“Perfume is like a new dress, it makes you quite simply marvelous.”
Estée Lauder
Perfume has been used for centuries to help people smell lovely. In days gone by, perfume was often used to mask less attractive smells. Although this is no longer the case, smelling attractive all day gives us confidence and makes us feel really good. Perfume can certainly lift the spirits, make a good impression, and an attractive perfume can make you truly memorable.
Before you even reach for your favorite perfume bottle, there are some tricks that will help you feel great all day through. A tip that might sound strange is to drink plenty of water. The reason for this is that water helps the body to work well and can also help dilute strong smells such as garlic and coffee.
Choose Your Fragrances
Spend time buying your perfume so that you can buy the one that suits you and your skin best. Decide whether you would like to have a signature scent, or you would prefer to have several different fragrances so you can choose the one that suits your mood each day.
As well as choosing your fragrance, think about all the other ‘smellies’ that you like to use, such as washing products for your clothes, hair shampoos, and antiperspirants. If you choose strongly perfumed products and use them all together, you will end up ‘drowning’ your gorgeous perfume. It is far better to spend time choosing products with fragrances that will complement your perfume. If in doubt, you will find that specialist washing liquid for wool smells lovely and baby toiletries are ideal because they are subtle too.
How You Store Your Clothes
There are several ways to make your clothes help you to smell lovely. Washing them often is essential; using products that complement and enhance your chosen fragrance rather than fight it! Hang all your clean clothes in your wardrobe and pop a few white tissues that you have sprayed either with your signature perfume or a complementary fragrance, on hangers at regular intervals, as your clothes will absorb the fragrance. You will need to re-spray the tissues every week, but they work well!
This same trick can be used in your undie drawer too! Either use a perfume sachet that you have bought in town or spray some tissues with your chosen fragrance (or a complimentary one) and pop them in the drawer. Refresh them regularly.
Getting a Good Start to the Day
Trying to smell really good when you have a long working day ahead of you can be quite a challenge, but there are some really clever tricks that you can build into the daily routines that will help you to smell lovely until you can turn the key in your front door again.
Start With Your Morning Shower
• Once you have enjoyed a refreshing shower, using a shower gel that will complement your fragrance, quickly dry yourself.
• Before getting dressed, apply moisturizer to your skin as this will ‘lock’ in the smell of your perfume. A great way to enhance the smell of your fragrance is by adding it to your moisturizer. You can buy moisturizer with your chosen fragrance or you can make your own. Use a good quality oil-based unperfumed moisturizer (it doesn’t have to be an expensive one). Add a few drops of your chosen fragrance to the bottle of moisturizer and shake really well. Apply to your skin and very gently rub it in the cream.
• Apply your antiperspirant, and whilst it is drying, you can brush your hair. Spray your fragrance on your hairbrush and then brush your hair – experts say that this is much better than spraying perfume straight onto your hair as this can have a drying effect.
The Pulse Points – Perfect for Perfume
• Now it is time to apply your perfume – quickly whilst the pores of your skin are still open. Do this before you get dressed and definitely before you put on any jewelry.
• Apply your fragrance to your body’s pulse points. The pulse points are the areas where your body is warmer, and this helps your fragrance to develop – or where some would say, these are the points where you would like to be kissed!
The pulse points include the back of your neck, your ear lobes, the inside of your wrists, the crook of your elbow, the back of your knees and your ankles. Lightly spray or dab your perfume but don’t try and rub it in as this will make the lovely ‘top notes’ of your fragrance disappear.
And Some More Clever Tricks!
• Leave getting dressed for a few moments to ensure that your perfume has dried on your skin. If you are wearing several layers, another clever trick is to lightly spray perfume between the layers or if you are wearing a lined skirt between the lining and the material. (if this is the first time you have done this, patch test first to ensure it doesn’t stain or damage the fabric).
• Another clever way to ensure you are enveloped by your lovely fragrance is to wear a scarf, lightly sprayed with fragrance. Even if you don’t want to wear a scarf, you can tie it to your handbag – Parisian style!
Ways to Ensure Your Fragrance Lasts the Day
A good quality perfume usually lasts 3-4 hours before it needs to be freshened. There is a way that you can try to help make your fragrance last just that little bit longer…
The easiest way to freshen up is to have a travel-size bottle of your perfume to keep in your handbag. If you do not have one, there is a clever trick yo keep your fragrance going through the day.
• Spray a few cotton wool balls with your chosen fragrance and quickly pop them into a small plastic bag. Whenever you feel that you need a ‘refresh’ simply dab one of your
Supply of the cotton wool balls on all your pulse points – you will be surprised and delighted by how well this works.
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