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Facts

• Perfume is made up of alcohol, water and perfume (fragrance) oil.

• It is a word that comes from Latin per fumum, which means "through smoke" (per means through, fumum means smoke).

• There are 3 major types: oriental, floral and chypre (means "very sincere" in French). There are also many sub-variations such as woody, musky, aquatic, spicy and fruity.

• Eau de - means "water of" in French.

• Eau de cologne - contains about 3-5% perfume oil. Used by men.

• Aftershave lotions and splash colognes - contains about 0.5-2% perfume oil. Used by men.

• Eau de parfum - contains about 15-18% perfume oil. Used by women.

• Eau de toilette - contains about 4-8% perfume oil. Used by women.

• Parfum (perfume) is the strongest of them all as it contains the most perfume oil. Use sparingly.

• Scented ingredients added to perfumes include ginger, grapefruit, musk, peppercorns, mandarin peel, fig leaves, rose, watercress, bamboo, clementine, vanilia, honeysuckle, green tea and the list goes on.

• A perfume contains between 10 to more than 250 ingredients.

• Everyone has their own personal aura. Thanks to genes, diet, skin type, medication, stress levels, pore size and perspiration. These factors can affect the warmth of the skin which will in turn affect the scent result. That means, a perfume could smell differently on 2 persons.

• Industrial perfumes are used to hide odours, e.g. in paints and cleaning agents. Some perfumes give off a leather smell to non-leather furnishings.

Nose

• A highly trained and excellent sense gifted expert (often known as a "nose" within the industry) is responsible for creating perfumes.

• "Noses" compare themselves to composers. Each perfume is like a piece of music, divided into 3 movements; beginning, middle and end - equivalent to the different stages of perfume evaporation.

Health issue

• Some workplaces in Canada and the US have encouraged employees to refrain from putting on perfumes and other fragrance products. Reason? They can trigger asthma, migraine and certain health problems for people who are very allergic to them.

Application tips

• It is not moronic to spritz perfume in the air and walk through it. Just be prepared to clean up an oily patch of perfume that might have landed onto the floor.

• Go ahead and spritz some on your hair.

• Never spray perfume onto silk. It will spoil the silk.

• People with oily skin tend to have stronger fragrance as compared to those with dry skin.

• Since perfume scent retains longer on oily skin, apply a layer of oil-based natural skin lotion onto the skin before putting on perfume.

• Best spots to apply perfume: the nape (back) of the neck, inner elbow, cleavage, behind the ears and along the shoulders.

• To prolong a bottle of perfume, place it in a cool dry place. Exposure to sun can lead to discoloration, smell alteration and evaporation.

• If you have fallen deeply in love with a perfume that your skin is allergic to, why not use it to scent your bags, purses, hair, jackets (or clothes that are not directly in contact with your skin). That should be some consolation!

• To test if the skin is allergic to a particular perfume, try this: apply a small amount on the wrist, or the inner elbow or the back of the hand/arm and if there is a reaction after 1 hour, then the perfume is probably not for suitable.

• Test just 4 different types of perfumes at a time. Too many varieties can be confusing to the nose, otherwise you can sniff some coffee powder to bring back its neutral state and continue with the testing.

  You should also test how the fragrance turns out after about 10 minutes, after the alcohol has evaporated and the perfume would have blended with the natural oils of your skin.

• When the weather is hot, avoid applying fragrance on exposed areas as the heat reaction may cause skin irritation.

• Sunlight can react with the chemicals in a perfume to cause pigmentation as seen on the necks of people after years of applying perfume on the same spot.

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