Splashing my body with perfume in the morning is always my final touch before leaving the house. To me, wearing perfume adds an delicate touch of personality to any outfit, and I've come to realise that I somehow feel half-naked when I don't wear perfume.
Perfume –like clothes– forms part of a person's style. Some people would never wear it, others will probably reserve it for special occasions, and others –like me– will make it part of their everyday lives. Some people love trying different fragrances all the time, even changing from one day to another, and some will stick to one single fragrance for ages. I belong to this last group. I believe that the way I smell should form part of my personality, and I personally adore having a signature smell.
For such a reason, choosing the perfect fragrance is sort of like finding the perfect man. Which means that once I find it and I'm ready to buy a special perfume, my relationship with it becomes some sort of marriage.
Unfortunately, just before I moved to New York, my last bottle of Marc Jacobs' Oh! Lola finished, meaning I had to say goodbye to my go-to fragrance for the past few years. It was a shame to learn that the brand had discontinued the fragrance I loved so much, but I took the chance –together with the move into my new life– to redefine myself and find a new fragrance.
I must say that the process was not an easy one. First of, there exist so many different perfumes, that I didn't even know where to start. Once I finally made my way into Macy's –on a Saturday evening, bad decision!– my nose couldn't handle smelling all those fragrances on the same night, no matter how many times I recurred to coffee.
It took more than one trip to the perfume store, and several hours, trying to find my perfect perfume... And the hardest part of the process was when I finally could reduce my options to two.
Before making the final decision, however, I decided to test the fragrances on my real life. It is not the same smelling them in the store than wearing it all day. The perfume's smell adapts to your skin –possibly as a reaction of your pH although it might include other factors as well– and it changes throughout the day.
Luckily enough, you can ask for samples –which is exactly what I did. I brought a few drops of both Prada Candy Florale and Chanel Coco Madmoiselle with me, and tried each one of them for a couple of weeks. And although I still love them both, the Prada one was a little too sweet for my taste. So I guess I am now –partially, at least– a lovely French lady, as one of my friends called my smell on Saturday!
Love,
Photography via Chanel