
Enigma
Passionfruit, vanilla and tonka bean. If their kitchen smells sweet, this is the bottle. Our best seller by a distance.
Fresh flowers on the table
Something floral
Jasmine, rose or peony. Start delicate with Whisper, or go warm and honeyed with Infinity.
Dark clothes, good boots
Amber & Spice
Go to Obsidian — oudh wood, golden amber and leather. Our darkest scent, and worn by more women than you’d guess.
You genuinely can’t picture it
Azure
Mandarin, white tea and neroli. Clean and bright — the one nobody has ever disliked. The safest gift on this whole page.
Outdoorsy, and hates anything “perfumey”? Woods or Fresh. And whichever way you go, the 10 ml Traveller at $35 exists exactly for this — a real perfume at a price where a wrong guess doesn’t hurt, and a right one earns you the full bottle next birthday. More ideas on the gifts page.
Every one of these is blended by hand in Moss Vale.
I’m Nicklas. There’s no lab and no third party — eighteen scents, blended in small batches in one Southern Highlands studio, and sold at markets across the Highlands and Canberra most weekends. If you’d rather smell them in person before you decide, that’s where to find me.
The things people actually ask us.
How do I choose a perfume that suits me?
What is a signature scent?
Which perfume lasts the longest?
What’s the difference between perfume, eau de parfum and cologne?
Does body chemistry really change how a perfume smells?
How do I choose a perfume as a gift for someone else?
Is a 10 ml perfume just a sample?
Are Stuga perfumes for men or women?
Can I smell them before buying?
Let your nose make the final call.
Take the quiz above, order a 10 ml Traveller in whatever it points you to, and live with it for a fortnight. That’s how nearly everyone we know found the scent they still wear.