On Choosing & Wearing Perfume

Wearing fragrance is an intimate act. Scents pervade us: we can close our eyes and cover our ears, yet it is very hard to escape a scent, especially if we are wearing one! A perfume that is “right” for you give the sense of an extension and enhancement of yourself, or some aspect of yourself. It should be something you feel happy and intrigued to smell over and over.

Of course, sorting out perfume types can be helpful, though I will caution that modern perfumes cross and mash up so many of the classic categories. Still, communicating words like woodsy, floral, spicey, green, resiney, smoky, powdery, sweet, fruity, earthy, leathery, ambery, oceanic, can help beginning the sorting process. Knowing which notes you favor , for example, citrus, rose, vanilla, tobacco, vetiver, lavender, jasmine, fir, may also lead you through the maze.

The best test is simply smelling, or rather, smelling it on your skin. While a cursory sniff at a bottle may give a rough idea, you won’t be able to discern much more than a perfume’s loudest voices that way. Spraying on a perfume blotter is a better way. Once you feel drawn in by a particular composition, then you can try it on your skin. With that in mind, make certain your deodorant, shampoo, soap, and laundry detergent are neutral in scent. Many of theses products, if conventional, contain harsh smelling, neuro-toxic  chemicals that will alter a perfume’s true notes, even drowning them out, especially natural perfumes.

Applying to wrists or inner arm is a handy place to test smell a fragrance, though also getting a a dab in the décolletage will give you a truer sense of how the perfume evolves over a few hours. Perfume dissipates the most quickly over the pulse points of the wrist. So, applying perfume behind the ears, inner elbow, to the neck, cleavage and hairline will make a fragrance last longer. Also, never rub wrists together. That actually diminishes the top notes, breaking them down. Rather, wave your wrists or arms a little. Be patient. Let all the volatile oils that got stirred up with spraying settle back down and compose themselves before introducing your nose to them.

Natural perfumes are not linear, as one finds in conventional perfumes made with chemicals. A natural fragrance will weave in out,  back and forth, up and down,  and enchant you along the way. And this is what you want, in the end: to feel enchanted by a perfume, drawn in to its spell and story that on your own skin, gives the experience of a magical space,  created just for you.