How to Make Your Perfume Last Longer & Fragrance Smell Stronger
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Time to read 6 min
So you've just spent hundreds on your brand new perfume and after putting it on, you can't smell it on you after a couple of hours. Was the perfume worth it? wasn't it advertised to last longer? Wait a minute.. did you apply the perfume correctly?
As intuitive as spraying on perfume sounds, there is technically a right way and a wrong way of spraying on a perfume. In this article, we have compiled a list of expert tips to help you maximise the wear life and potency of your favourite scents, ensuring they linger on your skin throughout the day; leaving a scent trail for you to be remembered by.
Why you can trust us:
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We are obsessed with everything perfume related.
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While we humbly agree that we are just students of the art and science of perfumery, we are proud to be participants in the industry - we are an independent perfume brand, with our own perfumers and perfume experts.
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We are Arab, and if you didn't know, Arabs know their perfumes.
Want to know more about our brand? Check out our store.
Table of Content
Top 10 Tips to Putting on Your Fragrance the Right Way
1. Stop Misting Around & Spray Yourself Already:
It is a symbolic fallacy to imagine someone spraying the air around them when we think of putting on perfume. Think about it! You are actually wasting most of the perfume when you mist the air around you, as most of the perfume particles are dissipated into the air. Instead, spray directly onto concentrated areas on your skin (focus on your pulse points – See point 3 below).
2. Spray It On, Don't Rub it Off:
We all have a cinematic vision of a person spraying perfume on their wrists, and then rubbing their wrists together, or rubbing their wrists on their neck. Wrong! It is a common misconception that rubbing perfume into your skin helps it last longer.
Instead, opt to spray on your skin and allow the fragrance to settle naturally. As rubbing the perfume not only reduces how long it lasts on your skin, but it also “bruises” the perfume notes, causing the perfume’s notes (especially the top notes) to erode, thus the full profile of the fragrance cannot be enjoyed.
3. If You Want To Smell Good, Shower First:
Think of your skin as a canvas, if you want the perfume to create a beautiful olfactory portrait, then the canvas needs to be clean. Not only will showering first ensuring that there are no unwanted Odors clinging onto your skin, but the steam from the shower or bath also creates openings in the pores on your skin that will enhance the absorption of perfume. Thereby causing your fragrance to last longer.
4. Spray Me on My Pulse Points:
The human body has 7 pulse points you should know about. These areas are behind the ears, neck, inner elbows, wrists, lower stomach (groin), inner knees, and the feet. These areas, due to the prominent position of blood vessels, emit extra heat, and this is crucial in fragrance development, projection, and longevity. By targeting these warm areas for application, you can ensure that your scent remains potent throughout the day without losing its scent character.
5. Turn It Up a Notch & Spray Your Outfit! Oops... Looks Like You’ve Stained It:
If you want to extend the longevity of your fragrance then spraying lightly onto your clothing will do wonders. In fact, some perfumes last on clothes until they have been washed! ( like our everlasting perfumes at Ahwak Perfumery – click here to shop our collection). This not only helps the scent last longer but also causes the perfume to project more potently.
However, the caveat here is to spray the perfume at an arm’s length from your clothes (check out point 8 below), not spraying any of those artificially colored perfumes, and refrain from spraying any delicate fabrics. Consult your local dry cleaners on that last one… (we know perfumes, not clothes).
6. Lotion Up Before Spraying Perfume:
Not only is this tip relevant to perfumes, but it is super important for the general wellbeing of your skin and appearance. Regardless of what your objectives are, always lotion up. Now the tie back with perfumes is that when applying a lotion or moisturizer, you are giving the perfume particles a layer to hold on to, thus causing the perfume to stay on your skin longer.
7. Want to Smell Like an Arab Princess? Then Oil Up:
Ever been around Arab women and wondered how they smell so good, and how you can smell them from a mile away! The secret is to combine your favorite fragrance (or fragrances, if you love to layer perfumes), with a concentrated fragrance oil as a base.
These are oils are usually a 100% oil based. Meaning, they are the purest form of perfume. (no diluters such as alcohol added). When you layer these oils underneath your perfume, it makes your perfume scream!
We recommend layering scented oils that complement the fragrances you wear (For example, our Ishq Perfume smells marvelous with an Oud based oil). Or, you can use oils as your base to transform the nature of your scent e.g. using a musk oil to give your scent a fresher smell. These methods also make your signature scent more unique to you.
8. It’s About What You’re Wearing, Not How You're Wear It:
Perfume longevity (regardless of how you wear it) are influenced mainly by two factors, the existence of ingredients that promote slow evaporation (thereby lasting longer), and higher concentration perfumes (such as extrait de parfum).
In terms of the ingredients, within the middle and base notes, ingredients such as: Woods, Musks, Ouds & Leather (to name a few) delay the development and evaporation of the perfumes, therefore increasing the longevity of the fragrance.
Perfumes that are Extrait de Parfum contain between a 20-40% concentration of fragrance oil (Ahwak fragrances contain a 30% oil concentration). Fragrances with 30% oil concentration or more can last you over 8 hours on the skin!
The more oil present in a fragrance directly correlates with it's longevity. Because there is a lower percentage of alcohol in the fragrance, less evaporation will occur and the oil will remain sitting on the skin for longer.
9. Spray Your Perfume From 10-15 Cm Away:
Not too close, not too far. Spraying yourself from a 10-15 cm (4-6 inches) is a good rule of thumb.
10. Your Nose Gets Bored Too – This One is a Little Philosophical:
The world of perfumery is reflective of our daily lives, where we strive to surround ourselves with routines that we enjoy and comforts that make us happy, but we only appreciate them when things change. While you may have a signature perfume (check out our signature perfume collection - The Eternal Collection), if you wear the same fragrance all the time, chances are, you won’t stop in the middle of a busy day to appreciate it. You may even forget you’re wearing a perfume all together. This is why we recommend that you switch it up. So go out there and explore new scents and add them to your collection, so that you better understand yourself, love more fragrances, and appreciate the ones you already love.
Perfumery is an art form, and the more you appreciate perfumes, by understanding them, including how to wear them, the more beauty you will see in/ from them. Hence, we recommend everyone who has not already fallen in love with this sensory pleasure, to take the time to develop an understanding of perfumes, in order to enter this paradise that is available for all, but only appreciated by a few.