I wear Dior Sauvage every day. Ask me what I enjoy about it, and I will recommend a car fragrance direction.

You have smelled that perfume a thousand times and SOSA has never published a word about it. Three words from you beats three paragraphs from me, and it costs nothing to collect them.

The answer, in full

I cannot tell you what Dior Sauvage contains and I will not guess at it. SOSA publishes nothing about any designer or niche perfume, so a page that invented notes for somebody else's formula would be worth nothing to you. Your own instruction is better than that, and it is the one I would have asked for: what do you enjoy about it? Here is how to answer that in twenty minutes. Spray your own perfume on a paper strip rather than on skin, leave the strip twenty minutes somewhere out of the sun, then write down the three words you would use for what is still on the paper. Paper rather than skin, because skin is warm and yours is the only one anybody can test on. Three words rather than ten, because three words can be set against a published pyramid and ten cannot. Then the vocabulary, because three words are only useful if they are words SOSA has published. The published words are citrus, green, herbal, woody, creamy, resinous, aquatic, earthy, floral, musky, powdery and menthol. That is the whole palette, and it comes from the nine Fragrance Pyramids on the nine scent pages. Now the match. If one of your three words was cool or green-herbal, Icy Mint publishes a family of Aromatic mentholic, cool, alert, daytime, with top notes of crushed peppermint leaf, cool eucalyptus breath, a trace of lemon zest lift, and the hanging bottle is ₹499. If one of them was bright citrus, Lemon publishes a family of Citrus, fresh with top notes of cold-pressed lemon peel brightness, sharp citrus zest, natural d-limonene, at ₹509. If one of them was dry, green or rooty, Vetiver publishes a family of Earthy, green, Indian heritage over a base of dry root warmth, a residual cooling effect, at ₹519. If one of them was soft wood, Sandalwood publishes a family of Woody, creamy resinous, meditative and a base of quiet musky drydown, residual chandan warmth, at ₹509. And if one of your three words was spicy, this is where I stop selling you anything. No SOSA pyramid publishes a single spice note, so there is no pepper, no cardamom and no cinnamon anywhere in the nine. The fresh half of that brief is published and the woody half is published; the spice is not, and I would rather lose the order than hand you something adjacent and let you find out on a Tuesday morning. SOSA publishes no strength ranking of the nine and no prediction of what any reader will prefer, so the last step of this is yours. A portion of every SOSA order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.

The four beats, in the order they actually work

This is the whole method of this page and of the ninety-nine before it. Two beats happen in your house, two happen on the product pages, and none of them requires anybody to invent a note for a perfume they have never been told about.

What I cannot do, said once: and then we move on

SOSA publishes nothing about any designer or niche fragrance. Not a note, not a family, not a character, not a price. So I cannot tell you what your daily bottle contains, and a sentence here that claimed to would be worth less than nothing to you, because you would eventually smell the difference. This is one clause of the answer rather than an apology. The rest of the page is the part that works.

One clause. Not a disclaimer, a starting position.

The test and the twelve words: your nose, then the palette

Spray your own perfume on a paper strip rather than on skin, leave the strip twenty minutes somewhere out of the sun, then write down the three words you would use for what is still on the paper. The published words are citrus, green, herbal, woody, creamy, resinous, aquatic, earthy, floral, musky, powdery and menthol. That is the whole palette, and it comes from the nine Fragrance Pyramids on the nine scent pages. The two halves have to fit together: a word you wrote down that is in that list has a published pyramid carrying it, and a word that is not in the list is the honest end of the conversation rather than the start of a pitch. You are the only instrument in this transaction that has actually smelled the perfume, which is why the measuring is yours and the catalogue is mine.

The spice gap: the one direction this series cannot serve

No SOSA pyramid publishes a single spice note, so there is no pepper, no cardamom and no cinnamon anywhere in the nine. That matters more here than on any other page in the series, because a fresh-woody brief very often arrives with a third word attached and that word is very often spicy. The fresh end exists: Icy Mint ₹499 and Lemon ₹509. The woody end exists: Sandalwood ₹509 and Vetiver ₹519. No SOSA pyramid publishes a fruit note either, so there is no berry, no apple, no peach, no mango and no pineapple in any of the nine. A hundred pages about matching a perfume, in which SOSA matched every perfume, is not a thing you should believe. SOSA publishes no strength ranking of the nine and no prediction of what any reader will prefer, so the last step of this is yours.

Fresh is published. Woody is published. Spice is not.

The four published pyramids a fresh-woody brief lands on

Icy Mint ₹499 publishes a family of Aromatic mentholic, cool, alert, daytime, top notes of crushed peppermint leaf, cool eucalyptus breath, a trace of lemon zest lift, and a base of menthol settle, dry green-woody residue, a cold-clean skin-feel. Lemon ₹509 publishes Citrus, fresh with a heart of soft citrus warmth, clean lemon blossom, a subtle bitter edge. Vetiver ₹519 publishes Earthy, green, Indian heritage with a heart of deep vetiver, cooling smoke-free depth, a light citrus edge. Sandalwood ₹509 publishes Woody, creamy resinous, meditative with a heart of Indian sandalwood depth, creamy resinous warmth, a gentle floral nuance.

If you would rather put four pyramids in front of your own nose than choose from a page, the three-spray discovery sets are ₹709 to ₹909 and the pack of nine is ₹3,009. See the discovery sets →

Your three words, against the nine published pyramids

One more thing about the method, because it is the part readers skip. The three words are better written down than remembered. A word you carry in your head for a week turns into the word you expected to write, and a word on the back of an envelope does not. Then read the three published tiers in the order Top Notes, Heart Notes, Base Notes, and read them on the product page rather than here, because the product page is where SOSA publishes them and anybody can check it. SOSA publishes no strength ranking of the nine and no prediction of what any reader will prefer, so the last step of this is yours.

“Ask me what I enjoy about it was the right instruction. It is the only question in this transaction that has an answer nobody has to invent.”

The four beats as four things to do

1. Spray your own perfume on paper, not skin, and leave the strip twenty minutes.
2. Write the three words for what is left on the back of an envelope.
3. Check the three against the published palette on the nine scent pages.
4. Open the pyramid of Icy Mint Rs 499, Lemon Rs 509 or Vetiver Rs 519.

Questions, answered