Perfume is the ultimate accessory if you want to create a signature style. It adds a sensory experience beyond the eye to a look. Have you ever stepped into an elevator and wondered who was there before you. Or stopped on the street as you got a whiff of a mesmerising scent from someone who passed.
Coco Chanel once said, “No elegance is possible without perfume. It is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory.” For the one wearing the perfume, its scent can provoke a certain mood, help you feel empowered, confident, sexy. Whereas for the beholder, the outfit will be what catches the eye, but the scent will be what is remembered.
Finding Your Signature Scent
In your journey towards a more personal and sustainable style you’ll find that you don’t need several perfumes. At most I’d say you need three. One for Spring/Summer, one for Fall/Winter and one for special evening occasions. When you think of finding and creating your signature scent, you’ll want to make sure that those three perfumes tell a consistent story. Meaning that they have a common note or similar structure to them. To do this you need to understand more about the building blocks of a perfume, also known as its olfactory notes.
The olfactory pyramid
Every perfume is composed of top notes, heart notes and background notes. The three notes together form the Olfactory pyramid. Important to understand is that this is not the literal ingredient list of the perfume. Instead, it shows the ingredients with familiar scents that fuse together to create scent accords.
The different notes are also why your perfume’s scent evolves throughout the day. The top notes, although most memorable for the wearer, evaporate the quickest on the skin. This is because they are the lightest. Then we transition into the heart notes, also known as the ‘soul’ of the perfume. Where the top notes last 5-15 minutes, the heart notes will last 20-60 minutes before bridging into the base notes. These are the ones that hold the perfumes scent and add depth. Therefore they are often rich and heavy.
What I’m wearing
Twilly D’Hermès
As we talk perfumes I wanted to share a newly discovered favourite of mine, Twilly d’Hermès. This perfume has me written all over it, I was absolutely sold from the second I smelled it. It’s a floral, spicy and exotic scent that weaves striking ginger and sensual tuberose together into a daring fragrance. I also found out that it is created by Christine Nagel, a Swiss Perfumer, who also made another favourite of mine, Narciso Rodriguez Musc Noir.
Nagel created the fragrance for Hermès with young women in mind. The fragrance stands for the feminine and independent spirit of these women. Just like them the scent is free, bold, connected, mischievous, it turns expectation on its head and imposes its own rhythm. The building blocks are Tuberose, Ginger and Sandalwood.
All three notes of the perfume are rich and heavy, therefore this is a perfume that lasts throughout the day. I mean the quality of this perfume is unlike any other I owned before.
Take some time to explore different scents, play around with it. Now that you understand how a perfume is composed, you can start finding your signature scent. Or should I say notes. A qualitative fragrance can truly elevate the experience of a look. Therefore, you are going to want to invest time and some money into finding the perfect fit.
