Does anyone have a hard time finding fragrances they actually fully love?

I'm a huge perfume lover, I'd say it's my biggest passion in life, to the point where it's almost an obsession. I can spend hours and hours searching for, reading about, sampling and smelling fragrances, spending an embarrassing amount of time in my local perfume stores just browsing and spraying. I love reading about perfume history, perfumers, learning about notes and accords and so on.

BUT - I don't have a single full bottle. Not even a 30mil. I just can't bring myself to commit to any fragrance, because I always find something I don't fully love in each one and the grass is always greener for me when it comes to perfume. Of course there are times when I don't particularly find anything I dislike in a fragrance, but those times I just think to myself: Well, it's not that special for me to buy a full bottle.

I think at least partly the reason is because I'm a complete minimalist in all the other areas in my life. I hate hoarding stuff, I buy and consume very little in general.

I think I am interested in perfumes in more like a curious experiential way - I like smelling different things, experiencing moods, textures, colours they bring me, imagery they create in my mind, places they bring me to. So in that sense I'm not picky at all, I approach it with openness and curiosity.

But when it comes to wearing a perfume myself, I really strive to find one single signature scent. And that's where it is - I just find fault with everything. When it smells nice to me, I just think it's not as special. When it IS special, then it might have something unpleasant or too challenging about it and I feel like I don't fully want to smell like this.

Are any of you like that or am I alone in this?

I really do want to solve this 'problem'. I want to find a signature scent that I'm happy with and buy a FB and wear it.

The only full bottle I am confidently planning to buy for now is Relique d'Amour, but that's not for wearing it myself. I only want it because I'm addicted to the opening, and I just want to be able to experience it whenever I want to - as aromatherapy or something. It dries down so quickly and becomes just a lily scented soapy water in less than an hour.

And another thing I own that is the closest to a full bottle is a 10ml roller of Marissa Zappas Tragedy Oil, I blind bought it only because it's impossible to buy it as a sample anywhere. It smells amazing, but not whatt I expected from notes, accords, and people's reviews. They promised dark, dramatic, mossy, coniferous white floral, but it is really not dark, the tuberose smells almost fruity and bright. I don't get any moss or pine/fir. But besides that, it does smell amazing, very intoxicating.

But anyway, that brings me to another point which I always find disappointing: often the marketing pitch, the notes, the reviews promise something poetic, dramatic, spectacular, but often it ends up being that way only on paper, and in reality all you get is just a nice scent.

One time I thought I finally found The One - my forever signature scent. It was Private Label by Jovoy. It was dark, sophisticated, with rounded edges, with no sweetness, no fruitiness, no florals, no colour at all, just pure heavy darkness, exactly what I was looking for.

I was so happy and almost placed an order when I got home. But decided to test it again fully next time I'm at the store. I went and sprayed it on my skin, my clothes, etc. And all I could smell all day was this sharp unpleasant burned charred smoky something. Like I just came out of a BBQ, where someone burned the food by accident. So yeah - disappointed again. That's just one example, but pretty much what always happens to me when I think I finally found the one.

Oh and happy holidays everyone!