What Exactly is Perfume?
By April | June 7, 2007
Perfume is a mixture of alcohol, a fixative, essential oils, and in modern day, chemically created scent. Cologne is simply a diluted version of perfume. Where perfume can contain up to 30% essential oils, colognes often contain only 1 – 2% of these oils.
Perfumes can be single scents such as jasmine, but most perfumes have a high note, the first scent that reaches you, middle notes, sometimes called heart notes, which is the personality of the perfume and finally the base note which lingers on. A great perfume can seem to be a grand symphony of fragrance.
A person’s own body scent and skin oils mix with the essential oils in the perfume to create a unique scent. That’s why the same cologne can smell so differently on different people. And why it’s important to always test a perfume before purchasing. A good rule of thumb is to never test more than three perfumes at a time.
Fragrance falls into six basic groups:
- Floral: rose, jasmine, lilac, gardenia
- Wood: cedar, pine, sandalwood
- Fruit: lemon, orange, peach
- Herbal: lavender, sage, bay
- Exotic: musk, ylang-ylang, vanilla
- Spice: cinnamon, ginger, cloves
The perfume can have top, heart, and base notes all from one category or mix the notes from different categories.
Commercially perfume was often fixed with for a longer shelf life with civet oil, or musk. Today chemical replacements have been found. Home made perfume can be fixed with glycerine or castor oil.
For example Channel No. 5 (named because it was in a bottle labelled “5″ during the testing period, has
- Top Notes: Aldehydes, Grasse Jasmine
- Heart Notes: Rose, Ylang-Ylang, Iris
- Base Notes: Amber, Patchouli
Modern perfume making has been taken over by Classic Designer houses such as Christian Dior which offers several perfumes including : J’adore, Diorella, Diorissimo, Dolce Vita fragrance, Miss Dior, and Diorissimo. While celebrities have always endorsed perfumes, they’re now lending their name to perfumes like “Lovely,” by Sara Jessica Parker.
How to Store Your Perfume
Perfume should be kept away from light and heat. Air can also cause the components of the perfume to start to disintegrate and turn sour. Perfume should be kept in the smallest glass bottle possible. The scent should be applied either through a spray or through the use of a glass stopper. The oil from your fingers can contaminate the perfume so never turn the bottle opening against your finger to apply the perfume.
The cost of perfume ranges from the least expensive colognes around $25 a bottle to $215,000 a bottle for Imperial Majesty, a Clive Christian signature scent. The fragrance is $2,150 per ounce. To warrant a price tag of $215,000, a Baccarat crystal bottle was filled with 16.9 ounces of perfume and a five carat diamond and gold collar.
Topics: Beauty |