Fragrance

Choosing a Fragrance

When you shop for perfumes, you have to keep fragrance types and concentrations in mind since different types and concentrations would suit different people.

Choosing a fragrance to suit you takes a great deal of thought and knowledge including that of the fragrance types or families. You cannot just buy any fragrance and hope that it will suit you. It is not even necessary that just because a particular perfume smells good on someone else, it would smell nice on you too. Beyond that, you also have to take into account the fragrance types that your chosen perfume would fall into (traditionally six) and the concentration required (mainly six). You would have to choose a fragrance that you like and at a concentration which would not drive others away. There is much to choosing a fragrance.

The six traditional fragrance types are Floral, Oriental, Wood, Citrus, Chypre, and Fougere. The floral fragrances are probably the most common ones and feature the scents of flowers. You could have single floral fragrances where one flower’s note predominates or you could go for bouquets. Oriental is the one which features spices, labdanum, and ambergris. It reminds you of what traditional rendering of the East felt (or smelled) like. Then you have the Wood, which features the scents of sandalwood, agar wood, and similar woods. Leather features the leathery scent as well as a mix of honey, wood tars, and tobacco. Chypre or Cyprus is the green mossy smell of oak moss, bergamot, labdanum, and patchouli. Fougere or Fern has its scents based on coumarin, lavender, and oak moss. The citrus which is traditionally used in Eau de Colognes features citrus flavors.

You also have the modern fragrance types such as Green, Ozonic, Fruity, and Gourmand. Green is similar to Chypre except that it features sharp notes of cut grass, cucumber etc. Ozonic or Aquatic refers to the modern clean scent used to accentuate many perfumes. Fruity features fruity aromas (peach, mango, etc.) while Gourmand features food and dessert flavors. If you already know which fragrance family you want (typically people stick with one family) before you shop perfume, it will be easier to choose.

You could obtain these fragrance types in different concentrations such as Aftershave and Splash (less than 3%), Perfume Mist (3 – 8 %), Eau de Cologne (3 – 8 %), Eau de Toilette (5 – 15%), Eau de Parfum (10 – 20%), and Perfume (20%). Eau de Cologne is typically used by men while Eau de Toilette and Eau de Parfum are for the ladies. The highest concentration, Perfume (20%) is almost never used as a spray. It could be used to rub on your wrist or behind your neck.

When you shop perfume, remember not to try out more than three fragrances at a time. This is because your nose goes into olfactory adaptation mode after a while and stops paying attention to scents and fragrance types (basically, it gets too tired). It would also be better if you were to test fragrance on your skin and let it dry down for about five minutes (so that you can identify the main or the middle notes) before you decide.