Some questions from a newbie

Welcome. I don't spray on clothes but have found that by spraying my neck and chest my clothes seem to absorb the scent at the application points.

I guess the question is what do you want? It sounds like you are not especially interested in wearing what pleases you, but are mainly interested in buying bargains. If you're not especially picky about what you like to wear, then you might as well wear whatever is the cheapest, or even skip wearing cologne altogether. If you actually do care, think about the fragrances you've worn that you like and think about what they may have in common. Read up on some quality fragrances, sure the references here are pretty good, buy some samples or decants, and then buy what you really like. If you really like some cheap ones, fine. To me it makes more sense to spend $150 on one bottle I love instead of on 4 or 5 bottles that do nothing for me. You may wish to read some perfume blogs which review and compare fragrances.

Acceptable costs are whatever the market may bear. Some fragrances may be valued at thousands of dollars an ounce while others may cost you $10. Checking around eBay or other dealers for something that interests you should make it clear what the value of a certain fragrance may be. There's no "blue book".

All fragrances will eventually evaporate, some parts quicker than others. Some may stain certain clothes. Wear fragrances in places where the evaporation is most likely to be enjoyed by you over the time frame you like. Most will last longer in cooler places and on fabric than in warm places or on skin. Skin chemistry does have some effect. If you want more scent, exposed pulse points. If you wish longer slow release, then bury the fragrance in some out of the way spot and hope that most of it makes its way to your nose instead of into the wind.

Good questions.

Welcome to Basenotes!
You can always come to Basenotes and ask for suggestions on frags, but I would start sampling some frags your interested in before you blindly go out and buy them. You can get samples from stores for free and buy samples online cheaply at online sites like My Perfume Samples, Surrender To Chance and Crystal Flacon just to name a few. Here is an incomplete list of online fragrance retailers that you can compare price with:
luckyscent
theperfumedcourt
1001fragrance
FragranceX
Fragrancenet
The Perfume Shoppe
Beautyencounter
perfumefactory
Cheapsmell
perfume emporium
luxuryperfume
perfume.com
onlineshoppingx
99perfume
big discount fragrances
Strawberrynet
first in fragrance
escentual
perfumewarehouse

It is true that some frags will stain certain materials, but I have never had that problem. I have normal to dry skin and most eau de toilettes don't last long on me,so, I spray my shirts and sometimes spray my hair as well. I have read that women will spray a cotton ball and slip it into their bras or wear a scarf sprayed with perfume for added longevity and sillage.

When I talk about samples I mean liquid samples of a few ml which allow one to actually wear the fragrance on skin a couple times. There are people who will sell small decants for testing purposes. I also feel it is somewhat abusive to take samples without any intention to buy, but over the years I have bought a lot. If the difference between a seller who actually has a store that I can visit and an on-line seller, I will usually be willing to pay a bit of a premium to keep the perfume store open.

A person will never become a wine expert just drinking Bartles & James and limiting him/herself to wines at less than $10 a bottle. One needs to sample across a range of different styles and qualities to develop the sensitivity to the kinds of variations possible. On the other hand, simply snobbishly looking down on any inexpensive wine without trying any, may also lead to poor taste. Experience and analysis of the experience is critical. I would strongly advocate, for those who want to refine their olfactory sensibilities, to go sniffing with a group of similarly interested people. It's amazing what other people can sometimes point out that would be missed otherwise.

Welcome!

- many frags are discussed here in threads, so you can also do a search on BN for specific frags and see if there's a thread on it. I also like a lot Turin and Sanchez A-Z guide, a book with thousands of reviews (not everybody agrees with them, though, still, they are very informative).

- there are several threads about where to apply, and to some extent it is a matter of taste. In general, warmer means more projection but less long lasting. Clothes are colder than skin, plus some materials keep frags particularly well. So yes, a frag on skin will go to the drydown faster, though it might project more for as long as it does. A well known way to apply perfume (especially parfum concentration) for women is to put the perfume on a piece of cotton and put the cotton in the cleavage.

- unfortunately, the fact that fabric keeps perfume well also means it will pick up other unwanted odors well too. Men who used jackets in the presence of smokers and had to aerate the jackets overnight in gale force winds to get the smoke out know this too well. So there's no way to prevent clothes from picking up odors - other than avoiding the odors in the first place. If it happens and it's something you cannot or don't want to clean (like a jacket) aeration on the balcony for a couple of nights will do.

-samples mean vials. But paperstrips from stores are a good way to get to know things - of course one should try on skin, but the paperstrip give a good idea. If you put the just sprayed paperstrip in a small ziploc bag, it will keep the smell for more than a week. Remember to write (with a pencil) the name of the frag on the paperstrip, or you'll forget by the time you have accumulated more than three strips.

cacio

Yikes! Several hundred dollars on clearance fragrances this week! I guess that is one way to go about it.

I don't know you, but my first impression is that your fragrance purchases have much less to do with fragrances than they have to do with acquiring bargains. I have picked up the odd bottle here or there because I love a bargain as much as the next person, but when you finding yourself spending in the hundreds on blind clearance fragrance purchases in a week, you are going to find yourself sorely disappointed (and unnecessarily poorer) most of the time. Most of the clearance fragrances are clearance fragrances simply because, despite millions spent on marketing, they never managed to catch on or inspire much passion. That is not to say they are unwearable, but it is typically rare to find something truly outstanding that has some how inadvertently landed in the clearance pile. Very, very rare to think you might have stumbled on a cache of several hundred dollars worth of great stuff.

Furthermore, to put the quantity of fragrances you have just purchased into perspective, if one applies fragrance twice a day, 365 days a year, you only need 350ml total FOR THE YEAR. So how many years of fragrance might you have just purchased this week alone!? And, if this is a regular occurrence, how many years or decades worth might you have sitting in their boxes, sprayed only once or twice? Good gracious, even if the thrill is the bargain, how in the world is THAT a bargain?

I don't want to get all Suze Orman on you, but for the several hundred dollars you spent this week, you could have purchased a wardrobe of great niche fragrance, at retail, that would have carried you through for the next 12-14 months. Problem solved. So if your journey really is about fragrance and not about buying more and more things on sale, I have one word of advice: STOP. Take back the unopened fragrances if you can, devote those resources to purchasing 5-10ml decants of great fragrances that you have researched and which interest you. (Decants are small quantities of fragrance, usually in a small atomizer, for testing purposes - 5ml is about 10-12 regular applications, 10ml is 20-25 applications, or nearly enough for a month) And when you fall in love with one, spring for the bottle. Given the way you describe your purchasing habits, you will SAVE hundreds, if not thousands, plus the loads of time you are spending digging through bargains, plus shelf space on your vanity, and you will end up with a collection of truly great fragrances that you love.

Now THAT is a bargain.

Decants can be found on the Crystal Flacon market, or if you prefer something a bit more organized and "retail", you can spend a bit more and buy decants from the Perfumed Court website. You can also purchase very small samples from Luckyscent and you can readily find commercial samples of almost every mainstream fragrance on eBay.

In fact, if you are already spending several hundred in a week on this effort, perhaps you should just cut to the chase, fly to NY or LA, and do a weekend of up close and personal fragrance testing. In NY hit Aedes de Venustas or in LA hit ScentBar, plus Saks and Barneys in both those cities, and you should be able to find a handful of real greats that resonate and that you can fly home with. Done for the year.

Long story short, for the amounts you are spending, there are cheaper, faster, more enjoyable and informative ways to find fragrances you are happy with.

Always check the marketplace here and ebay... Those seem to have good prices.

I usually spray 3-4 on my body, and then another 1 on my shirt right before I leave.

Certain scents rarely get discounted (like a few Chanel's) so you might as well pick it up at sephora or macys

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Sephora also offers great samples, you can go and test them all there, and request samples of anything you're on the fence about

Hey, I am a newbie too and hope to be a contributor in the future. Knowing that I am new as well, I will share with you what I know from doing some research in the past week.

Supposedly fragrancenet.com and scentedmonkey.com are good, safe places to make purchases.

In your first point you mentioned comparing fragrances. What I do is go to fragrantica.com and use the search tool to find a cologne. From there you can see the notes, if reviewers dislike, like, or love the fragrance, the season of the frag, and the time of day to wear the frag. I use that and then read the reviews on basenotes. Not sure if that is the best method, but it is kind of fun nonetheless.

Best of luck with your experience and learning!

It's all relative! Take the time to figure out what works for you. It sounds like you are rushing things.