Tips from Perfumers: 21 Ways to Make Everything Smell Wonderful

Scents, from luxurious perfumes to a bowl of oranges, can transform your feelings about yourself, others, and places, but finding the right fragrance for the situation and removing bad odours can be tricky. Here are 20 top tips from perfumers to make everything around you and your home smell great.

1. Scent is a powerful experience

Ezra-Lloyd Jackson, a perfumer and artist at Deya, loves turning unappealing smells into something comforting, and vice versa. He’s fascinated by scent’s ability to elicit instant, strong emotions.

2. Smell is tied to memory

Maya Njie designs perfumes reflecting her Swedish and Gambian roots after trying other forms of art. She emphasizes the link between scent and memory, noting that smells can evoke emotional responses far stronger than photos. Jackson compares this to “internal time travel,” a non-verbal way to communicate.

3. You can train your nose

According to Jackson, understanding perfume starts by learning different scents. Elodie Durande, who trained at the University of Montpellier and works for Ffern, also highlights the importance of developing your olfactory abilities. This includes remembering and describing smells.

4. Scent experts encourage everyone to actively engage with smells.

Mandy Aftel, a natural perfumer from Berkeley, suggests being more conscious of everyday scents, like your coffee or what’s baking in the oven, to discover personal fragrance preferences.

5. You can change your scent associations – if you choose

Njie suggests that if you want to alter a bad scent memory, like that of an ex-partner’s perfume, you can start wearing that scent yourself to build new associations. Aftel warns to be mindful of the powerful connections scents have to memories, as they are a part of your identity.

6. Be patient when selecting a fragrance

Lynn Harris, creator of Perfume H and Miller Harris, advises taking your time and being in the right state of mind when looking for a new fragrance. Be open with sales assistants about what you enjoy, and they can help you find something that suits you.

7. Choose a fragrance for the season

Harris recommends selecting scents aligned with the seasons, paralleling the way we change our wardrobes. Fresh and green for spring, perhaps something warm and sexy for winter.

8. Try fragrances on your skin

To find the right scent, Harris suggests applying different options to your skin, such as on each wrist. Check how they unfold throughout the day, paying attention to pleasure and emotion they evoke. Njie notes that body heat affects how a fragrance performs.

9. Wear what you like, not what you think. Fragrance is about personal emotion, not just attraction

Fragrance has typically been divided into “feminine” or “masculine” categories, with certain scents, like floral notes, traditionally seen as masculine. These scents were also thought to be for attracting someone else’s attention. However, Njie, who creates unisex perfumes, remarks that these distinctions are becoming increasingly unclear. Nowadays, fragrance is more focused on how it makes the wearer feel, whether that’s more confident, secure, or another emotion.

10. Use scent to enhance or match your mood

Aftel explains that her perfumes are very much tied to moods; she has perfumes that convey sadness, others that are sensual for date nights, and some that are calming like being amidst trees. Scents can also be chosen to commemorate special events like birthdays or weddings, creating new memories with that particular fragrance, as suggested by Jackson.

11. Apply perfume where you can enjoy it subtly

Njie prefers to spray perfume on her wrist and behind her neck. She finds spraying at the front makes her immune to the scent quickly, whereas, placing it in peripheral areas allows for sporadic enjoyment. Njie also suggests spraying on clothes or a sleeve for easier access. For those with long hair, spraying a little and walking through the mist allows the scent to linger. Durande recommends varying the application sites, like the wrists or legs, to enjoy a whiff with movement, keeping the scent noticeable without being desensitized to it.

12. Keep your fragrance from being too intense

Njie advises considering others when in shared spaces, pointing out that a strong scent isn’t necessarily a good one. A more subdued scent can be just as appealing and is better suited for intimate interactions. Harris echoes this sentiment, expressing that fragrance should be personal and not intrusive. Durande suggests reapplying your fragrance to a different body part once it fades.

13. Choose scents that last longer

Durande notes that perfumes with base notes such as woody, ambery, or sweet scents like vanilla and caramel tend to last longer on the skin.

14. Consider sustainability in your scent choices

Njie’s brand is vegan and offers refill options, using recycled materials for packaging. However, she cautions that ‘natural’ does not always mean more sustainable or safer, and sometimes synthetic ingredients can be the better choice due to a lower carbon footprint and fewer allergens.

15. Identifying a counterfeit fragrance

The internet is full of imitations of popular perfumes, which can be difficult to distinguish from the real thing. According to Durande, unless you have a finely-tuned sense of smell and are very familiar with the original, it might be hard to spot the subtle differences in a high-quality dupe.

16. There are times when it’s best to go fragrance-free

Durande, who works with fragrances professionally, prefers to take a break from scents during her off-hours to reset her sense of smell, enabling her to better focus on her creations when working.

17. Natural aromas can enhance your living space

Aftel suggests using natural items like fruit or herbs to add fragrance to a room instead of synthetic candles or incense. A bowl of oranges, a bouquet of mint, or a combination of jasmine and peaches can offer a beautiful and tactile way of incorporating scent into your surroundings.

18. Tips from Perfumers

Jackson also recommends embracing the aromas of cooking, such as cardamom or honeyed carrots, in place of artificial fragrances. To effectively neutralize the smell of garlic, it’s important to start by rinsing with cold water before using hot water.

19. Reward chores with scent

Njie often uses candles and incense at home as a form of reward after completing chores, providing relaxation. Durande prefers palo santo or Papier d’Arménie for its nostalgic and calming effect, while Jackson cleverly sprays fragrance on radiators to disperse scent as the heat rises.

20. When it comes to laundry scent

Aftel advises careful consideration, as the fragrance from laundry products can linger and become overwhelming. She suggests choosing scents that have a natural progression and dissipate over time, providing a more authentic experience with a natural beginning and end.

21. Dealing with persistent odours

Njie recommends ventilating the area by opening a window to let fresh air in, rather than trying to mask the smell. Aftel proposes using frankincense resin on a tea light to spread a pleasant, natural aroma throughout the house as an effective measure, but sometimes, she jests, one may just need to open the windows and hope for the best.