Perfumes Quality Identification
Perfume is one of life's little pleasures. It is also a multimillion-dollar industry. Hundreds of new fragrances are released each year, ranging from commercial creations available at your nearest drugstore to niche brands only found at obscure, high-end boutiques. They come in a kaleidoscopic assortment of bottles, often bearing the names of celebrities and designers. Yet availability, packaging and names have little to do with a perfume's quality. To identify a truly outstanding perfume, it is important to consider other factors. Does this Spark an idea?
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Ingredients
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Most quality perfumes contain a combination of natural and synthetic ingredients. Contrary to what many people believe, the average perfume is not composed entirely of actual flowers. And to be 100 percent natural is not necessarily a hallmark of quality. In fact, the most quality perfumes available contain a combination of natural ingredients and synthetic molecules. The synthetic molecules used in fragrances can approximate or improve upon a scent found in the natural world, or create an entirely new scent. Chanel No. 5, one of the most popular perfumes in the world, contains synthetic ingredients as well as large amounts of natural jasmine. Synthetic ingredients give perfumes distinction and stability; natural ones lend them depth and complexity. Look for a perfume that contains both.
Evolution
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A quality perfume evolves on the skin. After wearing it for an hour, you will find that it does not smell precisely the same as it did when you first sprayed it on. That is because good perfumes have distinctive top, middle and base notes. The top notes are discernible immediately upon spraying the perfume, then fade, leaving the heart and base notes more apparent. Gradually, the heart notes fade, and the base notes remain. A truly fine fragrance does not smell the same from start to finish. Instead, it has different elements that emerge throughout the course of wearing it.
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Persistence
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Another way to identify a quality perfume is to judge how long it lasts on the skin. Perfume that disappears shortly after application lacks persistence and needs to be reapplied too frequently, which is costly. A good fragrance should persist for about four hours. If you apply an excellent fragrance in the morning, you might still smell its base notes at the end of the day.
Sillage
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Sillage is a term used to describe the atmosphere of perfume around a wearer, as well as the trail of scent she leaves when she is no longer present. Some perfumes have a lot of sillage, others virtually none. Too much can be annoying for those around you. But a lack of sillage means that no one besides yourself can smell your perfume. Quality perfume strikes a balance; when judiciously applied, it has enough sillage to be pleasant, but not so much that people wish you would have mercy and wash it all off.
Personal Taste
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A perfume's quality depends partly on personal taste. Even if a perfume has all the characteristics of a quality fragrance, it will not work if it fails to appeal to you as an individual. Do you like flowery, spicy or earthy notes? Gourmand fragrances that smell good enough to eat? Or otherworldly scents that you cannot quite put your finger on? The possibilities are endless, and your own subjective tastes play an important role in identifying a quality perfume. Millions of people may agree that a fragrance is quality, as is the case with Chanel No. 5, but it is important to use your own judgment---and nose---when finding the one that will, literally, become a part of you.
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References
- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Becky Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Zaqqy Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Pop!Tech
