Formula · Three stages, seven families
Fragrance families
A perfume is a structure that reveals itself over hours. The part that sells it at the counter is gone before you reach the car.
Why testing on paper fails
A blotter shows the top notes and then the evaporation profile of a piece of card. Skin adds temperature, pH and sebum, all of which change the rate at which molecules leave the surface, which is why the same eau de parfum reads sharp on one person and warm on another. Nothing about the first ten minutes on paper predicts the four hour mark on skin.
Concentration is not strength
Eau de toilette and eau de parfum of the same name are frequently different compositions rather than the same formula at two dilutions. Houses add base weight to the stronger version and brightness to the lighter one. Try both, because a great many people prefer the toilette of a fragrance whose parfum they dislike.
Where the money goes
Some of it is materials, and genuinely: iris butter, real sandalwood, natural jasmine absolute and oud cost serious money by the kilogram. Some of it is production scale, packaging and the shop. The relationship between price and material quality is real and loose, and blind testing is humbling in both directions.
The seven families
Most fragrances are a combination. The family describes the centre of gravity.
How to check it
- Test two on skin, maximum, per visit. The nose adapts and everything after the third is noise.
- Do not rub the wrist. Rubbing crushes the top notes and skips part of the structure.
- Leave and wait four hours. If the base is not something to live with, the opening is irrelevant.
- Test in the season you will wear it. Heat accelerates everything and changes the balance completely.
Care
- Store in the box, in a cool cupboard. Light and heat are what kill a bottle.
- Never a bathroom shelf. Humidity and temperature swings take years off a fragrance.
- Buy smaller bottles. The last quarter of a bottle oxidises faster because of the air above it.
- A bottle that has darkened noticeably or turned sharp at the opening has oxidised and will not recover.