5 tips for choosing the perfect scent

1

Do the skin test:

Smelling scent off a paper blotter isn’t a realistic indicator of how it will settle on your skin, so get testing. When looking for a new scent, try to spray scents onto the warmest areas of the skin — the wrists or inner elbows are usually the best places, but limit it to two or three fragrances in one sitting as you don’t want to overwhelm your senses.

2

Wake up and smell the roses:

Take perfumer Francis Kurkdjian’s advice and pay attention to what time of the day you smell new scents. “I try to smell in the morning because my brain and my nose are more accurate and not tired,” says Kurkdjian. So try going fragrance shopping in the morning when your senses aren’t overloaded yet with the day’s smells.

3

Avoid coffee:

If you can help it, do your serious fragrance testing and smelling before your first cup of coffee. Coffee molecules are big and can get stuck in your nasal passage, which tends to interfere with your sense of smell, resulting in an inaccurate impression of the scent.

4

Discover your favourite notes:

Sometimes finding the perfect scent is as easy as knowing what your favourite notes are. We tend to gravitate towards the same type of notes, whether you love the smell of bergamot, neroli, spices or anything with white flowers. So do some research, find out the notes of some of the scents you have loved in the past — and that’s a great starting block to guide your next purchase.

5

Press, don’t rub:

After spraying a scent onto skin, avoid rubbing your wrists together before smelling. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t help the scent but breaks down its molecules due to the friction and disturbs how it should smell. Instead, gently press in with the palm of your hand or wait for 30 seconds in order to preserve the fragrance’s true scent.