Beauty and fragrance
Beauty and fragrance: choosing a body spray that won't wear off quickly
A special time, another chapter, that time you laughed for hours …A scent, just for a second, drifting past your nose can be so reminiscent. Perfume, cologne, body spray … they are the ultimate sensory experience. You can spend anywhere from $9 to $900 or more on exotic fragrances to sweeten the smell of your skin, but when the scent passes within a couple of hours or even shorter, you find yourself reapplying throughout the day.
No need.
When fragrances are used properly they can last, allowing the wearer to experience the full realm of the scent’s intensity.
Fragrance are created by combining different layers of scents, called notes. These notes can be created in labs, synthetically, or they can come from plant, fruit and flower extracts. The top not fades the quickest; the middle note lasts a little longer; but the bottom not remains for about 24 hours. Most fragrances change a bit as the day or evening wears on and certain notes wear off. The smell at first spray is different from the scent that remains hours later.
The best way to make your body spray last all day is to layer, layer, layer. You love the body spray, but immerse yourself in a scented bubble bath, using the complimentary scented body wash. Scented body crème and the accompanying powder should lie beneath the final layer, sprayed onto moistened skin.
To maximize the wear of your body spray, shower and oil up before dousing. Fragrances last longer on oilier skin and evaporate faster on drier skin.
Following those tips may make your fragrance last longer, but that doesn’t mean the scent won’t change with wear. Where you place the scent on your skin affects the way that it smells. Don’t apply the body spray behind your ears, the sebaceous glands effect the scent. Medication, hormonal changes, including menopause and pregnancy, as well as diet can also effect the way you wear a scent. If you’ve eaten garlicky or spicy foods, wait a few days before trying the fragrance. The changes in your diet will be reflected in the fragrance’s scent on your skin.
Even after taking your diet and hormones into consideration, every fragrance doesn’t smell the same on everybody. You may love the romantic scents of floral body spray or the sexiness of musk but the only way to find the scent that best compliments you is to try many. Department stores offer small cards to test their fragrances on. But your skin won’t react with the fragrance in the way that a slip of paper does. Try a quick spray of the scent on the underside of your wrist, right where your pulse is. The beating of the pulse keeps the scent warm which also maximizes its intensity and allows you to get a true idea of what it smells like on you.
Just because you tried a certain body spray before and didn’t like it, doesn’t mean you never will. Try it again. Your body changes and the scent may react differently, now, with your skin.
