Seven Strategies for Buying Perfume for Mother's Day

May 11th is Mother's Day, and you are going to feel plenty awkward if that day arrives and you don't have a great gift for your mom and other special ladies in your life.

For many of us, even avid and intrepid shoppers, Mother's Day poses a special challenge. That's why perfume is a favorite gift. It's luxurious, appreciated, and most women love it (and rarely buy it for themselves).

But navigating the perfume counter can be a challenge for newbies and people who don't know much about fragrance to begin with can find themselves completely intimidated.

Here's how you can own the fragrance counter, even if you've never shopped for perfume before. We've put together seven fast and easy things you have to know to survive this.

1. Perfume never goes on sale. It is never cheap. It hasn't been on sale since the days Marie Antoinette suggested peasants eat cake, and it most likely will not go on sale in our lifetimes. It is important to frame the search properly.

2. The people at the perfume counter may try to tempt you with carefully packaged gift sets that combine fragrance and shower gel or spray cologne and lotion. They will assure you this is the deal of the year. Don't laugh, it's true. It's as close as the fragrance industry is going to come to offering you a bargain.

3. Perfume comes in several "grades" from the most potent (perfume) to the least potent (cologne) and a couple of levels in-between (eau-de-parfum and toilette water, in that order). However, there are no official standards in the perfume industry so these gradations are a bit blurred. You are pretty safe buying "eau-de-parfum" (pronounced oh-duh-par-fahm, sorry there is no English word) since it's high-quality, very strong, luxurious, and what most perfume mavens prefer. If you think your mother would like something lighter and airier, you can move down to the unfortunately-named toilette water or cologne. The only thing about these products is that they dissipate more quickly so the scent just does not last as long.

4. The way a perfume smells fresh out of the bottle is not the way it will smell on your skin. It is designed to have something called "top notes" or deceptive little fragrance molecules that come buzzing out of the bottle when you get your first whiff. Top notes disappear in about four minutes. What you really smell over the long haul are the "heart notes." For that reason, it is not really that useful to sniff at a bunch of perfume bottles.

5. There are many rough groupings of fragrance families. The big ones to know are florals, fruity-florals, Orientals (spice), woodsy (which replaces the older family name of "chypres" which nobody could pronounce anyhow), and fresh. Orientals include spicy smells but don't think "hot." Think vanilla, cinnamon, cloves. Woodsy smells include "green" scents which have nothing to do with being environmentally friendly; they are the smells of trees, plants (which the perfume world charmingly calls "botanicals"), and moss. "Fresh" is the newest trend in fragrance families. It smells very mild, almost like soap or fresh air. As a rule of thumb: Orientals and florals are considered "more mature" and stronger; fruity-florals and fresh scents are sporty, athletic, and suitable for young women (and women who think of themselves as young); woodsy scents are sophisticated.

6. Things to tell the perfume counter person about your mom to help pick a scent: known perfume preferences, general taste and dress (is your mom sporty? Youthful? Dramatic? Business type? Soccer mom?), and whether or not she follows fashions. If she's into fashion, get the sales person to steer you toward the latest arrivals at the perfume counter. Believe it or not, the perfume industry has more fads than the shoe industry and new perfumes hit the market more frequently that news blips about the Democratic primaries.

7. Try something new. It's tempting to go for your mom's favorite scent (the one that's sitting half-unused on her dresser) or older fragrances you know she likes. Perfume is more fun when it's a bit of an exploration. Most mature women regard perfume like cats. The kind of woman who likes one cat generally likes a whole range of cats, perhaps even all cats. That's the same with perfume. Perfume people like all kinds of perfume.

But it all boils down to one last moment: you are going to have to make a decision. It really doesn't help to smell everything and it may not even be that useful to ask a perfume counter person (if that person does not know her stuff). You just have to pick. Pick a fragrance family, find a deal (usually a gift set), and make your choice. It's hard to go too far wrong.