The Romance in Fragrances

A perfume has 3 notes - the head, the heart and the base. The head note is what you initially smell, the first impression, the heart note is what lingers and pervades your senses and the base note is what you are finally left with.......Astounding!!!! i never knew there was such romance to perfumes.....!!!

To me a perfume means nothing more than something to mask your body odor and that’s a nasty way of looking at it, I confess. Perfumes conjure up well groomed images, persons with manicured hands, attired to the occasion...... the final touch that lends the right "AAH" factor. And I truly envy those sorts; they seem ethereal and confident, as if they could handle anything that comes their way. I know i know.....don’t judge a book by its cover and blah blah......but hey what’s wrong in having an attractive cover?!!!

I’ve never been able to identify perfumes, fragrances….indeed it took me a long while to discover the existence of Eau de Cologne, Par fume extracts, Eau de Perfume, deodorants and what not…..But hey I am not a lost cause all together, I do know the basics…..perfume is meant not to be sprayed on but to be dabbed on your pulse points…the base of your neck, behind your ears, wrists, where the body emits heat and the perfume rises up around you mingling with your own body scent (or odor!). As the famous Coco Chanel quote goes - ''Wear perfume wherever you want to be kissed'' Lovely isn’t it?

Which reminds me….well yeah I like the romantic part of perfume and fragrances but then the business side of it got me curious, who are the top selling perfume companies in the world……well for one its called the fragrance and flavor industry and I discovered names that I had never heard of before like….GIVAUDAN, SYMRISE, IFF, TAKASAGO, FIRMENICH….. well Givaudan leads the pack is what I could make out from the net and they are headquartered in Switzerland with an all over the world presence but then the names didn’t strike a chord with me…..so I thought let me then read up on Chanel itself and I discovered Chanel No. 5 - “The company estimates that a bottle is sold worldwide every 30 seconds”

A perfume that was introduced in 1921 and is termed as a legendary scent…… my noses started twitching (pun intended!) While the history of how this perfume came about is interesting to read it, I liked the fact that I was able to uncover the three notes of this successful fragrance so lemme share that bit of info with you - Chanel No. 5 is classified as a floral-aldehyde. Its top notes include ylang ylang, neroli and synthetic long chain aldehydes such as 2-methylundecanal; its mid notes may rose and jasmine; and its base notes sandalwood, vetiver and vanilla.

Well, I guess its time to wonder about the scents and see if I can make myself a well groomed person too…..never too late for a make over I think, what say?