SCENTSATIONAL

Jo Malone counter at Neiman Marcus

Finding your own signature scent is a lot like defining your individual style.  You want to be unique.

In this sense, celebrity fragrances, or even fragrances from design houses, do a poor job.  You can do better by going to the source - a specialty perfumer where you can blend your own fragrance.

• Perfume houses carry a whole line of scents: from subtle to overpowering
• Find your base scent, then layer other fragrances around to add nuance
• Continuous sniffing can confuse your olfactory senses.  Whiff coffee beans in-between to cleanse.
• Paper is not the same as your body.  Spray on your arm and walk around for a while to see if you like it.
• Tip: purchase a bottle of your favorite base layer, but ask for samples of others so you can play around with layered scents!  

If you don't know where to begin, a few of my favorite perfume houses are Creed (making scents in Europe since the Empire Period), Annick Goutal, Bond No. 9 with their New York-centric fragrances, and Jo Malone of London.  Happy Mixing!