How to choose, wear and keep a perfume

Choosing a perfume is an important act. Important because it will be a life companion and important because it will leave a signature, an olfactory image wherever it goes.

You can make a first selection of perfumes with touches to smell on a piece of paper (or mouillette). Once this pre-selection has been made, it is advised to try the fragrance directly on your skin : body warmth will bring out its olfactory dimensions.

A perfume takes time to open up, to reach the peak of its beauty and its expression, always by successive stages.

In 60% of the cases, it's within 12 seconds that the choice of a perfume is made. It's the head note that leaps to the nose. Three to four minutes later, it reveals its heart ; one hour later, you discover the last piece of the puzzle, which is called the depth and lets you understand how the perfume lives and opens up on your skin.

You can then try the perfume on your skin. That's where the alchemy happens. The inside of the wrist or of the elbow, or on the neck and under the ear are the best places, where the skin is warmed by the veins.
You can also spray a bit of perfume in a room, to verify the persistence and strength of the perfume.

However, it is not advised to smell a perfume on the back of the hand and even less in the palm or to spray it near any jewelry. Metal, especially copper, acidifies the skin at the point of contact. Besides the zones of the body the most fulfilling for the perfume (wrists, elbows, neck or cleavage), it is also pleasant to spray some on clothing, a scarf or handkerchief.

Some fragrances also have a fantastic diffusion in fur, woolen pullovers and some natural materials like linen and silk. In this case, spray it far from the fabrics.

Keeping your perfume
If you wear the same fragrance every day or nearly, its conservation will be no problem. You should just avoid placing the bottle near a source of heat or in the sunlight.

However, if you use several perfumes, according to the circumstances, it is advised to not buy big bottles, but just renew them more often. After a year, an open, but still full bottle will have all its aromas intact. But if the bottle is, for example, half empty, the presence of air alters the contents and ends up changing its nature. An unopened bottle will conserve its odor and strength for years. Nevertheless, the perfume's colour can change. But for all of that, don't think that the fragrance has been harmed ; the perfume continues living because the primary materials are always evolving.