Whether you’re getting dolled up to celebrate V-Day with your S.O. or staying in for a much-needed self-care day, spritzing on a sexy scent will have you living in your best soft girl era. If you’re anything like me, you might choose your perfume based on your mood, the occasion, the time of day, or even your outfit. It’s been said that a person’s scent is just as important as their appearance.
With thousands of perfumes on the market, navigating different fragrances can be overwhelming. Your aroma can reveal a lot about you and selecting your ideal scent is highly personal. Different perfumes can give off different vibes – from bright and upbeat to complex and sensual. While finding the perfect perfume can take time, here are five tips on how to find your signature scent.
1. Get To Know Your Notes
Within each perfume or cologne, you find different “notes.” These notes consist of three individual layers called the top, middle, and base notes. Each note serves a significant purpose and when mixed together, can create an enchanting, unforgettable scent. When you first spray perfume, the first note you will smell is the top note. The top notes typically last for about fifteen minutes before making way for the other two notes to dominate.
The middle notes start to appear once the top notes fade. Dubbed the “heart” of the perfume, the middle notes’ goal is to cling to some of the aroma while ushering in new scents. These lovely notes make up between forty to eighty percent of most fragrances and will most likely be the notes that you will smell the most while you’re wearing your perfume.
The final fragrance notes, which will settle into your skin for hours, will only appear after the top notes have worn away. After about thirty minutes, the base notes, which are usually a bit heavier and deeper, will then introduce themselves and add more richness to the perfume.
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2. Narrow Down a Fragrance Family
Now that you know about fragrance notes, you can figure out which signature scent will speak to you the most. The perfume universe is mainly divided into four “families.” Each scent family has distinctive characteristics, and you will often be attracted to one scent over another when it comes to choosing a perfume that suits you.
- Floral – If you’re wanting to smell like a bouquet of beautiful hand-picked flowers, then the floral scent family may be the perfect find for your signature scent. From delicate notes of daisy to gentle layers of ylang-ylang and lavender, floral formulations are full of class, romance, and luxury.
- Fresh – With uplifting and exhilarating notes such as lemon zest and mandarin, the fresh fragrance family is commonly made of citrus, water, and green notes. Hence the name “fresh,” these fragrances are usually associated with more clean vibes.
- Oriental – Regularly referred to as “amber” fragrances, oriental perfumes are often associated with exotic and spicy scents. Softened with intertwining scents of jasmine, cinnamon, and orchid, this signature scent is often described as warm, decadent, and seductive.
- Woody – Another warm family, woody fragrances are usually inspired by nature, blended with a slight masculine edge (similar to some aftershaves). Creamy, yet mysterious and sensual, these signature compositions are typically described as warm and dry – perfect for a night out on the town.
3. Determine How Long You Want It To Last
Fragrances come in four different levels of concentration. As the concentration gets higher, the price usually gets higher as well. With the highest concentration of perfume oils (between twenty to forty percent), parfum has the longest staying power – usually lasting on the skin for six to eight hours. Eau de Parfum has the second strongest concentration of perfume oils, normally between fifteen to twenty percent, and typically lasts about six hours after spraying. Eau de Toilette has less perfume oil, around five to fifteen percent, and lasts about three to four hours. Eau de Cologne has the lowest concentration of around two to five percent and lasts about two hours after application.
4. Sample the Scents
The most crucial part of finding your new signature fragrance is, of course, testing it out. While some fragrances may seem like love at first spritz, allowing the fragrance to sit on your skin is very important. Try spraying it on a pulse point or a spot where your skin is a little bit warmer, such as your inner wrist or elbow. Take a few moments and let the fragrance oxidate and play with your body’s natural chemistry, revealing its true self over time. Try not to disrupt the scent by rubbing your wrists together.
As an additional tip: Don’t try out a bunch of different perfumes or colognes at one time. Spread it out over a few different trips to the perfume counter. Also, make sure to take a sniff of the coffee beans, or even a part of your body that has no smell, to cleanse your olfactory palate in between scents.
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5. Choose a Scent That Reflects Your Personality
One thing is for sure: Your signature scent should reflect your personality and leave you feeling incredibly confident. Take your time, and learn about yourself, your style, and your taste before committing to a perfume. Do you love flowers and all things sweet? Or do you enjoy that “fresh out of the shower” scent? Then think about the purpose of your future fragrance – is it for every day, for evenings out, for special occasions, or for work? Additionally, once you nail down the notes that you are attracted to, it may be helpful to research perfumes you think may interest you – make sure to read the reviews and be aware of the different price points. If possible, relay this information to a retail fragrance expert and they can provide you with recommendations based on your profile.
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak
