Nowadays there are fashionistas, bagistas and perfumistas. Some women own as many bottles of scent as other women have handbags or shoes.
The average woman, however, is likely to have no less than 3 fragrances. An everyday perfume, one for a special occasion or evening wear, and a signature scent that is her absolute favorite.
Given the number of new perfumes launched every season choosing from literally hundreds at a cosmetic counter or perfumery can be a daunting task.
Eau de Parfum and Eau de Toilette
Before you begin, it helps to understand a little more about fragrance strength. Perfume is made up of essential oils and between 78% to 95% of denatured ethyl alcohol. Eau de Toilette (EDT) is made up of around 8 – 15% of essential oils whereas Eau de Parfum (EDP) contains between 15 – 22%, therefore making it longer-lasting. Eau de Cologne (like your grandmother used to wear!) contains only 4% essential oils.
How to Choose a Perfume
- Decide on the type or category of fragrance you want. Rich and spicy, boldly floral, sweet and fruity, fresh and elegant, sensuous or sexy and musky. The choice may depend on many things, like the purpose (daywear or evening wear?), the occasion (wedding?) or your mood. As a general rule, lighter scents are for daywear, heavier ones for evening.
- Some perfumes are iconic, like Chanel No 5, and some are very distinctive classics like Dior’s Poison or YSL’s Opium, which has the highest concentration of perfume of any French fragrance ever made. Some perfumes are associated with a certain age-group, like Estée Lauder’s Youth Dew, and some names represent their smell – Clinque’s Happy really does smell like happiness! The rarer the ingredients the more expensive the perfume. Clive Christian’s No 1, is currently the most expensive off-the-shelf perfume in the world.
- It helps to do some online research beforehand if you are looking for a new scent. That way you can familiarize yourself with the names of perfumes, their type, their description and their ingredients before going into a store. There are many dedicated perfume sites, or online stores like Sephora.com which also provide useful advice. The perfume blog Now Smell This carries an extensive list of new perfumes.
- One of the best resources is perfume expert (of Fragrances of the World fame) Michael Edwards' collaborative website where you can select your favorite scent and Ewards provides the names of 3 similar scents in the same fragrance family.
- Women’s monthly glossies are also helpful as they tend to feature new fragrances of the season, and often include free samples. One of the most popular fragrances so far this fall is Ralph Lauren's Notorious, a spicy, woody oriental-style scent available at Sephora ($65 EDP 1.7oz)
- Once you reach the store you can try out a number of different fragrances and then make your choice. Be mindful of the fact that each perfume contains a number of “notes”; top, middle and bottom. It may take as long as 30 minutes for the true scent of a perfume to properly develop.
How to Apply a Perfume
- Apply perfume to your pulse points. These are the wrists, crook of the elbow, back of the knees, cleavage and neck. Be careful to dab or spray lightly, not crush the smell by rubbing your wrists together, for example.
- Secondly, spray a small amount of perfume into the air in front of you and walk though it. This way your whole body will be immersed in a light spray of scent.
- Add some perfume to a hankerchief or tissue for some extra scent. Alternatively lighlty spray the fragrance on a cotton wooll ball and pop it inside your bra. The scent will rise and you'll smell fresh all day.
Layering a scent means using beauty products with the same smell. Use a a body lotion, shower gel or deodorant spray to add an additional (and longer-lasting) layer to your perfume.
Perfumes that Make You Younger, Smarter and Happier
These days there are even so-called smart scents which claim to make you smell younger, be more intelligent,and feel happier. These fragrances are created based on research using a link between the human sub-conscious and smell, whereby the brain makes certain associations regarding a specific aroma.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
