Heaven Scent: How To Choose The Right Perfume

Some people have signature scents. The smell of roses might instantly take you back to sitting at your mom's dressing table when you were a little girl, while the smell of vanilla might make you think of baking with your grandmother. A woody scent might always remind you of your first boyfriend, and the scent of clean linen could make you think of your husband no matter where you are.

Some people wear the same scent, or type of scent, every day throughout their lives, to the point where that scent almost becomes a part of their character. Choosing a signature scent that perfectly captures you and what you love — or choosing a fragrance for someone else you love that perfectly embodies who they are — can be tricky.

Fragrances 101: Scent Families

Before you can go perfume shopping, you need to get to grips with some fragrance basics: scent families. Scent families are certain groups of scents that all share similar characteristics, and generally, if you like a certain scent, it's a good idea to choose another scent within that family.

Some of the most common scent families are outlined in more detail below:

• Floral/Sweet Scents: Floral fragrances are amongst the most traditional fragrances. Think of a bouquet of flowers — rose, carnation, lavender, violet, or any other bloom that you can think of. Florals are very sweet, are ideal for wearing through the day, and make a person seem optimistic and natural. As a bonus, floral scents are instantly recognizable.

• Citrus/Fresh/Fruity Scents: Fruity, fresh, citrus fragrances are bright, light, clean and invigorating. They might have notes of orange, lemon, grapefruit, berries, apple, peach or even apricot and they'll be really fresh. Great for daytime, especially if you want to convey a feeling of energy.

• Oriental/Spicy Scents: Oriental fragrances tend to be deeper and muskier than florals and citruses, with vanilla, spices, amber, incense and musk. They're dark, sexy and mysterious.

• Woody/Chypre Scents: Woody scents are more masculine but they can smell amazing on a woman too. Scents belonging to the woody family include bergamot, patchouli and moss. These scents are very earthy and intense, which makes them great for wearing in the evening.

Getting to Know Fragrance Notes

Fragrance notes are the different scents found in each fragrance. Fragrance notes change over time, so the perfume you love in store might smell completely different when you get home - which is why it's important to take a look at the fragrance notes.

• Top notes: The top notes are the scents you smell first when you apply a perfume. This is the scent that hits as soon as you spray the perfume, but it's also the scent that dissipates most quickly — so even if you love this top note, it's important to stick around and see if the middle notes and base notes are similar before you take the plunge and take that perfume home.

• Middle notes: The perfume's middle notes appear when the top notes disappear and they make up the majority of the fragrance. Look for fragrances with middle notes that you love, because you will be wearing it for hours.

• Base notes: The base notes are the scents that provide depth to the fragrance. They sort of "back up" the middle notes and appear 20 to 30 minutes after application.

Choosing Your Perfect Scent

The first step in choosing your perfect scent is to look for a fragrance within your favorite fragrance family. If most of your scents are light and floral, look for other florals — a departure from your chosen fragrance family does sometimes work really well, but it might just make you feel a bit uncomfortable if you are already fairly attached to a certain type of perfume. Then, take a good look at the description that'll be supplied with each scent. 

Fragrance Shopping Tips

• Spray the fragrance onto a piece of card, then leave it for at least 10 minutes. Walk around the store, or even go outside, and don't make a purchase quite yet. Make sure you still love it after 10 minutes!

• Look for fragrances that evoke memories in you or that just make you feel good.

• Don't be swayed by fragrance packaging - although we all love to have decorative perfume bottles on our dressing table, it's what's inside the bottle that counts and there are some delicious scents in some very plain bottles. Some of the most innovative and beautiful perfume bottles will contain scents you hate, meanwhile.

• Let the fragrance develop on your skin. What smells fabulous on your best friend might not smell so good on you, simply because your skin and your pheromones are different. Let the fragrance sink into your skin for a good half hour before you buy it so that you really get to know how it smells and how you feel about it.

• Be open to new ideas. When you first sniff a fragrance, you might be a little unsure, but if you give it a chance to develop and settle, you might absolutely love it.

• Is your skin dry or is it oily? If it's dry, the fragrance will disappear more quickly, so an eau du parfum will have more staying power than an eau du toilette. 

• Clear your palette - or your olfactory perception - in between testing scents. If you don't, the fragrances will get muddled and you won't have a true idea of what each perfume actually smells like. Some perfumeries have small jars of coffee beans here and there and these are for you to sniff in between scents.

• If you're stuck, ask for help. The salespeople in perfumeries are trained and they know how to match people with their perfect scents, so if you're having trouble, speak up! They might suggest scents that you'd never, ever considered, so it's well worth it!

Above all, choose a scent that makes you feel good. If, whenever you smell the scent, you smile, you know that it's the perfect scent for you.