IMO… if you love great fragrances, many ARE erotic works of art… and many knock-off fragrances are as awful as the bad imitations of masterpieces they sell out of the back of white vans… you will have to do some personal experimentation, and because of two things… one is an outrageous amount of product counterfeiting in the fragrance business, and another is that many out-of-date, rancid, old stock of real product is being sold as “primo” on the grey market… I would only purchase from the most respectable counters, like Bergdorf Goodman, and pay full retail… I have heard so many horror stories of somebody thinking they got a great deal and the product smells like defective bathtub cleaner…
When you finally “get” what a great Creed (not all Creeds are, but when they are…)… or a great Hermes… you don’t need too much, only a touch will make your head spin in the right directions…
I do have several Oud based Montale, and they are exquisite, however the fineness of Montale isn’t only the Oud, it is the artistry of combining things just right… such as normally I would never wear a rose fragrance, Montale is the only exception and I’ve had women go dizzy over it without making myself seem like an old lady…
You do have to do a lot of experimentation… many product launches that ought to be great, unfortunately, are not great, often some are outright hideous, and you wonder, what were they thinking to make such useless stuff ?
Then you find some magical niche thing that nobody is aware of, or will not dare to be the first, and you can sense the subliminal reaction around, “wow, what IS that ???”…
One should always be on guard NOT to be mistaken for those fragrance encapsulated strips that stink up Vanity Fair and other metrosexual publications… it affects people like having a giant nose ring or something, you are forced to pay attention to something you would rather not…