Spice Up Your Life with Some Scents

Spice Up Your Life with Some Scents

If your life is in need of a pick-me-up consider spicing it up with some scents! Perfume is defined as “a mixture of fragrant essential oils and aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, objects, and living spaces a lasting and pleasant scent.” It is the amount and type of solvent that is combined with the fragrant oil that determines what form it will take, be it a perfume, a cologne, eau de parfum or eau de toilette. A perfume (parfum in French) is the priciest of all of them on account of it’s being the most concentrated. Cologne (or eau de cologne in French) is the weakest of them all and is approximately half as concentrated, as is perfume. Eau de parfum is not as expensive as perfume because it consists of less parfum oils. Finally eau de toilette is a lighter version of perfume and is approximately a quarter as concentrated as straight perfume.

Sometimes the above-mentioned terms are abbreviated and understanding the shorter forms will help a great deal when it comes time to choose what you wish to wear. COL stands for cologne, EDP stands for eau de parfum, EDC refers to eau de cologne, and EDT is eau de toilette. And there are also the lesser, and lighter forms of scents that have abbreviations such as spray (SP), splash (SPL), and for men, after shave (A/S).

Three specific ingredients are a part of every perfume and they are essential oils, water and pure grain alcohol. There are three different kinds of oils inherent in perfumes that affect the scent it will give off. These oils are referred to as notes and they include base notes, middle notes and top notes. The base notes go into the mixture first and remain on the skin for the longest period of time; the middle notes (or heart notes) stay on the skin for a while but not as long as the base notes and the top notes are what will give the individual scent its unique quality when it is first applied. The same quantity of all three is generally used in the making of a perfume. Most commonly used base notes are vanilla, cinnamon, sandalwood, mosses, ferns and lichens. For middle notes the oils used are geranium, neroli, lemongrass and ylang-ylang. And finally, top notes are orchid, rose, bergamot, lavender, lemon and lime. Perfume (or perfume extract) contains 20-40 percent of aromatic compounds; eau de parfum has 10-30 percent; eau de toilette has 5-20 percent while eau de cologne has 2-3 percent.

Perfume is not a new concept but instead has been around for centuries and got its start being used as aromatic herbs and burning incense that was a part of religious rituals. The word derives from the Latin “per fumum” which stands for “through smoke.” The Egyptians were the first people to reportedly use perfume dating back to as early as 1000 BC. Soon after, the ancient Chinese, Hindus, Israelites, Carthaginians, Arabs, Greeks and Roman cultures followed suit. It was the Egyptian people who are believed to be the inventors of glass and interestingly enough, one of the first things glass was used for was to construct bottles to hold perfume.

But what scent would enliven you the most? Perfumes basically fall into six broad categories (or olfactive families) and the differences have to do with the specific combinations of notes used to make them. Not everyone likes the same type of perfume while some people prefer different categories depending on their mood, the season of the year and the occasion. Age also plays a factor. As a girl grows into a woman, her scent of choice changes and will begin to reflect her development.

The six categories of perfumes are floral/sweet, sporty/clean, green/natural, musk/oils, woody (or chypre) and oriental/spicy. Floral/sweet is the most commonly used category of scents and can be sweet or subtle but brings out the girl in any woman, no matter the age. The sporty/clean fragrance provides a very clean scent, much like fresh linen or the refreshing quality of soap. Green or natural is a fresh, down-to-earth scent while musk/oils comprise the three “s”- sexy, strong and suggestive. Chypre (pronounced Shee-pra) or woody is named after the Mediterranean Island of Cypress, as chypre is the French way of saying “cypress.” This scent is a touch of the mysterious with its mixture of earthy and floral scents. Oriental/spicy fragrances are for the confident, self-assured woman who knows what she wants and exactly how to get it.

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