There’s no worse feeling than suddenly being disappointed by a perfume that you had fallen in love with at first smell.
It’s a story as old as time: you smelled a fragrance on one of your friends during a party, being completely seduced by the heavenly scent. You beg this friend to tell you the name of this amazing perfume so that you can order it right away. A couple of days later it arrives, and after spraying it on your skin… another betrayal! It smells nothing like the perfume you fell in love with at all! You’re seriously starting to think there’s a trick to it, losing all confidence in your taste– and in perfumes.
And yet, all this is normal. It may feel like your senses are playing tricks on you, but let’s look at the real reasons behind this phenomenon.
You have probably, although somewhat vaguely, heard about the top, heart, and base notes of a fragrance (we’ll have to get into this more later, there’s too much to say!).
Basically, raw materials of a perfume don’t all evaporate at the same rate. Top notes refer to the rapid ones, which will reveal themselves immediately. It’s what you smell instantly when you spray a fragrance. The heart notes, a.k.a. “the heart of the subject”, develops after roughly an hour. Then there are the base notes, the densest, which reveal themselves fully after 4 or 5 hours. You can fall in love with the top notes of a fragrance, and then discover other, less desirable, facets which were not perceivable at this first stage.
Another phenomenon that can disturb your hunt for your new favorite scent: a perfume always develops to be a little different from one skin to another. If you loved the way a perfume smelled on a friend’s skin, you might not find exactly the same scent on you.
But, don’t worry! There’s no need to feel lost when it comes to finding perfume perfection. What to do if you smell a scent that you like? Test it in real life, on yourself, for a whole day. If the crush is confirmed, buy it.
At Dossier, you can test on your skin each perfume ordered completely risk free. If it doesn’t live up to your expectations, you can send it back for a refund! All returned orders are sent to charity, so no bottle goes to waste.
