Get To Know Perfume Layering To Create Unique Personal Fragrances

Illustration (Valerie Boltneva/Pexels)

JAKARTA - In various occasions, spraying your favorite perfume seems to be a more effective way to increase self-confidence in women, than applying make-up or wearing the best clothes. Not only for women, the smell of perfume has also been shown to increase self-confidence in men.

A number of studies have also proven that the smell of fragrance is not only able to change the mood for the better, but also can restore the memory associated with the smell. Therefore, fragrances are considered important by some people, so it is not uncommon for many perfume lovers to look for a distinctive and truly unique scent. It's just that sometimes one perfume is not enough.

But there are ways that you can create a fragrance that seems just for you. By using a little "perfume layering" or a layer of perfume alias using more than one type of perfume. Wearing more than one perfume at a time may seem silly, but it's actually the best way to create a personal scent, without the need to dig deep into your pockets ordering your own fragrance from a professional perfumer.

Quoted from ANTARA, Saturday, June 25, junior perfumer from Mane Alexander Lee explained that layering perfume is basically a fairly simple thing but the results are extraordinary. Perfume layering is the process of combining or wearing two different perfumes together to create a new, unique scent.

“I've always seen fragrance as an invisible garment. For me, combining fragrances is simply wearing several fragrances at the same time with the aim of creating a personal form of fragrance," says Alexander Lee who is one of the "noses" behind fragrances from brands Zara, Furla, Lancome, Penhaligon's, Carolina Herrera, Blauer. and a number of other perfume brands.

“This is an outlet for perfume lovers to be creative. In fact, a perfume is the result of the combination of the aroma of a single perfume with many other complex scents. Layering fragrances is like walking in the shoes of a perfumer,” adds Lee.

The same thing was said by perfume expert from the NCP brand for Youtime David Gorgeous. Gorgeous says layering perfume can create a distinctive aroma with a touch that matches your mood.

"You can make it (perfume) a lighter and fresher scent, or deeper and stronger, without losing the essence of the original fragrance," said Gorgeous, quoted from Bazaar.

The idea for layering perfume has actually been around for years. Usually, before spraying perfume, someone takes a shower using scented soap, deodorant to body moisturizer with a certain scent. The result is a unique, distinctive aroma that comes out of soap, deodorant to perfume mixed with the body's original scent.

There are no standard rules about how to do perfume coating, because basically perfume is a personal thing that is identical to the smell of your body. Therefore, there are no special brands or certain limitations in creating scents from fragrance layers.

"Mixing various fragrances into your body can be done at any time and adjusts the mood, season or weather, to special events that you will attend such as your wedding day for example," said Alexander Lee.

Doing trial and error is the best way to find out if the various fragrances you spray on your body mix well and create the unique scent you want or not. Although there are no certain limitations in doing fragrance layering, Alex provides the following recommendations.

Choose a very different scent (note) and mix fragrances of different types. You can create new fragrances with contrasts." A good first step is to use a perfume you like that has a strong signature and adds or supports the scent with a certain scent. For example you could combine citrus notes with an oud (woody scent) based scent. or floral perfume with something more intense.

Although there are no fixed rules, it never hurts to get to know the seven groups of scents that can be categorized. Which will help you better understand how to combine scents. The first is the category of citrus (citrus). This scent tends to be fresh and light, such as tangerine, grapefruit, lemon, mandarin, bergamot, lime, to yuzu.

Then there is the flower category (floral) which tends to give a feminine and sweet impression such as jasmine, rose, lily of the valley (lily of the valley), tuberose (good night), ylang-ylang (ylang), violet, and many more.

For a masculine and subtle impression, there are fougère categories such as wood scents, oak moss, bergamot, coumarin, vetiver, and lavender. For warm scents there is a chypre category. This category tends to give off a warm yet dry and subtle feel like a blend of oak moss, patchouli, bergamot, with floral or fruity notes including lavender or nutmeg.

Then there is the woody category which is usually in charge of giving a warm and balanced aroma to fragrances such as cedar, vetiver, sandalwood, amber, agarwood and others. There is also an oriental category which gives a warm and sensual impression which is usually obtained from patchouli (patchola), amber, vanilla, moss, and exotic woods, spices and various flowers.

The last category is mossy (moss) and leather, which gives a strong masculine scent. Usually this category is created from the aromas of smoked and burnt wood, birch wood, and tobacco.

Perfume experts always recommend that perfume be rubbed or sprayed onto warm pulse point areas and never rubbed. But which areas of the body are actually classified as warm and can make perfume last longer? Chief Executive Officer of fragrance brand DS & Durga Kavi Ahuja Moltz explained that areas such as behind the knees, belly button, chest, back of neck and wrists are the best places to apply perfume.

This area is known as the pulse area which has a higher heat than other areas, causing the fragrance of the perfume to increase and last longer.

"I often spray perfume on my sleeves, under my collar and behind my ears so that the scent spreads more. But actually there are many ways to use perfume," said Ahuja Moltz, quoted from the Vogue page.

If you are afraid the color of the perfume will stick to brightly colored clothes, you can spray the perfume on a cotton swab and tuck it in your underwear or in your shirt pocket. For layering the fragrance, you can use two cotton swabs sprayed with different fragrances. The scent of a fragrance is one of the types of your identity that is why fragrances are often called personal even though they are made in laboratories and sold over hundreds of counters to a million customers.

Fragrances not only lift your mood, they can also bring you to certain memories, so there's nothing wrong with creating your own scent according to your personality or favorite scent.