"Hello, I would have liked to know your perfumes but many say they smell good but don't hold so I'm disappointed because for me a perfume should be subtle but should hold. It's a shame"
There's nothing more frustrating than a perfume that doesn't last... And many of you have shared with us your reluctance to try our perfumes after reading some of the feedback about their staying power. Your impressions - whether positive or negative - are important to us and allow us to move forward and always do better.
So, in response to this feedback, we've written a full article on the reasons why some perfumes don't last. Read on, we'll shed some light on this and give you all our tips on how to prolong the wear of your favorite fragrance! Here we go.
Whose fault is it?
Before we begin, know that your perfume is not the only thing to blame in this story. There are many reasons why your perfume may not hold up or may not hold up well enough. Among them:
- Your skin
- How you scent
- Time of application
- Your brain with the addiction effect
- A track not to be ruled out: the Covid (yes, unfortunately!)
- And... your perfume!
Now that we've listed the reasons, you may have heard that factors not directly related to your favorite fragrance can actually affect its wear. They are inherent to you and concern you and your habits! We explain.
I. The first reason concerns you
Your skin
Skin is an important factor to consider when it comes to fragrance wear. Your skin type, pH or temperature can affect how well your fragrance is absorbed and maintained on your skin.
The type of skin
If you have dry or dehydrated skin, your perfume may not last as long as someone with oily skin. What is recommended is to moisturize your skin well before applying your perfume, using a moisturizer (ideally without perfume) because perfume usually lasts longer on an oily body.
The pH of your skin
Then, to go into more detail, if your skin is normal, dry or oily, it depends on an indicator: the pH of the skin. So depending on your pH, which ultimately determines your skin type, your perfume will hold more or less well.
The skin is covered with a "hydrolipidic" film whose constitution determines the pH of your skin. The pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a compound, or in this case of your skin.
As we said before, oily skin will naturally have an easier time holding a perfume and vice versa. The reason?
Le pH d’une peau est naturellement acide et vacille généralement entre 5,2 et 7. Mais dans le cas dans le cas d’une peau grasse, la peau est dite plus alcaline et le pH peut, dans ce cas, être plus élevé que la moyenne. En revanche, dans le cas d’une peau très sèche, le pH est plus bas (pH < 4) et rend votre peau plus acide.
So quite simply, if your skin is "normal", good news: your skin will welcome all types of perfumes. If your skin is "oily" and therefore has a higher than average pH, the more supple your skin will be and the more your fragrance will stick to your skin. Be careful, however, because if your skin is too alkaline (i.e. too oily), your skin can sometimes retain your perfume too much, so be careful with high concentrations of perfume that may be too much for your skin.
On the contrary, the higher your acidity level - corresponding to a low pH and therefore a relatively dry skin - the less the perfume will hold. Thus, for dry or "acidic" skin, we recommend either :
- use a higher concentration of perfume than eau de toilette or cologne to give your perfume a chance to hold onto your skin better
- choose a fragrance with more persistent notes, such as amber, oriental or woody fragrances, which generally have more intense notes! Just think of Bataille, our incandescent woody fragrance featuring patchouli and its contrasts between warm and cold, or Un Deux Trois Soleil, our mischievous oriental fragrance that will delight lovers of tonka bean and vanilla, to maximize the staying power of your fragrance.
- or apply a fatty substance (cream, moisturizing milk without perfume) to facilitate the holding of your perfume to the skin
Note that the pH of the skin can also fluctuate depending on what you eat and/or the beauty or skin care products you use on your skin.
Your body temperature
Secondly, your skin temperature can also play an important role in how well your fragrance holds up. Your body temperature actually has an impact on the wearability of your fragrance because it affects how the fragrance interacts with the skin.
When it's very hot, or after physical exertion, your body temperature is quite high, your skin is hotter, and the result: you sweat. The more you sweat, the less the fixation is, because the perfume "goes away" from your skin as it breathes.
On the other hand, in the case of a stable body temperature, we strongly advise you toapply the perfume on the hot points of the skin (your wrists, behind your ears, in the folds of your elbow or behind your knees): the heat which emanates from these points of "pulsation" makes it possible to multiply its diffusion tenfold.
The method and timing of application
How you apply your fragrance and when you apply it can also affect how long it lasts.
The application method
If you simply spray the perfume into the air to form a cloud of fragrance and simply walk through the mist, your perfume will not last as long in addition to evaporating or falling on places that do not hold the fragrance. Our advice: scent your skin and spray your perfume on your textiles as well. Guaranteed to last!
Remember, if you want to maximize the diffusion of your perfume, apply your perfume to your pulse points and for maximum hold, apply an odorless moisturizer before applying your perfume. The oil will help your perfume to stick to your skin.
To perfume yourself like a chef and to get all the advice you need to make your perfume diffuse irresistibly and for as long as possible, go here: Advice from a perfumer: how to perfume yourself?
Time of application
To maximize the staying power of your fragrance, the timing of its application can also affect its duration.
If you apply your perfume right after you shower, it can help it last longer. The warm water opens the pores of the skin, allowing your fragrance to hold on even better - which means your scent is more likely to last.
Your brain
Another case for those who no longer smell their perfume after wearing it several times: addiction!
If you wear the same perfume every day, it is normal that your brain gets used to it and ends up considering your perfume as your own. The solution to avoid losing the ability to smell your beloved perfume? Change your perfume as often as possible.
We finally found a valid excuse to accumulate bottles of perfume!
A track not to be ruled out: the consequences of the Covid
We couldn't write this article without mentioning Covid and its impact on the sense of smell. We are of course talking about one of the common symptoms of Covid: anosmia - the complete loss of smell (and taste) in some patients.
This loss of smell affected a large majority of people with Covid. And for many of them, the anosmia proved to be more persistent than with others. While some people quickly regained their sense of smell, others are still deprived of this sense or are still in the process of regaining it little by little.
And this is where the staying power of your perfume can be explained: for those who have had Covid and lost their sense of smell, your perfume may not smell as much as it used to because of the transient loss of your sense of smell.
So even if you think you have fully recovered your sense of smell, don't hesitate to stimulate it as much as possible and to work on it regularly with simple exercises such as smelling everything around you in order to focus your sense of smell and help you (re)strengthen your olfactory connections.
The sense of smell is like a muscle, you have to work on it, and in the case of Covid-related anosmia, frankly, it's no big deal to retrain your nose! So if you suspect that Covid has caused you to lose some of your olfactory abilities: cultivate your sense of smell, use it repeatedly and intensively, and maybe you'll feel your perfume just as you did the first time you smelled it. And since we think of everything at Bastille, here's an article that brings together all our advice on how to improve your sense of smell and become an expert nose at the same time: "How to improve your sense of smell and become an expert nose".
II. Your perfume: the second culprit!
The second factor that affects the staying power of your perfume is your perfume itself. The architecture of your perfume, i.e. its concentration, its composition but also its conservation are three possible variables that influence how the perfume holds on your skin.
The concentration of your perfume
For each name: perfume, eau de parfum or eau de toilette, its concentration.
The latter corresponds to the percentage of odorous ingredients contained in the total ethyl solution. In other words:
- In a perfume, the concentrate is usually present in 15% to 30% of the finished product
- In an eau de parfum, between 12 and 15% - in fact, all Bastille fragrances are eaux de parfums!
- In an eau de toilette, between 7 and 12%.
Attention: this is a convention, that is to say a habit of the perfume houses but there is no strict rule on the subject. To understand all these subtleties of names, go to our article: Eau de toilette vs. eau de parfum, what's the difference?
So the higher the concentration of your perfume, the longer it will last on the skin. But we see you coming! Why not just create higher concentration fragrances to have a scent that lasts and is intense all day? "The Big Book of Fragrance" explains that:
"After this optimal concentration, the perfume settles and is so concentrated that the opposite effect occurs: the balance is broken, it loses its radiance and its trail, sticks to the skin and no longer diffuses." - source: "Le Grand Livre du Parfum" by the NEZ collective
The composition of your perfume
The olfactory pyramid
The composition of a perfume corresponds to the "construction" of the perfume that is more generally called the olfactory pyramid. This pyramid is composed of the top notes (at the top of the pyramid), the middle notes (in the center) and the base notes (at the bottom).
Top notes are the most volatile raw materials, usually the freshest, which evaporate first. The most typical top notes are the hesperides, i.e. citrus fruits (lemon, mandarin, bergamot, etc.). These are raw materials that are very present in "fresh waters" or Colognes. We can also find, alongside the hesperides, aromatic notes, citrus (lavender, rosemary, basil ...), the famous marine notes, watery, and some fruity notes that have very volatile components such as pear, for example.
These molecules are lighter and therefore evaporate more quickly than perfumes with heavier notes, such as the musk, amber or vanilla found in Un Deux Trois Soleil, our mischievous oriental, or the sandalwood found mixed with aromatic notes in our eau de parfum Demain Promis, which therefore hold up better over time.
So if your perfume is a fresh eau, a Cologne or has very strong top notes, it will logically last less than a perfume with very strong middle and base notes. Hors-PisteFor example, the hesperide in our collection contains more top notes than the others, and is therefore more volatile due to its composition. On the other hand, its concentration remains that of an eau de parfum - which gives it more staying power than a classic eau de toilette / Cologne.
To understand the whole olfactory pyramid of a perfume, go to our dedicated article: How to smell and choose your perfume?
The choice of raw materials
When it comes to composition, the choice and/or balance between natural and synthetic raw materials also comes into play. Initially, at Bastille, we started with a 100% natural formulation, but this lacked elegance and hold. We therefore opted for a balance of 95% natural and 5% synthetic clean, carefully selected to accompany our natural raw materials, and give life to exceptional accords.
Composing in natural is a real challenge for a perfumer and also implies concessions because what also allows your perfumes to hold well in time, are the synthetics... Today the synthetics are mainly issued from petrochemistry.
As an eco-responsible brand, we have chosen to limit their use as much as possible. We have paid particular attention to the formulation of our perfumes with IFF perfumers by banning endocrine disruptors, solvents, stabilizers, colorants, or anti-UV filters from all our compositions.
Our ambition at Bastille is to set ourselves in motion to compose tomorrow and create fragrances that are free in both creation and interpretation, and that are good, beautiful, ethical and respectful of the planet.
Today, we choose to compose our perfumes with 95% natural ingredients and minimize the synthetic ones simply because the synthesis presents more known risks (their origin a.k.a. the petrochemistry and their consequences on the planet and for certain molecules of synthesis on health) than the natural one. But tomorrow, everything can change.
With the rise of green chemistry and biotechnology, solutions for creating raw materials that are more responsible, without risk to health, with very low energy consumption and more respectful of the environment are emerging. It is urgent to innovate! A more complete article on the subject is in preparation, we look forward to telling you more.
You will certainly have understood: because we have at heart to follow our ambition, our perfumes will also move to continue to offer you the most creative and respectful perfumes for your skin and our dear planet. Let's not forget: if we favor natural products today, it's because we believe that they are the most respectful and ethical solution compared to synthetic products made from petrochemicals and their global and current consequences on our planet (and sometimes on our health). However, this does not mean that the use of natural raw materials is without consequences.
If tomorrow the whole perfume world goes natural, there will not be enough flower fields to produce enough essential oils to satisfy all needs.
This is why it is all the more important to choose the right partners for the sourcing of natural materials and in our case, we have chosen to work with IFF-LMR, a pioneer laboratory for natural and ethical sourcing of fragrance ingredients worldwide. By choosing IFF-LMR, we make the choice today to work with local producers around the world to allow perfumers to compose with pure, natural, transparent and sustainable ingredients that redefine quality standards. Working with IFF-LMR means :
- guarantee transparency and traceability of natural ingredients,
- to have visibility on the carbon footprint of natural fragrance ingredients and to move towards an effective reduction strategy,
- work directly with growers and producers to improve practices, quality and yields,
- Choose responsible sourcing that improves the quality of life for farming communities, helping to make them more stable, resilient and prosperous.
The conservation of your perfume
The way you store your perfume can also affect its staying power.
The real enemies of your fragrances are heat, light and humidity. These can alter the chemical composition of your perfume and therefore affect its durability and life span:
- light: UV rays can alter the quality of olfactory molecules. Like your skin that you protect from the sun, your perfume must also avoid sunburn
- heat: "caliente" environments accelerate the approach of the raw materials and can favor the oxidation of your perfume. So remember to keep your fragrances away from your radiators or windowsills...
- Moisture: we all know the pleasure of putting our perfume collection on display in the bathroom and perfuming ourselves with our beloved scent as we get out of the shower. Unfortunately, your perfume is a different story. The humidity in your bathroom can also degrade some of the olfactory properties of your perfumes.
We can never repeat it enough but the best way to keep your perfume is to keep it in the dark, at a constant temperature and in a room with little humidity, ideally in its original case: in a refrigerated wine cellar or in your bedroom closet.
As you can see, depending on the criteria of your skin and the perfume in question, the fragrance will last more or less well. In the case of Bastille, a natural perfume will, depending on the skin, evolve much more quickly than a synthetic perfume due to its composition.
As when two people meet, if the alchemy works, we witness a wonderful fusion. If not, the magic will not be there: the skin and the perfume "will not get along or understand each other". However, this does not mean that the fragrance is not qualitative, but simply that it is not made for you and especially: the experience of one does not make that of the other! It's really personal, so we let you judge for yourself.
Now it's up to you: you have all the cards in your hand to make your fragrances blossom beautifully on your skin.
Source : Sylvaine Delacourte, AuParfum, By Nez, L'Officiel
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