If you’re someone who struggles with indecision or someone who likes every element of their life to be organized, a fragrance wardrobe is an essential for ensuring you’ve always got the perfect perfume to hand.
A great way to have a variety of scents that suit different moods, occasions, and seasons, your fragrance wardrobe has the ability to encapsulate your personality in a single spritz, no matter whether you’re heading to a Monday morning meeting or a Friday night cocktail bar.
It’s also a sure-fire way to ensure you’re always feeling great: Fragrances have been known to have mood-boosting benefits and, by having a variety of scents in your fragrance wardrobe, you can choose one that matches your mood and helps to enhance your overall well-being.
Ready to express your style through a fragrance wardrobe? Read on to learn how to create yours!
First of all: let’s talk through some fragrance basics…
It’s pretty difficult to craft your fragrance wardrobe before you know the key words and terms in the perfume world. So before we get into the details, here’s a quick breakdown:
A scent is typically made up of three types of notes: top notes (those you smell first), heart notes (those that appear a little later), and base notes (those that sink into the skin and stay the longest).
Amongst those, you’ll find any number of individual notes. But the most common accords include floral, fruity, oriental, woody, fresh, and amber. It’s worth noting that some fragrances can fall into multiple categories, and some are even considered to be part of their own subcategory. But more on that later!
When building your fragrance wardrobe, you’ll also want to pay attention to the fragrance concentration and ensure you choose the right strength for different occasions. An Eau de Toilette is the weakest concentration and is best for providing a shorter scent experience. Choose Eau de Parfum for a longer lasting scent or Parfum for the longest-lasting of the lot.
Identifying which fragrances you enjoy the most
Building your fragrance wardrobe from scratch? First, have a think about the scents that you like the most. Do you enjoy the smell of fresh flowers or the scent of vanilla? Maybe you fall for rich coffee notes or perhaps you lean towards nothing heavier than subtly scented spas.
Before you start building out your fragrance wardrobe, experiment with different scents to see which you enjoy the most. Many retailers offer perfume samples or test-sized bottles before you buy a full-sized one. And lastly, don’t be afraid to try new scents, even if they don’t initially seem like something you would like! You may be surprised by how much you enjoy a fragrance that you didn’t expect to.
You also need to pay attention to your lifestyle and daily activity. If you live in a hot climate, you’ll want to opt for scents that balance the moisture on your skin. If you spend your working week in an office, you’ll probably want a subtle scent that doesn’t overpower your coworkers during your 9-5. If you spend your Friday nights in classy bars drinking cocktails, you might want a heavy, classy scent that works the room for you.
Investing in your core fragrance wardrobe AKA different fragrances for occasions
Your core fragrance wardrobe should be made up of a few staple scents that carry you through your most frequent activities. This could look like one scent for the working week, one for weekend events and one for laid-back occasions when you’re relaxing at home.
Alternatively, if you live in a country with diverse seasons and weather, you might want to base your fragrance wardrobe on the changing weather with one for spring, summer, fall, and winter.
Pairing fragrances with outfits: Supplementing your fragrance wardrobe with a few extra special scents
Once you’ve chosen your base fragrance wardrobe, you can start adding in those extra special perfumes. These fragrances offer a little extra opportunity to ignore your usual wardrobe and branch out with all kinds of accords and notes.
The extra-fancy gala gown you’ve got hanging up in your clothes wardrobe? You might want to choose a fragrance to match, for those extra-fancy occasions when you really want to impress. This element of your perfume wardrobe is also one you can build up over time, investing in a new scent when a particular occasion appears.
And remember that your fragrance wardrobe doesn’t have to be made up of individual perfumes. There’s nothing stopping you from layering your existing scents to build a whole new blend for a different occasion.
The subtle florals of your working-week perfume might pair beautifully with the citrus hues of a vacation scent or the heady amber of your weekend perfume.
When layering, start with the lighter fragrance and allow it to dry completely before applying the second fragrance on top. Keep in mind that fragrances can react differently on different skin types, so it’s important to test the fragrance combination before wearing it out.
We’ve finished talking you through all of the steps to create a fragrance wardrobe, which means you can now head over to Perfume.com to start building out your own!
Georgie Darling is a freelance lifestyle and travel writer from London, England. Her work has been published in ELLE, Yahoo, Red, Grazia, and Tripadvisor, amongst others. When she’s not writing, Georgie spends most of her time travelling to new countries and scuba diving. She’s been an avid fragrance lover since a young age and considers Alaïa by Alaïa Paris to be her signature scent.
