how to wear perfume: 14 posts

What is your most versatile perfume that suits most of your moods and occasions? 

Many of us have experienced moments when we stand in front of a closet full clothes and decide that we have nothing to wear. Well, unless you have a well-edited perfume wardrobe, you can suffer the same indecision. For work, I have to keep a big library of fragrances on hand, but for pleasure, I’ve narrowed down my choices to a more manageable level. Deciding among dozens of perfumes is even more difficult than deciding among several outfits. You can’t easily try all of them on!

Once I’ve streamlined, I realized that a few fragrances please me nomatter what: iris, orange blossom, soft musk or dry wood, such as Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist, Annick Goutal Néroli, Estée Lauder White Linen and 10 Corso Como. The dry woods like Olfactive Studio Autoportrait, Serge Lutens Santal Majuscule, Van Cleef et Arpels Cologne Noire and Chanel Coromandel, depending on what I’ve set out on my dresser on any given week, hit the spot anytime. It doesn’t mean that I wear these more than some of my other favorites, but if I ever have a moment of indecision, they are my favorite “fall back” choices.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin, Chanel display at Place Vendôme Haute Parfumerie.

Chanel No. 19.  Serge Lutens Chergui.  Robert Piguet Bandit.  Guerlain Mitsouko. Oud. White florals! What these fragrances or perfume notes have in common is that they all are things I have spent time pursuing, trying to understand their appeal.

Perfume lovers know the quandary well.  It seems as if everyone but you “gets” a fragrance, but to your nose the scent in question smells like a wet dog, a stable that needs to be mucked out, or a rotten cantaloupe. You can’t join in the raves and you hate to be the lone naysayer.  What does everyone else smell that you do not?

You put your sample aside to revisit at an unspecified future date.  Perhaps its glory will be revealed at the next sniffing.  A month later—a year later—you try again.  No.  Oud still smells like band-aids to you.

Should you give up or should you continue trying?

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Do you classify fragrances as daytime vs evening? Do you save some perfumes to wear in the evening, while preferring others for the morning?

I love the scenes in old movies when the heroine, dressed in a floor sweeping gown, reaches for a perfume bottle to apply a couple of drops of perfume before stepping out with her dashing cavalier to conquer the world. In my fantasies, I am that bejeweled woman, wrapped in satin and silks, who nonchalantly reaches for a crystal flacon of her Shalimar parfum. Needless to say, the reality often differs from fantasy, and regretfully, silks and jewels rarely make an appearance in the usual course of my day, with jeans and lab coats taking precedence. However, while I may be lacking in diamond tiaras, I always make a point of saving time for applying parfum. I do not necessarily reserve Shalimar or other rich orientals solely for the evening, but there is something deliciously decadent about applying the parfum after a long day is over but while the night is still young.

Photograph from vintage.glam-2

The following excerpt on how to wear perfume comes from a charming little book called “A Guide to Elegance: For Every Woman Who Wants to be Well and Properly Dressed on All Occasions.” Written in 1964 by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux, a longtime directress of Nina Ricci couture salons, it is a fascinating glimpse into the fashion mores of her time. While some advice may be outdated, the book is filled with many interesting ideas. So, for your reading pleasure, Madame Dariaux’s thoughts on perfume…

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