Change in Weather, Change in Perfume Choices
The arrival of spring doesn’t inspire just a change of wardrobe for Karyn Khoury, senior vice president for fragrance development for Estée Lauder Cos. As the weather gets warmer, Ms. Khoury switches her scent strategy as well. “Heat enhances the perception of fragrance,” says Ms. Khoury, who wears fragrance every day. “It warms up the skin and intensifies the diffusion of fragrance so you smell it more.”
When spring arrives, women may want to tone down perfumes so they aren’t overwhelming. Ms. Khoury often leaves behind the deeper, richer scents of the winter months, such as patchouli and cedar wood, and instead seeks out fragrances with lighter touches—”citrus notes like mandarin, lemon and grapefruit, dewy green notes, things that smell like leaves or fresh-cut grass, lighter tropical florals like gardenia petals,” she says. People associate different scents with warm weather, she says. Vanilla and coconut, for example, are popular scents in summer perfumes because they “make people think of sun,” she says.
If you have a favorite perfume that has wintry notes, there are a few ways you can continue to wear the scent when it’s warm. “You can switch to a lighter concentration of the fragrance,” suggests Ms. Khoury. An eau de toilette generally has a 7% to 12% concentration of essential oils, she says. An eau de parfum, by comparison, typically contains 15% to 18% essential oils. You can also seek out a seasonal “flanker” of a favorite perfume—a spinoff scent that contains some of the same notes. For instance, Estée Lauder’s “pleasures bloom” is a more floral reinterpretation of its “pleasures” family of fragrances. Or you could simply apply your favorite fragrance differently. If Ms. Khoury feels like wearing a rich fragrance during the spring, she may simply use it in a body lotion instead of a perfume.