A newbie with a bag full of creed..help.

The best way to discover what scents work for you for different occasions/situations is by testing the frags and using your nose and mind as the judges. Other than that you could try searching the forums here at BN. This is a question that has been asked many times, search and yoo will find...

The most popular Creed scents for men usually are Green Irish Tweed, Millesime Imperial, Silver Mountain Water and Himalaya. Many also like Bois du Portugal and Original Vetiver.

I'd start with the first four and give them all at least two-three full wearings (one sample vial should be enough for that). Or wear whichever ones appeal to you out of the vial. Read the reviews here, they are very helpful to a newbie and will help you better understand the fragrances you are trying.

Once you know for sure if you like any of them enough to buy a bottle, you may wanna consider buying it from the Basenotes Classifieds as you usually will save a lot of money that way. The other way to get Creed and not pay an arm and a leg is to buy a 2.5 oz tester bottle on eBay or an online retailer. This would be a lot cheaper than getting them from Nieman but you have to make darn sure you are buying from somebody who has a proven track record of not selling counterfit Creeds (many full 4 oz Creed bottles on eBay are likely to be fakes).

There are dozens of Creed-related topics in the Male Fragrance Discussion section, prepare to do a lot of reading and if you're interested enough you will get a lot of information from them, as most nuances of the fragrances themselves as well as validity of Creed's marketing hype and tips on how to avoid fake Creed had been discussed ad nauseum over the years. Don't feel discouraged by many who dislike or ridicule Creed fragrances, they were a great transition point for many of Basenoters from mainstream department store stuff into niche perfumes and are enjoyed by many here.

Good luck!

Do keep in mind, especially if you're a bit new to this, that a lot of the things you'll try out are going to make you run for a bar of soap. There'll be a few you like but a few that smell like someone had a bad day at the perfume factory. Those are the ones you should wrap up, put in a box and set on a dark shelf and forget about for a while. Try some more things, make a few buys from guys with testers or decants, order some samples and when you've squirted yourself with about fifty or sixty more things, open up that put away box and try a few of them again. If you're anything like most of us things may smell a bit differently this time around. Or a lot.

Please tell me where you live... I can't believe they have you 25 Creed samples!

I've had a very similar experience when I first sampled Millesime Imperial, the scent blew me away with its class, elegance and uniqueness (I didn't know of Unforgivable at the time), but it didn't seem to last at all. Later I've tried it from a different sampler vial and it seemed to have a lot more longevity so I went ahead and ordered a 4 oz bottle from FragranceNet. I was shocked to find that the juice in the 4 oz bottle was way stronger that what I've experienced before from samples, it seems to last much longer. I am not sure what exactly the deal is with various Creed fragrances, but variations of different "batches" of Creed is a well documented and discussed issue on Basenotes. There is no general consensus what the cause is but at least we know for sure that there are differences (sometimes very significant) between what should be the same fragrance.

It took me half a dozen tries to find a bottle of Greeen Irish Tweed that sort of smelled like the first sample I've tried. I have four different types of Millesime Imperial (two from official samples, one small decant from somebody's bottle and a full 4 oz bottle that I bought). They are all very similar, but with very different longevity and different speed of development from the top notes into the famous Creed ambergris drydown. This whole thing can be very frustrating but when you finally find a bottle that you like, grab it and enjoy!

This may be obvious, Jklax, but a great way to learn frags is to wear one on each wrist, give them time to unfold over several hours, take some notes if inclined to remember what you've smelled, and check the reviews on Basenotes against your own perceptions. Happy sniffing and welcome to Basenotes.

Give Silver Mountain Water a shot as well. I received a sample of this recently & really like it!

Great stuff...have fun.

My favourites are the older ones. Bois de Cedrat is one of those and in my opinion is the best, natural smelling lemon scent I have smelled. Bear in mind that these lighter fresher ones are generally best in hot weather.
If you post a list of the ones you have I will write a few brief words on each.

Congratulations on snagging such an excellent sample. If you were lucky enough to get Epicea, give that a try. It is a lovely, pine-green sort of scent. Quite suitable for the holidays! It may be quite different from anything you've tried. Give it a couple of times and see what you think.
Cheers,