SPRITZ & MATCH
Master the perfumer’s art by layering your own unique combination of scents
The changing of the seasons can be sartorially complicated, as anyone who has worn suede boots in the snow will appreciate. The notion that perfume, too, is seasonal – that the scent you have been cheerfully spritzing on since June should now be consigned to the loft along with your summer linens – rather adds insult to injury. The remedy to that, as in fashion, is layering.
Wearing more than one fragrance may seem excessive, but once the nights have drawn in, it is a way of customising your scent to the coldest season without straying from an old favourite. Bespoke products are, after all, coveted by most of us. But how can you become your own scent mixologist without recreating a department store’s odoriferous and headache-inducing perfume counter?
There are three ways of achieving this, according to James Craven, the perfume archivist at Les Senteurs. The first and easiest method is to incorporate all the products on offer in your chosen fragrance’s range, thus intensifying the effect and increasing its longevity – both necessary in colder weather.
‘When a perfumer creates soaps, lotions, gels and hair mists to accompany a fragrance, they will always be using the same basic formula but won’t be getting the same result each time, so every product will be a variation on that perfume,’ says Craven. ‘Different additions will bring out different facets, giving your chosen
fragrance infinite variety.’
A variation on that technique is one employed by many of us when carrying a daytime look into the evening – wearing a deeper, darker scent over the top of an everyday favourite, which can be as simple as adding a dab of the more intense eau de parfum to your eau de toilette.
If you are braver, a more interesting approach is to wear two or even three entirely different perfumes, which, blended together, create a personal fragrance. While there are no hard-and-fast rules in layering scents, it can be a good idea to choose those with notes in common. Julie Bonin, the fragrance expert at Diptyque, says: ‘I would always keep a link in-between. If you’re wearing a woody floral, try to look for a creamier wood such as a sandalwood, which tends to be a little rounder and works very well.’
Different notes in one perfume can be brought out by adding a second. Combining Diptyque’s Eau Rose with a blackcurrant- and rose-based concoction such as L’Ombre dans l’Eau, for example, will emphasise the floral notes in the former.
It helps to think of scents in terms of a menu. ‘It’s like starting with a piece of fruit for lunch and then developing that into a recipe incorporating fruit, like a trifle or a crumble, later on,’ says Craven. ‘You’re adding more decoration and interest with sweetness and spice, but keeping that fundamental taste there as a base.’
Craven also advises lateral thinking. ‘The perfumer James Heeley often says how well mint can go with incense, which you wouldn’t imagine. He recommends trying his Menthe Fraîche [mint leaves and bergamot] and Cardinal [incense and patchouli] together – he sees it in an almost pictorial sense, mint and incense both being refreshing and purifying.’
Application is also important: lighter fragrances will be masked by heavier ones, so start with the most potent first. Imitate the method of the perfumer: put on the base notes first (the heavier scent) and follow with the top notes (the lighter scent).
If you are stuck in a rut and simply have no idea what you do and do not like any more, Diptyque’s complimentary in-store ‘fragrance fitting’ can help. An expert will pass a selection of different singlenote candles under your nose in a blind test, in order to work out which notes elicit a positive response. From that, she can match the fragrances that suit you best, and that can be layered accordingly, adding new dimensions to the perfume you are already wearing.
Fortunately, there is, according to Craven, no such thing as a bad combination. ‘There are a lot of shibboleths in fragrance, but I don’t think there are any definite disasters,’ he says. ‘None of these aspects of layering is wrong or absolutely right, but it
can be a lot of fun.’
Wear a deeper, darker scent over the top of an everyday favourite