Perfume And Cologne

Today’s modern perfume has three main components:

Typically scents are made from flowers, citrus, spices, woods and sometimes even leather.

The fixative - These ingredients act to stabilize the aromatic compound and help to make the scent last longer.

Lotions and aftershaves generally have a 1 to 2% scent base

Eau de Cologne products are generally 2 to 3% pure scent

Eau de Toilettes run between 5 to 20% scent

Perfume Extract or Parfum has the greatest concentration of scent, between 20 and 40%

Women’s products are usually categorized as perfume, eau de parfum, toilet water, and cologne and for men’s products are sold as perfume, cologne, and aftershave.

Surprisingly fragrances and music share a common term, notes. Perfumes are often described by the different “notes” that make up the scent. Top Notes are the strongest scents but do not last very long. Middle (or heart notes) makes up the main part of the scent that emerges after the top notes start to fade away and are usually softer and mellower than the initial scent. These scents are usually floral in nature.

Bass notes form the foundation of the scent and are usually deep and musky in nature and emerge to blend with the middle notes not to replace them. (by Mike Taylor)

Celebrity Fragrance Fashion - Perfume & Cologne

Every woman wants to smell divine. After three or four fragrances, your ability to differentiate between scents is probably shot. Memory & Smell:

While cologne and perfume are known for providing fragrance, perfume bottles have long been sought after for their display-worthy design.

Our sense of smell is deeply connected to our faculty of memory. It makes sense, then, that we are attracted to fragrances that are somehow connected to positive memories, however abstractly. The types of fragrance each of us is drawn to will fall into one of two camps: light and dark.

A Lighter Fragrance Touch

As the name suggests, light fragrances are floral, ozonic and fresh. Lighter scents accomplish this task with subtlety and style. At the other end of the Globe, there are dark fragrances. The ingredients chosen were ones that signalled freshness, like lemon, lavender and roses; ingredients we associate with lighter scents. But people soon developed a use for fragrance beyond that of plain deodorizer, and there lies the origin of darker fragrances.

In 18th century France, perfumers began to add excrement, diluted extremely, to floral fragrances to create depth and complexity. Nowadays, the equivalent ingredient is musk, which will add an animal note to any fragrance.

Dark fragrances speak of a woman who is sexual, confident, mysterious and passionate.

Signature Scents:

Then the inevitable question becomes whether that fragrance is a life-long love or a fickle fling.

You won’t yourself enjoy the waft of fragrance that a man smells when he kisses the nape of your neck. I’ve been wearing the same fragrance for more than 15 years and although I have had the odd affair with another fragrance, I’ve always come back to my dependable signature scent. Star Power:

As an estimated US$2.8 billion dollar industry, there’s tough competition to stake and maintain a hold in the fragrance market. Stars like Britney Spears and Sarah-Jessica Parker have, with varying degrees of involvement, lent their names to fragrances. Celebrity fragrance may have initial pull with a loyal fan-base, but such discount perfumes will unlikely have the longevity of more established fragrances.

By Patricia Warner