

Joanna Mclauglin

Eleven Rules for Perfume Shopping

The fragrance industry does the bulk of its business around Christmas, mainly because that is one of the few times a year than unwilling shoppers are forced down the perfume
aisles of department stores around the world in an attempt to somehow find the right fragrance gift for a loved one. Even people who love perfume and can nose their way around a perfume department blindfolded can feel your pain. Buying perfume is not easy and there are actually several factors you don't even know yet that are conspiring to make it even more difficult.

Perfume seems very complicated.

That's why I, like other denizens of the perfume world, can help you make a good choice. Here are my 11 Rules for Holiday Perfume Shopping.

Rule Number One is this:

perfume is not cheap. If you hoped it would be cheap, wanted it to be cheap, need it to be cheap, or just would feel more comfortable if it were cheap, get over it. Perfume has not gone on sale in the last eighteen centuries.

Rule Number Two is a corollary of Rule Number One.
While perfume may not be cheap, you may find yourself being wooed a bit by eager perfume merchants with package "deals." They will take several of their products, put them together in a festive holiday box and knock a little off the price of the individual items and assure you it's the deal of the season. Don't laugh, it is.

Rule Number Three is to have an idea of what you're going to buy before you go in.

Perfume is an amazing industry, and if you don't know anything about it, you will be amazed to the point of asphyxia to learn that there are literally of hundreds, if not thousands, of fragrance products in even an ordinary shopping mall.

Rule Number Four is not to smell the perfume out of the bottle.

Of course, you can't help that. You will break this rule. But please do not think that the way a perfume smells straight out of the bottle is anything like the way it will smell after a while on your skin. Here's why: perfume manufacturers work hard at creating what perfume insiders call the "top notes." These are the first few molecules that come buzzing out of the bottle whenever a human approaches and they practically scream, "Smell me! Smell me!" They can be zippy, flowery, enchanting, dreamy, light, or all of those other things, but one thing is certain. They are short-lived. Top notes die out in about one to four minutes, which, coincidentally is about the time you can survive cardiac arrest.

The real body of the fragrance emerges after the period known as the "dry down." The dry down is the time the perfume spends on your skin while the perfume dries and the top notes disappear. Now you've got "heart notes" and that is much more like what the perfume is going to smell like.

So how do you manage testing perfume? If you really want to smell a bunch of perfume (it will get very confusing; the phenomenon is called nose fatigue) you can get the salesperson to spray it on little slips of paper. Don't be a novice and just smell the paper. Fan it in the air while you look about the store with a bored, yet superior look on your face. If the salesperson tries to hurry you along, just shrug and say, "Dry down." At this point, the salesperson will realize you are not to be trifled with. This will not change anything, but it's nice to get unmerited respect.

Rule Five is smell the coffee.

Most perfume counters have little net bags of coffee beans hidden away. Ask for one if you want. It's to clear the nostrils during episodes of nose fatigue. The idea is that you take a whiff of coffee and you can go on to the next scent.

This really does work, plus it shows you know what you're doing. But see Rule Six.

Continued...click here for rule 6

Eleven Rules for Perfume Shopping

06 Mar 09

Eleven Rules for Perfume Shopping

Rule Number One is this:

Rule Number Three is to have an idea of what you're going to buy before you go in.

Rule Number Four is not to smell the perfume out of the bottle.

Rule Five is smell the coffee.