Fragrance has long been regarded as holding a mysterious power over the senses. It can emulate a soft blanket, a summer garden, or a sip of fruity iced tea on a hot day. With one inhale comes a sound, a taste, physical sensation, personality; it’s a sensory enchantment we’ve utilized for thousands of years.

Buying your own scent, however, is a known trial to men and women alike. You can follow seasons and trends, sure—warm scents in the winter, flowery ones in the spring. How about quality? Is this masculine or feminine? What’s Victoria Beckham wearing nowadays?

For a decision so layered and personal, your choice in perfume has to come from within. To find great fragrances, you must become acquainted with the different factors to consider.

The science of smell

To the mind, scents can bring about emotions and memories. The body isn’t immune to these olfactory complexities, either. Physical responses to odors are deeply ingrained in people’s DNA. We instinctively avoid the smell of illness, newborns can sniff out breasts to feed, and we can even literally reek of anxiety.

Scientific evidence of human pheromones has been elusive, but it’s at least proven in practice. Our perception of one’s smell can indicate genetic compatibility in potential mates, and even compatible sexualities!

With scent being so significant in different aspects of life, choosing the right fragrance to apply may be dizzying. When you know what you’re looking at though, it’s a fun and creative process. With results that can live on even longer than you do. Wait, what? That’s right…

Pick a persona

A person’s fragrance can evoke vivid memories of them even after their face has nearly been forgotten. Does the smell of Diorissimo make you remember your great-grandmother who passed before you could even read?

Our memories are intrinsically linked to odors, and the right smell can trigger a memory you didn’t know you had. If you select a perfume, your memory will live on in that scent. Switching between perfumes is a great way to mix things up, and many people love having a variety of fragrances to choose from. This often requires a lot of trial and error though, but ScentBox makes it easy and affordable.

Leaving wakes

At its most subtle, your fragrance of choice may only be detectable when one leans in close enough to whisper. In more potent and memorable forms, though, it can be the first trait that strangers notice, and the last thing you leave behind.

This isn’t to say it should be as overpowering as a punch to the nose. A perfume’s trail, or sillage, is meant to be mystifying and elegant. As you step off the elevator, it’s the brief bloom of fragrance in your wake that has those you’re walking away from almost wishing you’d come back. A quality sillage isn’t a lingering miasma. But more of an afterglow that radiates from your body and leaves behind a momentary trace of your presence. And then, it’s gone.

You aren’t picking a product, but a feeling

In choosing a scent, you aren’t simply shopping for a product. It’s more complex than that—a sensation, a character. It determines how others will perceive and remember you.

Elements of a perfume’s composition—light head notes such as citrus, full heart notes such as flora, and lingering base notes that include woods or musk—are carefully tuned by perfumers into an aromatic melody. When properly harmonized, these individual notes combine into a deeper feeling that cannot be easily described.

When shopping, look at the perfumes’ notes and think about how you want to be thought of. A gentle soul with a soft, fluffy scent—a puff of pink powder? Someone nurturing, with a smooth fragrance that brings to mind coziness and a crackling fireplace? Or perhaps you’d rather be an alluring enigma—a woody musk that smells as it does on a late night in a balcony, hooded gazes, and a dark shade of purple.

People have layers, and so can your fragrance

In cultivating your ideal character, you can even go beyond a single perfume by layering different products, from body wash to hair mist to lotion. As emerging perfumer Alexander Lee recommended in an interview with Glamour, try mixing contrasting scents, or adding products that will compliment a certain strong note or even form a new facet of the accord.

It’s actually quite similar to the color theory. As many scent notes do, complementary shades oppose each other on the color wheel to create balance. Meanwhile, a single color can look like a completely different shade depending on the colors adjacent—not dissimilar to how one new top note can seem to create a totally new fragrance.

Through layering fragrances and a bit of trial and error, you can create your very own scent—one that perfectly captures your character and projects it to the world.

Chemistry—qualities and quantities

A perfume’s chemical structure is as important as its scent. While the descriptions written on the packaging can tell you about the notes a fragrance hits, the chemistry involved can be a bit more complicated to understand.

For a blend of perfume oils (both natural and synthetic) to mix into the water-based concoction, a solvent such as ethyl alcohol is used to both disperse the oils and carry the scent through its wear.

The concentration of perfume oil determines the fragrance’s potency, and is necessary to understand before shopping. Too low a concentration and it fades within the hour, but too strong and a theoretically pleasant scent can turn your car into a gas chamber.

The highest concentration category is parfum, also called pure perfume or extrait de parfum, typically falling between 15 and 30 percent perfume oil. This is the kind of smell that you can taste, and that lingers in a room hours after you’ve left.

Eau de parfum is second-highest and the most popular—it measures around 15 to 20 percent. These scents are meant to last on your body throughout the day, but not on anything or anyone else.

Then comes eau de toilette at 5 to 15 percent oil concentration, a light scent that will likely fade by the evening. Eau de cologne (make no mistake, it isn’t just a term for masculine scents) is about 2 to 4 percent, and only lasts a few hours.

At the bottom of the hierarchy is eau fraiche, with only 1 to 3 percent oil and no solvent. Instead, the scent is carried only by water, and really only serves as a quick refresher.

Each concentration has its own perks, and your choice should be out of personal preference. Whether you feel your lifestyle is more suited to a heavy parfum that rubs off on everyone you touch, or an eau de cologne that will only get you through the evening, the concentration level is only another part of what makes your scent your own.

Smell it, test it, make it yours

Fragrance is one of the easiest traits for the mind to latch on to, and your personal variety is a huge factor in your overall image. Picking the perfect fragrance means considering your options—and your body. Our own unique hormones and pheromones can interact with fragrances in surprising ways, from diminishing a scent to accentuating it, and even turning it into something else altogether.

When it’s so important to test fragrances on your skin before purchasing, it can be difficult to effectively shop for perfumes without going to the counter. That’s exactly why SCENTBOX exists, providing an affordable and fun way to shop for designer fragrances. Testing perfumes has never been simpler. New designer fragrances—shipped monthly—straight to your door for you to sample without any fuss.

Subscribe today, totally commitment free; pay monthly and cancel any time. We’re okay with keeping the relationship open.

Whether you prefer a consistent family of fragrances or like to change it up every month, or whether you’ll flaunt it or keep it low-key. Finding and buying perfume that suits you perfectly is a journey worth taking. And we’re here to take it along with you.