Hey! I’m a femme in my early 20s, and inexplicably, I’ve never owned/used perfume. I’ve gotten really interested in it lately though from your blog, but I feel overwhelmed with the variety of perfumes on offer… This may be an impossible task, but are there , say, 4 or 5 perfumes that you’d recommend to a total newbie who doesn’t know what she likes in terms of scent?

I can definitely help you out with that, my recommended step would generally be to go to a sephora or department store where you can test some stuff, and make a note of the names of scents you like (write em’ down, put em’ in your phone, whatever works).  That way you can begin to figure out what genres of scent you like.  

Some good ones to test in a store:

1. Shalimar by Guerlain (I adore Guerlain in general, I really like Insolence by them too) is a good example of a vanilliac and vintage fragrance
2. Prada Candy is probably one of the most popular gourmands out there.
3. Miss Dior is a very nice patchouli/floral/citrus
4. Poison is a good example of a floral/fruity/spicy and of an 80s powerhouse scent.
5. Hermes Jardin Sur La Toit is a very lovely green fragrance.
6. Calvin Klein’s Euphoria is a fruity/woody scent and very nice in my opinion.
7. CK One is a good example of a 90s unisex.

Sorry that’s 7, but that’s still a bit less.

Those are probably a good starter.

If you’re looking for cheapies to purchase and wear to see what you like (which, being really prone to blind buying fragrance I can totally get doing):

Tabu is a vintage style old fashioned incense-y fragrance

Charlie Gold is a fantastic almost gourmand for a great price

Avon Rare Gold is a very nice white floral 

Live Luxe by Jennifer Lopez is a nice fruity/aquatic scent.

If you want to respond to this and tell me about some day to day life smells you like, that’d make it easier for me to point you towards stuff you might like.