Question:
ok i had the worst time in airports yesterday, including a 7 hour wait in CDG because my flight arrived late and i missed my connection. the only good thing was getting to sniff the perfumes there and at Ferihegy. most of them i didn't get to try on my skin since there were so many but i sprayed a lot of cards and sniffed and even took notes so i could remember for if in the future i want to buy one of them. ferihegy even had cups with coffee beans which helped but eventually my nose got tired. these are just very brief and pretty shallow observations but i hope they will spur more in-depth discussion so here goes . . . i bet i will missspell some of them or whatever but i don't feel like looking up the correct spelling for a lot, sorry in advance. if anything i say is incorrect please correct me i am not alays the most accurate when it comes to notes and categories.
CHANEL NO. 19 - really nice dry chypre. ok that's a pretty shallow statement but that's all i wrote down, sorry.
DIORISSIMO - nice soft floral. is that gardenia that i am loving?
BULGARI THE ROUGE - wow starts off pretty generic tea-scenting like green tea, but eventually gets kind of spicy.
FLOWER by kenzo -- this is a pretty untraditional floral in my opinion. i was trying to figure out what this prominent note was but i couldn't. i will look it up in the directory later but not now.
JARDINS SUR LE NIL - WOW. i LOVED this. incredible citrus opening and then it just gets so smoky. really wonderful.
TERRE D'HERMES -- i LOVED THIS. i don't know whether i would prefer it on a man or a woman but it was INCREDIBLE. so incredibly earthy and wonderful.
MISS DIOR - nice chypre, nicer bottle
INSOLENCE -- ok this one i have a little more to say about. i keep spraying insolence and keep hating this. this time i even sprayed it on myself just to see if i could love it. at 5 am i sprayed it on my wrist and as usual got an instant headache. god though, this one is a real powerhouse, i could still smell it FOREVER. i kept resmelling and kept deciding i didn't like it. FINALLY about 9 hours later i smelled my wrist one last time and decided i liked it. it was softer and i did spell the guerlain heart. so my advice for insolence? wear it before you go to bed and you will smell nice the rest of the day. only problem is will it give you a headache so bad you can't sleep?
EAU DES MERVEILLES - nice. very elusive. maybe my nose was tired but i had trouble pinning it down. i want to say spicy but it wasn't really spicy, it was creamy but sharp, hard to explain.
B*MEN -- nothing special
KOUROS - people talk about how animalic it is so i wanted to smell it but at first it just seems so chemical, like cleaning supplies, a few hours later it is nicer and more animalic
ANGEL - like insolence. disgusting at first but after a few hours very nice
HABIT ROUGE - i LOVED this. really nice sharp tobacco and leather
BULGARI POUR HOMME - really nice, interesting, i felt like it was sort of a spicy aquatic if that makes any sense. of course as it dries it becomes more spicy and less fresh. smelled cloves, am i right?
DOLCE VITA - starts sweet but ends spicy, nothing special
MISS DIOR CHERIE - so different from miss dior, so much sweeter and softer, but there was a slight resemblance that i couldn't pin down, any solutions would be welcome
EAU DE GUERLAIN - nice, bright, very masculine
CHAMADE - really classic and well ok "old-fashioned" but becomes more powdery, are there aldehydes in this? it did not smell anything like i expected, i wish i could have smelled it on myself and for longer but i just couldn't. want to re-try
EAU DE COQ - another nice masculine, bright and sharp guerlain
IMPERIAL(E?) - smells like money
SHALIMAR EDP - wanted to compare to the EDT. does smell deeper and smoother. interesting.
UN JARDIN SUR LE [MEDITERRANEAN] - ok at the beginning it seemed sort of blase to me but it quickly it really evoked the ocean for me, it was really nice
FAUBOURG, 24 - i absolutely loved this. what is that prominent floral note? why can't i ever figure this out? but i liked it a lot
BEL AMI - another wonderful scent for men. deep, rich, and full
ELIXIR DE MERVEILLES - easier to get a grip on than the original. nice. but despite my objective feeling of appreciation for it, personally for some reason it just doesn't do anything for me. can't explain why.
BULGARI VOILE DE JASMINE - completely undetectable for me. maybe after smelling all the big guerlains. same goes for their rose essentialle.
JICKY - i could hardly tell the difference between this one and chamade at teh beginning (and in truth it's possible i have gotten them mixed up) but the dry down is that familiar guerlinade of course. nice. really nice.
L'INSTANT POUR HOMME - i really loved this one. so much vanilla am i right? people say l'instant doesn't resemble any previous guerlains but to me this one did. i was reminded of heritage and other guerlinade scents. liked it a lot.

Answer:
I love airports for the same reason!
Diorissimo is the archetypal lily of the valley scent (although there is a hefty note of jasmine too). It was my first perfume, and I wore it religiously during my teens until I went off to university (where I wanted to be more mysterious, and so purchased Mitsouko).
I have to say, though, now that I'm utterly hooked on this perfume thing (*shakes fist at Basenotes*) I've come to the conclusion that, if I don't like something right off the bat, I'm not going to buy it. There are enough perfumes out there that are gorgeous from the moment I put them on, that I don't need to buy the ones that I dislike initially, even if they turn into something more appetising later on.
For the record, I really dislike Insolence, but then I really can't abide violets.
Of course, airports are a good place to check out what you do and don't like, but just bear in mind that if you apply something to your skin, you are going to be stuck in a confined space with it for however long your flight is. Which may or may not be a good thing!

Answer:
I'm sorry about the long delay, but what a great set of sampling!

I love Dubai airport for sampling. I agree with the voile de jasmine - it is gorgeous, but will be drowned out by anything that you sample beforehand. I sampled Guerlain's L'Instant at Dubai once and had the most wonderfully fragranced flight back.