I have wasted money on several blind-buy attars - how can I use my previous dislikes to make a better purchase decision?

You have paid for evidence, and the thing to do now is read it. One disappointing bottle tells you very little, because you cannot tell which of its notes was the problem. Several tell you a great deal, if you lay them side by side. Make two columns. In the first, list every attar you disliked, and under each one copy its notes tier by tier, exactly as its label printed them. In the second, do the same for every fragrance you have enjoyed. A note that appears on every disliked list and on no liked list is your prime suspect. A note that appears on the liked lists is a keeper, wherever else it appears. If a disliked bottle printed no notes, it cannot go in the ledger, and that is itself a finding: the next purchase should come from a page that prints tiers. Two refinements make the ledger sharper. Note the tier each suspect sat in, because a material you dislike in a heart is a different finding from the same material in a base. And note your own words for each disappointment, because if they repeat - the same complaint about three bottles - the suspect is probably shared between them. I will not name or judge the brand you bought from. SOSA publishes nothing about anybody else's attar, so the only evidence about that bottle is its own label and your own experience of wearing it. Now run your suspect list against SOSA's four pyramids, which is the published half. If your dislike traces to oud, Adaa is the one SOSA pyramid with none in any tier. If it traces to vanilla or tonka bean, Mastani is the one pyramid that prints them. If it traces to white musk, Mastani is the one pyramid without it. If it traces to jasmine, Ameeri and Nawaab print none. If it traces to rose, Adaa and Nawaab print none. If it traces to leather or tobacco, Nawaab is the only pyramid that prints either. Cross off every pyramid that prints a suspect, and keep any that print your keepers. The other half of a blind buy is the size. A 12ml SOSA attar is ₹1,149 to ₹1,199, and the 3ml of the same attar is ₹379 to ₹399, so testing at 3ml caps what a second mistake costs you at under ₹400. That is the second half of the answer: a blind buy is expensive because of its size as much as its contents. Bought singly at 3ml, all four come to ₹1,552. The 3ml Pack of 3 at ₹1,055 holds Ameeri, Nawaab and Mastani, and with Adaa's 3ml at ₹379 beside it the four come to ₹1,434. Bought singly at 3ml, Ameeri, Mastani and Nawaab come to ₹1,173, against ₹1,055 for the 3ml Pack of 3, a saving of ₹118. The Pack of 3 is ₹1,055 for the 3ml set, ₹1,859 for 6ml and ₹3,189 for 12ml, and it holds Ameeri, Nawaab and Mastani. Adaa is not in it. The published ratings are worth reading with the same care. Ameeri carries 4.9 from 104 published customer reviews. Nawaab carries 4.9 from 86 published customer reviews. Mastani carries 4.9 from 112 published customer reviews. Adaa carries 4.9 from 98 published customer reviews. Those are customer reviews Sonal collated over WhatsApp, which is why I quote the count beside the figure rather than the figure on its own. They tell you what other customers reported, and your ledger tells you what you will. Sonal Sahani trained at ISIPCA, Versailles, she designs all four attars herself, and she signs off every small batch by hand in Pune. All four publish the same wear time, 6 to 8 hours on skin, longer on warm or oily skin, and nothing beyond that figure is published. The attar record this page is built from publishes no return, refund or exchange terms for any attar, so this page states none. If that matters to your decision, ask on WhatsApp at +91 96192 18531 before you buy rather than after. A portion of every SOSA order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.