Advice not to be sniffed at

Lynn Gilmour

IT was Freud who said: "The quickest way to trigger an emotional response is with scent." In fact it has been known for centuries that a favourite aroma, from biscuits to blossom, can do wonders for your morale. But what about for your love life?

Gone are the days when spritzing yourself with scent meant a quick dab of Yardley’s best for the ladies, and a splash of Old Spice for the gents. Wearing perfume is no longer reserved for special occasions either, with many of us choosing different scents for both daytime and evening.

Perfume can make us feel special and a well-chosen scent could also easily attract the attention of a special new someone, or reinvigorate a special old one.

Last year saw well over 100 new perfumes launched, but an estimated 90 per cent will not remain on the market for more than 12 months. With £34.2m reportedly being spent on advertising women’s fragrances alone in the year to September 2002, it’s certain the makers are keen for you to indulge your senses with new products. But how do we ever find that elusive perfect scent?

To avoid olfactory overload, there are some simple guidelines to follow when going on a perfume hunt. Always remember that perfumes smell different on every individual, depending on your skin, your hormones, even on what you’ve just eaten.

So try a scent on your skin rather than on a cardboard tester card and let it settle on your skin for a while. Make this your first port of call on a shopping trip so your nose will be clearer and you can leave it to settle.

Spray the scent about ten to 12 inches from your skin to help diffuse the perfume. Wrists are the classic place as they are a pulse point, but don’t rub them together as this will "damage" the scent.

Ideally the top, middle and base notes of the fragrance should blend to create a harmony. As some evaporate more quickly than others, the fragrance will seem to change as time passes. We’ve all wrinkled our noses at the first overpowering wave of scent from a newly doused wrist, so you must wait before you sniff and allow the fragrance to open up on your skin and in the atmosphere. If you still like it after a couple of hours, then ask for a tester. This way you can try out the fragrance over a few days and in different situations to find out if you really could live with it.

But finding your perfect match in the perfume department could also lead to a potent match in the romance department. And, if the manufacturers are to be believed, finding the right perfume could change your life.

But if you’re not entirely convinced of the veracity of this, you could always seek scent-sible advice from the stars themselves. Although many of them probably change their perfumes as often as they swap their significant others, this is what some celebrities have opted for recently:

• Minnie Driver chooses the designer elegance of Marc Jacobs.

• Despite it being the title of arch-rival Christina Aguilera’s recent hit, Britney Spears picks the floral notes of Estee Lauder’s Beautiful.

• When not fighting vampires, Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar chooses the soft floral tones of Clarins’ Eau Dynamisante.

• Madonna and Martine McCutcheon are said to like Dolce and Gabbana fragrances, with Ms McCutcheon choosing By.

• Victoria Beckham lets her head go with a spritz of the pretty, feminine scents from Anna Sui, while David chooses a scent from Prince Charles’ favourite perfumer, Creed, and dabs on Millesime.

• Cameron Diaz likes Clinique’s Happy and Elton John dabs on Clinique’s Happy for Men.

• Keanu Reeves wears Helmut Lang’s Cuiron Pour Homme.

• Hugh Grant smells as good as he looks, thanks to Richard James.

• And Matthew Perry can visit George Street any time he wants to buy another bottle of Jo Malone’s Vetyver.