If discovering your signature scent seems like a mammoth task, you’re not alone. Trying various perfumes across fragrance families, investigating the notes and nuances, and settling on the ones best suited to your personality can be daunting.
As our style evolves over the years, our perfume collection craves a reset, too. And a telltale sign that it’s time to switch is when you have to spritz on way too much to get just a whiff. If you think your fragrance has outgrown you – and you’re in desperate need of something new – now is the time to discover a divine scent.
Try, try, try!
If certain smells no longer evoke nostalgia, it’s time to hunt for your new favourite. Head to a perfume store and go on a fragrance frenzy; try scents across families, jot down the top, heart, and base notes that appeal to you, and shortlist the ones you like most. Only through trial and error will you be able to distinguish between multiple scents.
The Fragrance Pyramid
When hunting for your new collection of fragrances, you must be able to tell the difference between the top notes, heart notes, and base notes. Fragrance notes make up the scent profile and determine a perfume’s character.
The top notes are the elements that you smell right at the beginning. They are the first to reach your olfactory senses as you spritz a perfume and linger on for five to fifteen minutes. Bergamot, lavender, orange, and rose are familiar top notes.
Heart notes or middle notes are the ones that take centre stage once the top notes fade away. They can last up to an hour and constitute 70% of a scent’s profile. Heart notes also set the stage for the base notes. Familiar heart notes include cinnamon, rosemary, basil, lemongrass, and geranium.
Towards the end, you meet the base notes that add depth to your fragrance and linger for up to six hours or more. The most common base notes include vanilla, patchouli, cedarwood, sandalwood, musk, and amber.
- Top Notes: Fresh and floral.
- Heart Notes: Spicy and fruity.
- Base Notes: Woody and Musky.
- Introduction to Fragrance Families.
The most common fragrance families are fresh, floral, amber, and woody.
Fresh fragrances boast citrus and aquatic notes, exuding a refreshing feel. These include mandarin, bergamot, lemon, lavender, and basil. As the name suggests, floral fragrances boast a flowery-sweet scent, such as rose and jasmine, among other notes. Amber fragrances are a concoction of sweet, spicy, and warm notes such as cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla, orchid, and orange blossom. Lastly, woody fragrances have a sensual, mysterious scent of cedarwood, sandalwood, oud, and vetiver.
Eau Fraiche vs. Eau de Cologne vs. Eau de Toilette vs. Eau de Parfum
When browsing through perfumes at a boutique, you must understand basic fragrance nomenclature. Eau Fraiche contains between one and three per cent concentrated perfume oil and doesn’t last longer than an hour. Eau de Cologne boasts two to six per cent oil and lasts for not more than two hours. Eau de Toilette has fifteen to twenty per cent oil and lasts up to eight hours. Meanwhile, Eau de Parfum contains fifteen to forty per cent oil and lasts up to 24 hours.
Identifying Your Pulse Points
- Wrists: The most common pulse point is on the insides of your wrist. Spritz perfume onto your wrists and dab them against each other.
- Behind the Ears: Spritz perfume on the back of each ear to leave a perfume trail as you walk.
- Collarbone: Spritz perfume in the crevices along your collarbone.
- Inside of the Elbows: Spritz perfume on the insides of your elbows for a long-lasting scent.
- Behind the Knees: Spritz perfume on the back of your knees for a divine smell that lasts due to the heat generated in those regions.
- Things to Bear in Mind When Building a Fragrance Wardrobe.
You may not know that spritzing perfume onto your clothes can leave unwanted marks, which are difficult to remove. Instead, spritz perfume onto your pulse points so the scent molecules can interact with your skin and last longer. After spritzing perfume onto your wrists, avoid rubbing your wrists together. Instead, you can dab the wrists together to make the perfume last longer.
How to Pick Scents for Your Fragrance Wardrobe
Consider curating your perfume wardrobe with scents from different olfactive families. That way, you can pick a suitable scent according to your mood, occasion, season, time of day, and more.
It boils down to a person’s taste, preference, and chemistry. But beginners should start with aqueous or musky fragrances that are refreshing and slightly fruity. Don’t feel pressured to like oud – sometimes, our sense of smell develops with repeated conditioning.
Besides, the ‘smelling coffee before smelling a perfume’ hack is presumably a myth. Coffee has a strong scent that can throw off your balance when sifting through multiple fragrances. Perfume connoisseurs also suggest spritzing perfume onto the hair (which may not be trichologist-approved advice) as it carries the scent well.
When trying out fragrances, ensure you don’t test more than three at a time. Doing so can utterly confuse your olfactory senses, not giving each perfume a fair shot. While you most certainly should consider the latest perfume trends when making a selection, don’t jump on viral trend bandwagons for the sake of it. Learn to trust your instincts and discern between what you may like and what others like.
Conclusion
You can’t decide what you like until you spend time with it. Don’t purchase perfume on a whim. Test it out for a few days or weeks and make an informed decision. Perfume is a pricey beauty investment, so making the right choice goes a long way.
