Get Your Fragrance Concepts Right

Custom dictates everyone leaves a distinct aura in their wake. But making sense of scents is more complicated than you’d think. Even for the creators of perfume, or ‘noses’ as the trade calls them.

Experts say a nose must have an exceptional sense of smell, and much more. He or she must have the ability to retain a memory bank of more than 20,000 different scents, from which to draw between 100 and 500 to blend into a new perfume! That’s breath-taking. Isn’t it?

You can say that again, and it’s necessary because society’s frenzy for fragrance is constantly changing. The first perfumes, like incense, personified gods, or tried to please them with sweet fragrances.

From their symbolic function as burnt offerings, fragrances moved toward important events in life and death, such as use as aromatic embalming materials, and as tantalizing aroma at ceremonies and banquets, to set the right mood for the occasion.

The lasting lure of perfumes has also had much to do with the need to cover up bad smells. And overtime, the motive has become increasingly focused on sexual attraction and the search for the forbidden.

Whatever your fragrance concept: vague, brief, fresh floral, zesty sea breeze-appeal, or even strong, aggressive smell that says, ‘I’m here, see me and smell me’; it’s important to get it right, at the least possible cost to you.