All Things Fragrance
How to Find the Perfect Scent!
Perfume notes are ingredients that make up a fragrance. They are categorized as top notes, heart notes
and base notes. Top notes are the scents you detect first after spraying a perfume.
These play a role in setting first impressions and shaping a fragrance’s story.
Top notes usually evaporate quickly, lingering around for only the first five to fifteen minutes.
Their main purpose is to give off an initial scent and then transition smoothly into the next part of the fragrance.
As a result, top notes generally consist of lighter and smaller molecules.
As the name suggests, heart notes make up the “heart” of the fragrance. Their function is to retain some of the top notes’
aroma while also introducing new scents to deepen the experience. Sometimes referred to as middle notes,
the heart notes also serve as a buffer for the base notes, which may not smell as pleasant on their own.
Along with middle notes, base notes form the foundation of the fragrance. They help boost the lighter notes while adding more depth and resonance.
Since they form the perfume’s foundation, base notes are very rich, heavy and long-lasting.
They kick in after about 30 minutes and work together with the middle notes to create the fragrance’s scent.
Since base notes sink into your skin, their scent lingers the longest and can last for six hours or more.
Fragrance notes play an important role in a perfume’s appeal.
The composition of the different notes of a perfume and their interaction with your skin are what make a perfume unique.
Without combining different notes, a perfume’s scent would just not be as pleasant.
Since there are so many notes, it can be challenging to pick the ones that you like.
One way to start learning your own preferences is to become familiar with the fragrance wheel.
Read more on Wikipedia
