Fragrances have a magical power. Concentrated as noble perfumes in luxurious bottles, they influence our feelings and affection for other people, unleash passions and force endless desire. How do these fragrant essences guide our moods and actions? And who knows the secrets of their composition?
Readers have known what fragrances can do in literature at least since Patrick Süßkind’s ‘The Perfume’. A study by scientists at Northwestern University of Chicago proves that they also determine people’s feelings in real life. They showed the test subjects portraits under the influence of different odors. These found the same faces more unappealing when exposed to an unpleasant odor and more appealing under the influence of pleasant scents. This means that these emotions are evoked by scents, because the smells land as sensory impressions straight into the limbic system: this is the place in the brain where our emotional worlds are organized.
Perfumers compose the fragrances
In job interviews, aspirants who wear a fresh fragrance score points: they are consistently judged to be better groomed, more intelligent and more competent. Therefore, you should always approach the selection of the right perfume with caution. But no matter whether a fragrance suits you or not, a perfumer is always responsible for its creation. Like a composer, he puts together a fragrance from a wide variety of individual notes and chords and shapes them into a harmonious whole. That takes time, as, for example, the Swiss Thierry Wasser, head perfumer at Guerlain in Paris, pointed out in a recent interview: “Sometimes it takes me a few months to create a new fragrance, sometimes a few years. But in most cases, it takes me about 12 months to create a new fragrance.”
Perfumes are based on traditions thousands of years old
For millennia, people have wanted to smell better than their body odor, or at least different. Which is why already in ancient Egypt precious fragrances made of resin, thus one of the oldest fragrance families at all, were used to perfume the body. But the decisive step in perfume production was taken in the eleventh century by the Persian physician and scholar Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā, known to us by his Latinized name Avicenna. He invented the revolutionary principle of distillation by extracting the fragrance from rose petals and transferring it to water.
From distillation to synthetic process
Avicenna’s ingenious distillation idea is still the basis for the production of natural fragrance oils, which are among the basic ingredients of floral fragrances in particular. Nevertheless, the cheaper method of extraction is currently mostly used, in which the flowers are deprived of their fragrances with the help of volatile solvents such as ether or butane. This process works with lower temperatures and thus destroys fewer odorants. On the other hand, the fragrant citrus oils are squeezed out of the fruit peels by the expression process.
Of course, fragrance manufacturers now work with a variety of synthetic fragrances, which are important precisely for animal welfare reasons. Hunting a sperm whale, for example, for its once highly sought-after ambergris, a popular base note in fragrance compositions, is unthinkable today. And even trained ‘noses’, as perfumers are known within the industry, have little chance of distinguishing the original from the synthetic version.
The more complex the scent process, the better the perfume
Perfume consists of a mixture of substances with varying degrees of fluidity. Therefore, the first thing you smell after spraying is the highly volatile substances. These are usually fresh notes that open the fragrance composition as a so-called top note like an overture. Then the substances unfold with medium volatilization, often from flower essences and form the bouquet or body of the perfume as a more intense heart note. Last but not least, the substances develop with very slow volatilization and longer adhesion. They form the base of the base note – an often spicy-balsamic note that accompanies a fragrance like a kind of keynote and lets it fade away. A good perfume is therefore structured in such a way that the olfactory substances in all three phases of the olfactory process alternately
inspire and in their entirety result in a harmonious fragrance progression.
What is the best way to apply your perfume?
Super-nose Thierry Wasser answers this question quite casually in the aforementioned interview: “A perfume should first and foremost be fun. There is no right answer as to how best to apply your perfume. If it makes you happy, spray it in your hair. Or on your skin. Or on your clothes – the most important thing is: you should have fun with it.”
Which fragrance type are you?
Perfumes are popular all year round as an exquisite gift. But when visiting the perfumeries of this world, many men and also many a woman despair. The fragrances are as diverse as the selection is unmanageable. But with the help of our guide below, you can easily assign each fragrance to one of the major fragrance families: Floral, Oriental, Aromatic, Woody, Chypre or Citrus. After reading, you can express precise wishes like this in the future: “I’m looking for a perfume with a citrusy top note as well as a pronounced bergamot component. As a base note, I favor lavender or woody aromas like pine. As a reference perfume, I would perhaps think of CK One by Calvin Klein, only without its pronounced musk note.”
Here we go:
Floral fragrances
Sometimes the bouquet of a flower dominates. Or maybe it shares the leading role with one or two other dominant notes or merges into a whole bouquet of fragrant floral essences – and depending on the choice of components, the fragrance appears light or opulent. Among the floral notes, white flowers in particular enjoy great popularity and become the hallmark of the so-called Fleur Blanche perfumes. Lily of the valley, jasmine and tuberose are among them.
Reference notes: a classic fragrance with white flowers is for example GUCCI Bloom – with Rangunschlinger, Jasmine and Tuberose, or from GUCCI Flora Gorgeous Gardenia with Gardenia as the central flower essence.
Oriental fragrances
The base stock of oriental perfumes includes the warm culinary nuance of vanilla, often accompanied by amber notes that give sensual radiance and durability. Citrus notes, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, as well as the fragrances coumarin and the vanilla-like heliotrope are also frequently found in the formulations. Complemented by sandalwood, musk and incense. Depending on where the focus is in the ingredient cocktail, different subgroups are formed.
Reference Notes: Perfumes with woody and leathery accents such as CALVIN KLEIN Obsessed for him are assigned to the oriental-woody group. In the most popular variant, the currently trendy oriental-floral fragrances, the focus is on citrus and floral nuances such as rose, jasmine, iris, ylang-ylang. Classic here is Jil Sander Sun Eau de Toilette and new from GUCCI Guilty Eau de Parfum.
Aromatic fragrances
Aromatic notes are traditionally among the most important components of men’s fragrances. Many of the ingredients could come from an ambitious herb garden: Sage and rosemary, thyme and coriander, mint and basil. In addition, there is lavender, which enriches each fragrance with freshness and exudes a flair of purity. Aromatic fragrances are divided into the following lines: Fruity, Aquatic, Green and Woody, as well as the so-called
Fougère notes, which are among the pioneers of classic men’s perfumes. Its characteristic accord consists approximately of the fragrance notes of lavender, bergamot and geranium.
Reference Indications: HUGO Man, HUGO Now, GUCCI Guilty Pour Homme Eau de Toilette, BOSS Bottled Unlimited, CALVIN KLEIN Eternity for men, CK be or Davidoff Cool Water.
Woody scents
The woody fragrance family is based on high-quality woods and conifers such as sandalwood, rosewood, cedar or olive. It is mainly men’s fragrances that exude these ingredients, but women are also increasingly turning to woody scents. In recent years, especially women’s perfumes combining floral and fruity notes with noble woody aromas have gained in importance.
Reference notes: BOSS Bottled Infinite or GUCCI Guilty Cologne complement the balsamic chords with herbal aromas or fruity elements. Woody-fruity is the name given to perfumes with a woody heart or base note and a tangy, fruity top note, like BOSS Alive. Woody musky is the name given to a fragrance when soft, creamy musky notes meet with dominant woody scents, as in Lacoste Pour Femme. Woody, leathery fragrance aromas are mainly found in men’s perfumes and exude a warm, intensely masculine distinctive note, like BOTTEGA VENETA pour Homme Eau de Toilette.
Chypre fragrances
Chypre notes are found almost exclusively in women’s perfumes. The base of chypre fragrances usually consists of a top note of citrus oils such as bergamot, orange, lemon or neroli. This is joined by a floral heart note of rose and jasmine oil, rounded off by a harmoniously warm, woody-mossy base note of oakmoss and musk. The woody aspects conjure the characteristic secondary notes of patchouli oil, vetiver or sandalwood in the fragrance. A distinction is made between the three chypre compositions fruity, floral and leathery.
Reference Notes: BOTTEGA VENETA Eau de Parfum, which is one of the typical chypre-leathery perfumes with its notes of sambac jasmine, plum and leather notes with patchouli. Chypre-floral, on the other hand, is CHLOÉ Nomade just like JOOP! Wow! for woman Eau de Toilette.
Citrus fragrances
Citrus fragrances appear light and volatile, refreshing and sporty, but can also show their tart, green and even bitter side. There are citrus fragrances for women, but also for men. Some are called unisex fragrances because of their adaptable aromas. These are characterized by never being intrusive or opulent.
Reference Notes: The classics in the ‘Citrus’ fragrance family are CK’s unisex fragrances: CK One, with its musky note, is described as citrus-musy; CK All, with its paradisone and amberwood, is described as citrus-amber; and CK Everyone, with its blue tea accord and cedarwood aromas, is described as citrus-green or citrus-aromatic. Among the citrus-floral women’s fragrances, Jil Sander Sport Woman has an energetic, fresh grapefruit note. Citrus-woody perfumes include My Burberry Indigo, for example – with its fresh top note of lemon; with peppermint and oakmoss, it is a very invigorating, spontaneous fragrance for men.
