Your skin: nothing will ever completely replace wearing it fully. Skin chemistry, natural oils, moisture, and body heat all affect how a fragrance develops, projects, and lasts. My testing order is now: - Skin — best for the final decision and a complete wearing. - Cotton rounds — best for comparing several fragrances and following the drydown. - Professional paper blotters — convenient for quickly screening openings. - Clean, fragrance-free cotton fabric — useful for judging longevity on clothing. - The atomizer or bottle cap — only provides a rough first impression. I recently switched to organic, hypoallergenic cotton rounds after watching Eric Coons of Kaleidoscope Index use them as his testing method. After trying them for myself and doing some research, I understand why he uses them. At this point, all my traditional fragrance testing strips are headed for extinction. Cotton rounds absorb more fragrance and act as a larger reservoir than paper strips. Their network of fibers holds the fragrance and allows it to evaporate more gradually, making it easier to follow the heart and drydown over several hours. Paper strips are convenient when testing a large number of fragrances quickly, but they can emphasize the opening, dry out faster, and sometimes fail to show the same depth later in the fragrance. To my nose, fragrances smell much more natural coming off cotton rounds. That is obviously my personal experience rather than a measurable percentage, but the difference is significant enough that I no longer want to rely on paper strips for serious evaluations. The cotton holds the fragrance better and gives me more time to walk around with it and experience how it develops. They are also extremely inexpensive. Amazon sells cotton rounds in packages ranging from around 100 to 600 rounds, so each test only costs a few cents—and often less when buying in bulk. That makes them an inexpensive testing tool that I don’t mind using once and discarding. I started using cotton rounds instead of traditional tester strips while creating perfumes. When I am evaluating different formulas, modifications, or concentrations, I need enough room to label each trial and return to it throughout its development. Cotton holds more liquid, allows me to follow the progression longer, and makes it easier to compare several versions on the same type of material without covering my skin in unfinished formulas.

Day Three Desert Fire: - Top: shiso leaf, pink pepper, and cypress - Heart/base: frankincense, palo santo, leather, myrrh, and burning woods - Central accords: burning woods, black leather, and smoldering resins - Concentration: Extrait This is Fire; think of Amouage Purpose’s green-earthy woods + Ébène Fumé’s palo santo and resins + a polished Italian-leather accord It feels like He took a dark woody-leather-incense and made it more approachable and signature-worthy. Quality is excellent and is definitely full-bottle worthy. The leather is in line with something like Widian London.