What are the different types of perfumes? How to choose what's best for you

 

Perfume is a popular beauty product that can make you feel confident and attractive. Who doesn’t love the experience of putting on their favourite scent, breathing it in, and feeling amazing before starting the day?

The choice of fragrances is enormous, with a different scent available to suit every taste and budget.

With so many options to choose from, how do you know which perfume is right for you?

For some people, choosing the right perfume means considering not just its fragrance, but also how it was made and what its ingredients are.

Let’s explore the different kinds of perfume and some tips on how to choose the right one for you.

 

The 6 main types of perfume

 

The differences in perfume categories are based on the concentration of essential oils and what base they use. Some perfumes are based on water, others on alcohol or carrier oils.

 

What’s natural and what’s not? Great question!

 

Perfume oils, essential oil blends, roll-on or essential oil perfumes, are generally natural and are made from an essential oil using a carrier oil as its base.

 

Quite often, the perfumes containing alcohol are also synthetic, and not made of human-friendly ingredients. They can be a confusing toxic chemical cocktail with a mixture of products like benzyl alcohol, acetone, linalool, ethanol, ethyl acetate, benzaldehyde, camphor, formaldehyde, methylene chloride and limonene.

 

Synthetic fragrances are chemically manufactured with around 70%-95% synthetic ingredients and only trace amounts of natural extracts.

 

 

 

A new genre of synthetic perfume has recently emerged, called ‘Clean Synthetics.’ However, we don’t know just how ‘clean’ these man-made chemicals are because of limited testing and lack of information on how they’re made. While they may smell amazing, synthetic perfumes may not be good for your overall health.

 

So, there’s more to choosing a perfume than just how it smells.

 

Different perfume types:

 

Parfum

Parfum has the highest concentration (20%-30%) of fragrance oil, which means the fragrance lasts the longest on the skin compared to the other synthetic perfume types. Parfum is a chemically manufactured sent.

 

Eau de Parfum

This is the next most concentrated perfume type, usually containing 15%-20% of fragrance oils. Eau de Parfum is chemically manufactured.

 

Eau de Toilette

Eau de Toilette is one of the most widely used perfume types because it is much cheaper and lighter to wear than Parfum and Eau de Parfum. It usually contains only 5-15% of fragrance oil. Eau de Toilette is chemically manufactured.

 

Eau de Cologne

Eau de Cologne tends to range from 2%-5% concentration and has a high alcohol concentration. It usually comes in large bottles and is relatively inexpensive due to its diluted ingredients. Eau de Cologne is a chemically manufactured scent.

 

Eau Fraiche

This tends to be the weakest of all perfume types. It's light, subtle, and cheap. Mainly composed of water, alcohol and only between 1%-3% fragrance oil. Eau Fraiche is also synthetic (chemically manufactured).

 

Natural Perfume Oils

As we mentioned above, perfume oils, essential oil blends, roll on or essential oil perfumes are usually always natural and are made from a blend of essential oils, and a carrier oil as their base.

 

The 5 Serene Body Health Scent Families

 

• Sweet (Floral, Sweet, Soft Oriental).
  • Scents like ylang-ylang, rose, lavender, geranium, benzoin, honeysuckle, boronia, jasmine and rose-geranium
• Oriental (Oriental, Woody Oriental)
  • Scents like Frankincense, Boswellia Tree, Myrrh, Cinnamon
• Woody (Woody Oriental, Woody, Mossy Woods)
  • Scents like Sandalwood, buddha wood, cedarwood
• Earthy (Earthy, Aromatic)
  • Scents like patchouli, vetiver, copaiba, arborvitae, black pepper, turmeric, amyris, clove
• Fresh (Herbaceous, Fresh, Fruity, Green, Citrus)
  • Scents like basil, coriander, clary sage, spearmint, grapefruit, lemon, orange, Douglas fir, Siberian fir, oakmoss, neroli, cypress, wintergreen

 

How to choose the right perfume for you

 

• Decide your favourite scent family. What do you smell and immediately love? Sometimes that's a tricky question to answer. So maybe start by asking what scents you don’t like! You know, the ones that make your head swing back, eyes water, and nose run. Cross them off the list, and you'll be left with scent families you are naturally drawn to.

 

• Test fragrances on your skin. Everywhere has little paper blotters which do nothing except waste natural resources, like our precious trees. To know exactly what a perfume will smell like for you, test it on your skin. It will react uniquely with your specific body chemistry, and you will either love the result or not.

 

• Only test 2-3 perfumes at a time. Your nose will quickly become overwhelmed and confused, and you will develop a headache. So, test a couple, let them sit on your skin for half an hour, and you'll know if they're right for you.

 

The benefits of using natural perfume oils instead of synthetic perfumes

 

We have five senses, and only one of them goes straight to the limbic system in your brain. Scent. This is why scent is so powerfully linked to emotions and memories. The smell of rain, a particular food, or perfume will immediately transport you back to an experience.

 

Perfumes are usually synthetic fragrances that are created in laboratories. Whereas natural fragrances, like natural perfume oils, only contain ingredients of a natural origin. Usually, they are a mixture of essential oils and botanical extracts. This means that whenever you use a natural perfume oil, you can be confident not only in smelling fabulous, but knowing that everything you are putting on your skin is healthy and beneficial to your body.

 

Nina Hargrave, the Founder of Serene Body Health, was interviewed for Sensor I am. Here's why she chooses natural perfume oils over their synthetic cousins:

 

"My choice, of course, are the perfume oils because they are made with natural fragrance oils (essential oils) diluted with jojoba oil which is full of antioxidants and is very moisturising on the skin. They cause less irritation to the skin because they are alcohol free. They can be applied directly onto the skin so there is no waste, and they can be inhaled for added health benefits."

 

Explore Serene Body Health's collection of natural perfume oils. They are proudly hand-crafted here in Melbourne, Australia. Use 100% pure essential oils, natural Australian botanicals, and NO synthetic chemicals. Are 100% natural and 100% healthy.

Our roll-on perfume oils offer the healing benefits of essential oils in a range of seductively subtle fragrances you can wear for any occasion.

 

Spring Special

Until 30 September 2022 enjoy our SERENECLEAN Spring Special and get 15% OFF EVERYTHING!

Yep, 15% off our entire range. Use the code: SERENECLEAN at check out and claim your discount.

Happy shopping.

 

Explore our collections here for a natural scent that will make you feel fabulous and is good for you and don’t forget to use your discount code.