Does your current perfume represent you? When you use your body washes, oils, lotions and scrubs, are you satisfied with what you are smelling? Do you have an understanding of the fragrance families you lean towards? If not, you might not be getting the full aroma experience you deserve from your products.
Firstly, you should get to know what fragrance family you like. Fragrance families are categories that group perfumes based on their dominant scent characteristics. The most common are floral, gourmand, fresh, amber, woody, and citrus. If you enjoy the smell of vanilla, honey, cake, or “edible” scents, then you would be in the market for a gourmand scent. Rose, jasmine, white lilies, orchid, and neroli, are obviously in the floral category. And fresh scents are ones that evoke a sense of cleanliness – Bergamot, sea air, linen, and surprisingly sometimes fig. These are smells that can make most people think of a spring day outside, a soap bubble, a breeze passing by, or sometimes just a new load of clean laundry.
There are many unique notes that might surprise you in a perfume. Notes, by the way, in a perfume are like layers in a cake. You can have top, middle, and base notes. You might have a perfume that to you, only smells like vanilla. But it might be deeper than that. That vanilla that you’re smelling in your fragrance is probably only one out of 10 notes. Maybe it’s not even there.
That vanilla could be a middle note, and it could contain a base of sandalwood, amber, and milk. Yes, milk is a surprisingly common note. That category in the fragrance family is called lactonic scents. And you might find that you love that category! It’s important to dissect your fragrance, since it’ll help you widen your scope of perfume knowledge and likes (and your ability to differentiate your favorite notes).
A website that I use to see what notes are in my perfumes is Fragrantica.com. It’s really helpful, and gives you a wide variety of perfumes. You can see what other users thought of the scent as well, and you can even look up scents based on specific notes. It can help you find niche fragrances, make more informed choices on perfumes you want to buy, or just satiate your curiosity about a scent you already have.
However, one of the most effective ways to find your signature perfume is to go out and explore. One of my favorite activities is grabbing a friend, heading to Sephora or any store that sells perfume, and spending the day sampling everything. You can categorize your least favorite to favorite scents, and compare them with others. Sometimes the most disgusting smell to you can be a comfort to someone else. Your perfume choice also doesn’t have to be high end. A common misconception about perfume is that all the best and most high quality ones cost an arm and a leg. I would disagree. There’s perfumes out there that cost over 300 dollars, and can be rivaled by a 15 dollar perfume oil in quality and scent.
You can even just take a walk outside to find what you like. There’s perfumes out there for every possible scent. Rain, grass, skin, sometimes even gasoline if you can find it. The best way to figure out your scent, is to get out there and inhale.