Perfume Buying Basics

• Top Notes / Head Notes: These are the scents that you smell as soon as you apply a perfume. These are often strong fruity, floral or citrus scents that evaporate quickly. Elizabeth Arden’s 5th Avenue for example has a top note that consists of Lilac, Linden Blossom, Dewy Magnolia, Muguet, Exotic Mandarin and Bergamot .
• Middle Notes / Heart Notes: These scents form the main body of the perfume. They are often pleasant floral scents, for example Dior’s J’adore has heart notes of Jasmine and rose.
• Base Notes: These are often rich scents that mixed with the Heart notes make up the main fragrance of a perfume. They are usually not noticeable for at least half an hour after the application of a perfume and can sometimes still be present a day later. An example is Jean Paul Gaultier’s Classique, which has base notes of vanilla and amber.

Fragrance Types

Perfumes are often divided into categories to describe their fragrance types. These types depend on the type of scents that are put into the perfume. The main groups include;

• Floral: this can be Single Floral if one flower type is used (e.g. the Rose) or Floral Bouquet if a combination of flowers are used.
• Woody: Perfumes that are dominated by woody scents, often cedar or sandalwood. These can also have mossy scents.
• Green: The sharp green scent of crushed leaves or fresh-cut grass
• Citrus or Fruity: Fragrances that contain fruit scents e.g. grapefruit or mandarin.
• Oriental: perfumes that contain spicy scents, such as oriental resins, night-blooming flowers, vanilla or musk. 
• Water / Oceanic: Scents that capture soft sea breezes.
• Leathery: A fragrance that features the scents of honey, tobacco, wood or wood tars in its middle or base notes and a scent that alludes to leather. This is often found in men's fragrances.