Your Personal Perfume

And yes, we agree, because your perfume says a lot about your personality. It should suit, fit, go with you like a fingerprint. Are you well 10+ years in pursuit, and still haven’t found YOUR perfume? It’s not too late!

Smell does a lot, it stimulates the senses, evokes memories or can contribute to a certain emotion. It is therefore important that your perfume really expresses who you are. Hair colour, skin type, lifestyle, character and taste all affect your ‘perfume personality. Some types are bright, sparkling and soft and look for an aroma that reminds them each day of the warm sun on their skin, a clear blue sea and white beaches. In other words, the summer trapped in a bottle. While others need a warm, solid fragrance or one with a dark touch. But finding the needle in a haystack in the big land of perfumes is easier said than done.

Smell is emotion

Smell has a greater impact than we can imagine, understanding this is step 1. So, says Roja Dove, a well-known perfumer in London and owner of the Haute Perfumery in Harrods where you can also get your tailor-made perfumes. An aroma can evoke memories or emotions, because smell is the only organ that has a direct link to the part of the brain in which taste, emotions, mood and memories are arranged. A whiff of chocolate can bring you back to your childhood (plus all the deep-rooted emotions that are linked to it, oh help). This quick track already happens before we consciously recognize the whiff of chocolate in the perfume. By smelling the scent of vanilla, you might think about the cookies that your grandfather baked on a Sunday morning, as well can the aroma of citrus take you back to the orange trees in Spain, where you used to spend your (childhood) holidays.

Exciting aroma adventure

In the olden days, finding a perfume was an exciting aroma adventure. Perfumers created delicate scents and used exotic nuts and other rare ingredients. Choosing was easy, as you used your nose as a guide and your heart to feel if the aroma was suitable. Today we don’t only buy a fragrance, but also an image. Together with the warm floral scent, we buy something greater: a dream. Buying a fragrance is now, often unconsciously, more of a reaction to slick ads or advertisements with beautiful models, luxury homes, fast cities and beautiful beaches. And so, with that perfume, we also compensate for that what we’re not. For example, wearing a heavy eccentric aroma to mask our shyness. Certainly, when we were younger and less sure of ourselves. To find a signature perfume, you rather do the reverse. Mark the characteristics that make you unique stand out through your perfume. Are you subdued, sparkling or sanguineous, choose a scent with the same character traits. This way, your fragrance will strengthen your personality.

Find your personal perfume

1. Ask yourself what scents generally speak to you. Do you like warm sweet vanilla or a soft scent of flowers, such as roses? Do you have a preference for spicy and tangy? This will give you the right idea, as to in which ‘scent family’ you can start the quest.

2. Always try a perfume on your skin.

3. Ask for a sample, so that you can quietly try it at home, instead of getting distracted by all the odours already hovering in the air of the perfumery.

4. Test a perfume on the wrists, but do not rub it. This can affect the fragrance’s nuts making the smell not come to its right or potential.

5. Take time to test it. A good perfume has a beginning, middle and an ending. Over time the perfume develops, which makes the smell of other ingredients come out.

6. Our uninhibited opinion: go for a niche fragrance and not for 13 in a dozen in the perfumery (amen).