Beware of fragrances that start off smelling fresh but turn into cheap smelling scents after a few hours. At the same time, a daytime fragrance should not be too overpowering. You should wear spicy or heavy perfumes in the evening and opt for fresh, floral or citrus scents for the day.

If you are going to be wearing your perfume to work and will be in an enclosed environment you should wear a lighter scent. If you will be outdoors most of the time you can afford to wear a heavier perfume.

You may want to take a look at the available women’s perfumes and do a quick survey to check out the ones that fit your budget. Those perfumes that have been around for a while are likely to cost less than new, designer fragrances. You could find the older perfumes at affordable rates with discount retailers.

Whichever perfume you choose, you should make sure it matches your personality. If you are the outdoors type, opt for a sporty fragrance that has fruity floral notes. If you are the romantic sort, choose a sweet but not too strong, floral perfume. Floral perfumes such as sweet pea, jasmine and rose make you feel feminine. For those who like a barely there scent, a fragrance that has hints of mint and grass is perfect. There are many women who like masculine scents. They should choose oak, sandalwood and musk based fragrances. Women who like an air of mystery around them are well suited to exotic, spicy scents such as vanilla and musk. If you are not sure of which fragrance will best match your personality buy a fruity or citrus scent just to be on the safe side.

Before buying a perfume, go to the fragrance counter at your local department store and test at least a few scents. Spray the perfumes on blotters before spraying them on your skin. Now narrow down your choice to two perfumes and spray each on either wrist. Check to see what each fragrance smells like after a few hours. Now take your decision on the basis of the skin test. Keep experimenting with perfumes till you find one that matches your personality perfectly.

To learn more about women’s perfume, be sure to check out our site today.

In most fragrance shops it’s common to find the testers displayed for review, however, you cannot reach the boxes that you will eventually purchase if you should decide to do so. See if it’s possible for the clerk at the fragrance store to give you one of the boxes from the ones that they are selling, not the tester to review. There are legitimate manufacturers that make like perfumes as the original and have the rights to imitate their boxes, bottles, and scents. However they have to state on the box itself either designer imposter, or inspired by. It’s a great tool to check the honesty and knowledge of a fragrance store if they sell such perfumes after you’ve discovered such a statement. If the clerk denies it, then you may want to move on to the next perfume shop.

If you are looking for a designer perfume that you had in the past and want to buy again, and as long as the first time around it was 100% original, take the box and bottle with you. To check the validity of a perfume shop a simple comparison is enough. To find a fragrance shop that sells the original of your particular perfume at a great price it’s important to make sure you can trust them. Compare the boxes and their designs as well as the colors and material. If you find any differences than this fragrance shop sells fakes.

If possible ask the clerk at the fragrance shop to take the bottle out of the box. Keep in mind that it’s possible that the tester bottle and box may be original and what they sell you is different, so if possible check to see if the fragrance shop has a policy that you can check the box and perfume of the fragrance you want to buy. If the fragrance shop doesn’t allow you to open the box ask what their return policy is and open it after you’ve purchased it in front of them to review. If it turns out to be a fake, call them on it and ask for your money back and never return to this perfume store. When checking the perfume review the box and bottle for the spelling of the name, design of emblem, as well as the designer name.

Many impostors at fragrance shops may have the correct packaging, down to the spelling of the designers name; however, even though the bottles are original the color is different. If the perfume you are looking for is a certain color, say yellow, then the perfume at the fragrance shop shouldn’t be a different color. Make sure that you also check for dilution. If the Women’s perfume at the fragranceshop is lighter colored than the original you had it could have been diluted. This is very important to watch out for as sometimes chemicals that are dangerous are used.

As low prices in online fragrance shops are usually easier to find, many head to online auctions and websites. However, validity of an online fragranceshop is almost impossible to confirm. The only way to do it is by seeing what the rest of the customers of this seller have to say. As ebay.com and amazon.com are most commonly searched up for various purchases and are known to have low prices, they have great review options on the different sellers. If you chose to buy from someone on either of these websites check their history, reviews, and consistency. If you are buying from a different website where they don’t have reviews posted for the seller, you may want to do a simple search of the company or website. Usually if there is an unsatisfied customer, you can find a review online in a blog or one of the various rant websites that people discuss different companies and the quality of their product.

As a rule of thumb, when purchasing Women’s perfume from an online perfume shop make sure that you ask for extra pictures. They need to include the bottle and box with their details, and if they send you advertising pictures of the perfume, don’t buy it. Also, make sure that you ask for their return policy, as its good to know that if you didn’t get a good look in the pictures, you can return it if you find out its fake after you’ve received it. Lastly, if it’s really surprisingly cheap, it’s fake.

Avoid going to a hidden away little perfume shop to find high quality perfumes. Anything that looks shady probably is. Best bet is department stores, as they offer somewhat outdated original perfumes at great prices. Also, you may want to follow sales or possible coupons at a trusted fragrance shop. Buying a fake perfume is always a risk due to health hazards, however, they also lose their smell over time and may even smell bad after a while.

John Darly is the founder of Etepia Inc, an online fragrance store featuring an exceptional selection of rare fragrances, cosmetics, skincare, hair care, candles and aromatherapy products. Etepia.com offers more than 2,000 unique brands and more that 6,000 perfume for women and fragrances, all at a discount price.

The strength of perfume and cologne has to be the easiest way to distinguish the two. Perfumes are a lot stronger than colognes. The reason for this is dilution. Both are composed of aromatic compounds in a solvent (typically ethanol or a mix of water and ethanol), but the concentration by percent/volume of those aromatic compounds is higher in perfume than it is in cologne. An average perfume will have 20% aromatic compounds whereas cologne will only have 5%.

The next difference is the “complexity”, or the components of the scent. Perfume is more “complex”, not because it has more components, but because the “notes” of a perfume unfold over time. The top notes are your first impression and they evaporate quickly letting the middle notes come through. Middle notes sort of ease the transition to the base notes which would seem unpleasant at first but become more pleasant with time. The middle and base notes are really what the perfume is all about.

With cologne on the other hand, the first smell is pretty much what you get even though it is composed of multiple scents, which is what we will discuss next.

Aromatic sources, whether natural or synthetic, are the essence of perfume and cologne and they are usually classified into different categories. Now these categories will never be totally objective and they change with time as new perfumes are created. But the point here is that while perfume can be created using many different categories, cologne is traditionally composed of citrus scents such as lemon, orange, grapefruit etc…

Those are the main differences between perfume and cologne in a nutshell. Perfume is stronger and scents unfold making it more complex. Cologne is lighter which also means it doesn’t last as long, but the smell is uniform and traditionally citrus based. So from now on you can target your search a little more and maybe save some time, even though we understand you enjoy those smelling sessions…

The fragrance of a perfume is described as top note at the point when it just gives you a whiff and then passes on. The heart notes then follow where the fragrance actually has a chemical reaction with your skin; and finally are the base notes where the true essence of the fragrance is revealed when the highest molecular weight from the ingredients begin to surface.

There different categories of scents to describe perfumes meant for women and perfumes meant for men. Under the women’s category, we have the most common scent, which is floral. This is in fact the largest category and the primary ingredients are from flowers like rose, jasmine, carnation, violet and orange blossom. Some of the perfumes that come under this category are Paris and White Diamonds. Some of the sub categories for floral fragrances are like floral green (Bvlgari, Chanel 19); floral fruity (Baby Doll, Amarige) and floral woody (L’Eau D’Issey, Romance)

The next category is oriental. This means the scent is made to create warm, exotic impression because of its ingredients like balsams, spices, resins and musk. Perfumes that fall under this category are Royal Secret, Contradiction and Shalimar. Some of the sub categories of oriental are oriental spicy (Opium); oriental citrusy (Candies); floriental (Hugo Woman, Wings) and oriental gourmand (Angel, Casmir and Wish)

The other categories of perfumes are chypre, citrus, fougere and green. Chypre was first described by Francois Coty to describe the aromas from the island of Cyprus. This fragrance is generally sweet, soft and earthy with ingredients like oakmoss, patchouli, bergamot and citruses. Some of the well-known perfumes under this category are Paloma Picasso, Fendi and Femme. Citrus fragrances have citrus fruits like tangerine, lime, mandarin and lemon in them. These are very common in men’s fragrances. Examples of citrus scented perfumes are CK One and Jess. Fougere is French for fern, which relates to freshness and is best described in Cool Water. Green fragrances are from green plant parts like grass, pine and herbs. Safari and Bvlgari Extreme best describe this scent.

Now that we are familiar with the fragrances, what about the concentration? We frequently hear about edt and edp.

Actually, perfumes are the combination of fragrant oils that have been mixed in high-grade alcohol where 15 – 25% is oil and 90 – 95% is pure alcohol. This concentration is known as parfum. When the percentage of oil is lower then it is know as eau (water)

The strength of the eau can vary depending on the percentage of the pure perfume oil that is contained. EDC (Eau de cologne) has the least concentration with just 2 – 5% of perfume oil mixed in water and alcohol. EDT (Eau de toilette) has a bigger concentration of 4 – 10% of perfumed oil. EDP (Eau de parfum) has 8 – 15% perfumed oil and the most highly concentrated of all fragrances is Parfum or perfume, which has 15 – 25% of perfumed oil.