Spring has arrived and it’s the season of scents. For most of you, the sweet smell of fragrant flowers pass ever so softly under your nose with the breeze of the wind. Imagine being able to bottle every beautiful scent you encountered.
Choosing scents for the season can be fun and challenging, especially since allergies seem to come with flowers and their perfumes. No worries, you can make the most out of any season by choosing a scent that’s right for you.
Making the most out of your scent choice.
How do you make the most of your fragrance? Do you sprits and enjoy a mist or do you introduce seasonal scents into your beauty regimen? Is your choice perfume, cologne or eau de toilette?
Perfumes are a $31-billion dollar international business and each year thousands of companies compete for your money. We Women, typically have seven to nine scents in our perfume wardrobes. Guys you’re not far behind, you have three to five scents in your fragrance wardrobe.
Scientific studies show that the smells that we perceive have a significant impact on the way we feel. Life without fragrance can lead to anxiety and depression but life with fragrance has huge benefits.
Do perfume scents actually come with benefits?
Aside form making you smell and feel oh so sensual and sultry, perfumes actually have other benefits. One of the benefits of fragrance is relaxation. Essential oils allow you to make a more natural perfume and scents like chamomile, lavender, clary sage and bergamot can cause a sense of relaxation. Some fragrances, like those with a lemon smell, have a soothing effect on your mind. Some of these essential oils might be lemon grass, lemon balm, citronella or eucalyptus.
Did you know that perfumes can stimulate your mind, help you focus and raise your level of endurance? Essential oils that stimulate would be rose, petitigrain, rosewood, peppermint, tea tree, sandalwood and ginger.
An additional benefit of perfume is to give you a sense of confidence and inner beauty. If you are comfortable with the scent you wear, you are more likely to be comfortable with the image you are projecting to the outer world. As a result, your self esteem goes up and so does your self confidence.
How Do I Make Perfume Scents? Let Me Count the Ways.
Since we think of Spring to be the season of scents, we often get inspired to make our own. In the traditional making of perfume there are three specific ingredients, the essential oils, water and pure grain alcohol. When creating perfume it often sounds like we’re composing music. The basic components are set up is what’s referred to as notes:
• Base notes – Vanilla, Sandalwood and Cinnamon are examples of base notes. They go into your mixture first and remain on your skin the longest period of time. The base note is what you smell hours after you’ve applied your fragrance.
• Middle notes – Geranium, neroli, lemongrass and ylang-ylang are examples of middle notes. Often referred to as the heart notes, they stay on your skin for a while but will slowly evaporate.
• Top notes – rose, bergamot, lavender, lime and lemon are examples of top notes. They give your scent its unique quality when it’s first applied.
Perfume contains about 20-40 percent of the essential oil compound, eau de parfum has about 10-30 percent and ear de toilette has 5-20 percent while eau de cologne has 2-3 percent. The less essential oil in your potion the further you get away from a true perfume.
Not everyone likes perfumes but everyone likes to smell good. Some people choose to wear what is referred to as a single scent or note- just rose or just sandalwood – and because scents are a very personal thing, your body chemistry may only need one oil.
So, whether you’re scenting your body, your room or the liner for your lingerie drawer, the same rule applies – Start with a perfume blend, a foundation so to speak, and you can use it to create any number of products for your personal use.
That’s it for this week. As always …
Dedicated To Your Beauty
Juliette Samuel
Esthetician/Author/Publisher
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