How to buy the perfect perfume

This month, eight out of 10 bottles of perfume will be bought for somebody else, the sweet-smelling boom of festive figures in December making up over half of the annual sales for popular perfume brands. Yes, the gift of fragrance sits prettily in our top 10 wishlist at Christmas, a recent poll by Procter & Gamble revealing that 85 per cent of us agree that a bottle of perfume is one of the more special gifts waiting for us under the tree.

But there’s a not-so-special catch. For all the cash that we might spend on perfume gifting, most of us probably won’t get it right.

As Boots’ fragrance expert Charlotte Simmonds concedes: “Choosing the perfect perfume as a gift is a risky business,” (particularly as most retailers won’t accept the rejected bottle once it’s been unwrapped and spritzed).

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Truth is, if you’re trying to say it with perfume, nothing says it less than an ill-matched bottle of fragrance. According to Will Andrews, principal fragrance scientist at Procter & Gamble, “Smell works 40 times faster than the thinking brain, a scent immediately taking you back to a moment or emotion, so get it right and you could be creating a life-long memory for someone.”

If you’re struggling, testing the perfumed waters on your own wrists is not much help since everyone’s individual skin pH will alter a perfume slightly.

And if you don’t have the luxury of matching a fragrance to a bottle you’ve surreptitiously borrowed from her dressing table, then how to get it right?

Perfume purists agree that you should work out which of the three feminine fragrance families the recipient belongs to : floral, oriental (with warm spicy notes of resin, vanilla and musk) or chypre (the mossy, woody types). If you’re not privy to her existing perfume stash, perfumer Roja Dove thinks you can have a good stab at her scent ancestry by thinking about her style and personality.

“Floral wearers tend to be carefree and uncomplicated,” says Dove. If that sounds like her, try Byredo’s Flowerhead or Penhaligon’s Bluebell, “Chypre wearers are more understated and tailored in their tastes,” she adds. (You can’t go wrong with Dior’s Dioressence or Estée Lauder’s Private Collection Jasmine White Moss).

“Extravagant personalities love big, exotic oriental scents,” Dove says, and suggests something like Yves Saint Laurent Opium.

“Think, too, about various elements of their style – do they prefer sumptuous interiors and dress in luxurious fabrics and colours? Then an oriental is their match. It’s a good indicator of their olfactive taste, so be sure to look for a fragrance that contains some basic notes to match.”

If you’re still unsure, remember to cast your own opinions aside, advises perfume writer Alice du Parcq: “Avoid being too opinionated, hold off on the very sweet, very green, very spicy or… very 'anything’.”

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