Work out which note families you actually like, get a shortlist worth sampling, and decide after wearing them — rather than after ten seconds at a counter.
You smell it for ten seconds, love it, buy it — and meet the actual fragrance four hours later at home. It's a different scent by then.
Woody, gourmand, chypre, aromatic. Without knowing which families you're drawn to, every purchase is a bet on a bottle you can't describe.
The enthusiasm is real; the disclosure often isn't. And a fragrance loved by a reviewer with different skin chemistry may smell nothing like that on you.
A heavily discounted 'authentic' bottle from an unfamiliar seller usually isn't one — and testing has repeatedly found irritants in fakes.