Most fragrance sites either sell you bottles directly or quietly push whatever pays the highest commission. This one does neither. So it is fair to ask: who writes it, and how do they know anything?
Who writes it
I'm Barry. I run PickMyScent from Scotland. I'm a fragrance enthusiast, not a trained perfumer, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I started this because buying fragrance online is a mess of contradictory reviews and marketing copy, and I wanted one place that gave a straight answer.
What I actually do
I read a lot, then I distil it. For every fragrance I cover, I work through the places real wearers gather and argue:
- The Fragrantica community, including how people vote on notes, longevity and sillage over thousands of reviews.
- Reddit threads, mainly r/fragrance and r/Colognes, where people are blunt about what works and what doesn't.
- Established reviewers and long-running fragrance blogs.
- Verified buyer reviews at UK retailers.
Then I write up the consensus: what most people agree on, where opinion splits, and any catches worth knowing (reformulations, weak batches, sharp openings). After that I give a clear recommendation, because a review with no opinion is useless.
What I won't do
I won't invent a story about testing a fragrance for a week if I haven't. If a piece is built on researched consensus rather than my own nose, it reads as exactly that. I'd rather be honest and useful than fake authority I don't have.
About prices and links
Some links to retailers are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no cost to you. It never changes a recommendation. Prices move constantly, so treat any figure here as a guide and check the live price before you buy. The full affiliate disclosure spells this out.
If you ever think something on here looks off, tell me: [email protected].