Who wouldn’t love to smell great all day? Wearing your favorite fragrance can certainly help, but you may have noticed that many perfumes wear off by lunchtime. This is likely because you’re not applying your perfume the right way. Most people don’t realize there are best practices for applying fragrance, many of which make perfume last longer. Unfortunately, if you store your perfume in the bathroom or on a display shelf, you’re not storing it correctly either.
Here we’ll cover some tips and best practices for getting the most out of your perfume — both for wearing it and storing it.
Apply perfume on your pulse points
To make your scent last longer, choose a couple of pulse points. These are warm areas that’ll help diffuse the fragrance across your entire body. Also, pro tip: Spraying your ankles and calves allows the scent to rise throughout the day. Your pulse points on your body include:
-On your neck and wrists
-Below your midriff
-Behind your knees and inside your elbows
Familiarize yourself with common perfume terms
Here’s a rundown on a few fragrance terms, so you know exactly what you’re signing up for before you buy a new perfume:
- Top notes: The first scent you smell after spraying the perfume, which fades quickly.
- Middle/heart notes: The scent that develops after the top note fades.
- Base note: The heaviest scent that lingers the longest.
Apply perfume right after taking a shower
The moisture on your skin will help lock in the scent. This will also prevent the fragrance from staining super delicate clothes (like your favorite silk blouse) or jewelry.
Prep your skin with Vaselin before applying perfume
Smooth a little Vaseline on your pulse points before spraying your perfume to make the scent last longer. The ointment holds the fragrance to your skin longer than if you were to spray it onto dry skin.
Dont store perfume in your bathroom
Heat, light, and humidity will break down the perfume and lessen the quality and intensity of the fragrance. Instead, store your perfume bottles in a cool, dry place, like on the vanity in your room and away from windows. Bonus tip: Use a pretty cake stand to display them.
Spray perfume on the top of your ears
It sounds weird, but trust, it works. The oilier your skin is, the better it holds scent, and the top of your ears is a little bit oilier than say, behind your earlobes.
Apply perfume by spritzing, not misting
Do you know how some people spray a bunch of perfume into the air and then walk through it? Yeah, don’t do that—you’re just wasting product and the scent will evaporate after a short amount of time. A direct spritz on to bare skin is all you need to keep the perfume scent on you for longer.
Spray your clothes with perfume
Don’t just stick to spraying perfume on your body—spritz it all over your clothes too. Clothing fibers are able to hold in scents for a very long time (yes, even after you wash it).
Apply perfume after using an unscented body oil
FYI: Dry skin doesn’t hold perfume as well as oily skin does. So layer on an unscented body oil to add a glow, and then apply your perfume—it’ll hold the scent better and you’ll have to reapply less often.
Pay attention to the concentration of your perfume
The concentration is a fancy name for the ratio of perfume to alcohol—the latter helps diffuse a scent—and it determines how long the smell will last on your skin. Eau de perfumes have more perfume and are more intense (they last five hours); Eau de toilettes have less and are lighter (they last three hours.