The Art Of Crafting Your Signature Scent

We hear about one celebrity after the other releasing their signature scent, but choosing your own fragrance can be frustrating when you’re trying to pick the best perfume out of hundreds of pre-made options. They all start smelling the same very soon and when you finally make a choice and bring it home, you find that once on your skin, the smell changes! You might even start to wonder if the signature scent is something reserved for those who can afford to create their personal brand of perfume.

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It’s not a surprise that our fascination with perfumes has been around for centuries. Not only can a good perfume make us feel great about ourselves, but it can also make us look more attractive. A 2014 study from the Monell Chemical Senses Centre revealed that pleasant or unpleasant smells can alter our visual perception of people we meet. And we all want to look good, right?

Here’s the good news: personalised perfumes are no longer the privilege of the rich and famous. You can get your own signature scent designed to suit your personality, lifestyle and emotions and it can be great for your health, too.

Enter the world of natural perfumery

Natural perfumes are crafted using essential oils, floral waters and hydrosols, with no artificial ingredients and they can have a very pleasant scent that lasts for hours. They may not be as durable as commercial fragrances, but they also come without the potential side effects in the form of skin irritations, allergies, anxieties, depression and headaches.

Julie Nelson, artisan natural perfumer at Aromatique Essentials, says that natural perfumes are not only a safe alternative to commercial perfumery, but the essential oils in them have beneficial emotional and psychological effects – oils can uplift our emotions, strengthen our nervous system and help us feel sensual and confident. To create her perfumes, Julie relies both on her deep knowledge of the oils and her intuition.

“When we resonate with a particular aroma, it brings a smile to our face with instant gratification,” Julie says. “We can feel uplifted, happy, bubbly, energised, motivated, serene, peaceful, grounded and connected. We connect with our feminine essence, masculine essence, our sensuality and sexuality.”

Julie says she loves the look on her client’s faces when they smell their signature scent for the first time. They take one breath in and their whole energy changes. It’s as if they’re transported to another place in time.

But is the signature scent a thing of the past, now that so many fragrances are widely available? Julie Nelson shares that more and more people are looking for personalised perfumes and a new definition of the signature scent is emerging. It is no longer the same scent that you always wear, but a perfume that is created specifically for you and reflects your personality, the aromas you like and the feelings you want to experience and evoke while wearing it. Some of us still stick to one signature scent, but many women these days have a collection of perfumes so that they can choose their scent depending on their mood and their emotional needs at that time.

How natural scents can influence your feelings

One of the main questions you need to answer to create your signature scent is: “How do you want to feel?” Here are some of the essential oils used in natural perfumery and how they can affect your emotions, as well as what you evoke in others while wearing your personalised perfume.

Floral essential oils – jasmine, rose, orange blossom

These oils are very popular, as they speak to our feminine essence and make us feel sensual and attractive. It’s no coincidence that the rose is the flower that represents love and passion – rose oil a well-known aphrodisiac that invokes romantic feelings.

Citrus essential oils

Citrus oils have uplifting qualities. They make us happier and for many of us they can bring blissful memories from our childhood when we may have had an orange or lemon tree in our backyard.

Sandal wood essential oil

This oil is known for its calming and grounding qualities and you’d choose it when you’re seeking a state of peace and serenity.

What if you’re hypersensitive to smells?

Some of us are unable to wear commercial perfumes because their strong smells overwhelm us. Yet, we want to be attractive too, so what’s the solution? Julie Nelson says it may be that you just haven’t found the right scent for you. With a personalised natural perfume you can choose a blend that is a perfect fit and you can also make your perfume very subtle, so that it doesn’t take over all your senses.

So if you’ve been struggling to pick a fragrance that you love and if you’re wondering whether you could possibly have your own signature scent, natural perfumery could be the answer you’re looking for.

Image via Aromatique Essentials