Author name: finalwebdesign

Brut, Musk, Aldehydes…all of these terms seem to common lingo in the perfume and fragrance world these days, but more than half of the people that shop for perfume don’t even know what they mean. While most people are simply looking for something that smells good, the manufacturers need to be elegant in their terminology. To help you along while shopping for perfumes and fragrances, here are some of the top terms that you’ll hear and what they should mean to you. Musk Musk is actually a secretion that comes from male musk deer, and was often used as an ingredient in perfumes and colognes. While it’s gone slightly out of popularity, you’ll still hear the term plenty while you’re shopping.   Brut Brut often means very dry, and the opposite of sweet (Though not actually sour). Bruts generally have no fruity aromas to them.   Notes Notes are the impressions that people pick up on when smelling fragrances or perfumes. Top notes are often considered the ones that stand out first. Heart notes are usually what you smell after you’ve had some time to take in the initial odor, and base notes are what you smell during perfume evaporation. Floral When perfumes have a very prevalent smell of flowers to them, they are said to have floral notes, which are most commonly picked up on in women’s fragrances.   Citrus Citrus odors often have a little bit of a sour hint to them, like oranges, grapefruits, and lemons.   Fixative In order to make the smell of your fragrances last longer, fixatives are added. Consider them preservatives for your favorite aromas.   Eau de Toilette / Eau de Parfum Perfumes and colognes with this terminology on them are an alcohol based fragrance with about 10-15% of perfume compound in them. This generally makes them less expensive, but can also hinder how long the fragrance lasts.   Distillate Distillates are generally the product that actually goes into your perfume or cologne. For example, violet oil is the distillate of an actual violet plant.   Aqueous Several perfumes have a basic watery smell to them, this is known as an Aqueous odor.   In most cases, these most popular terms are often used in the description of a specific fragrance and not on the labeling. It’s easy to get lost in the terminology that’s often used in our fragrance descriptions, so hopefully this guide of terms will help ease the process of your shopping experience.

Have you ever wandered into a department store to shop for fragrances? What you’ve most likely come up on is a world of scents that you can smell, along with a cup of coffee beans. The salesperson would then have you smell the cup of coffee beans between each fragrance that you sampled. This trick has actually been used for quite some time and has often been the subject of lackluster tests by universities out to debunk what appears to be a myth. The important thing to remember is that coffee beans don’t actually refresh the ability for you to smell the pleasantness of an odor, but rather the intensity. It wasn’t until about 20 years ago that department stores realized the true potential for colognes and other fragrances and how much people wanted them. That being discovered, each major department store worked to make sure that their fragrance department was properly stocked with a variety of options from major fashion and fragrance manufacturers. Shortly after the boom in fragrance sales, it became clear that people’s nostrils were being overwhelmed when shopping and something needed to be done about it. Coffee has quite the subtle aroma that’s easy on the nostrils, and allows your sense of smell to stay open. A quick dip of your nose into a cup of non-grinded coffee beans helps to allow scents to flow freely between the air and your nose. Most people think that this allows you to grasp an odor better, but the issue isn’t about being able to smell, it’s about how much you can smell. A study by UC Berkeley Scientist Noam Sobel showed that there was no actual restriction on how well a person could smell a particular odor whether they breathed in air or coffee beans between each scent. What was restricted was how much of it someone could smell. For example, if you smelled a series of perfumes, and stood 10 feet away from another scent, a person who smelled coffee beans prior to doing so would have an easier time picking up the scent initially. So is it even that department stores have you smell coffee beans to improve your sense of smell? We think not. Actually, the most likely reason that they practice this is that smelling dozens of aromas in a row can often be highly irritating to your nose, so to prevent that irritation, the coffee beans are used to relax your nostrils. So next time you go fragrance shopping, keep this in mind and make sure you give your nose the proper conditioning before you make your final decision.