A bottle of perfume looks simple. A clear liquid, a spray nozzle, a cap. But what sits inside is a structure with time in it, meaning it does not give you everything at once but opens out gradually over many hours on your skin.
Put simply, perfume is a mixture of fragrant materials dissolved in an alcohol base, and its scent changes across three stretches. The first stretch is whatever flies off fastest, the middle is the body, and the last is whatever stands longest. Those three stretches overlap rather than following one another neatly, so what you hear is always a transition.
Three layers of scent and the clock on your skin
In the first ten minutes or so you meet the light, fresh materials, usually the citrus family or leaves. They make the opening line, bright and clean, then withdraw fairly quickly. Many people decide whether they like a bottle of perfume in exactly this stretch, and that is a little unfortunate, because its true part has not yet arrived.
From about half an hour to a few hours later, the body appears. This is where the bottle tells you who it is, and it is also the scent that the person sitting beside you all evening will remember. Then comes the last stretch, when the heavy, lasting materials remain, usually wood or resin, sitting close to the skin and travelling with you to the end of the day.
That is why the right way to test a bottle of perfume is to test it on your own skin and then wait. Spray once on the wrist, go and do something else for twenty minutes, and only then smell it again. Everyone's skin has its own temperature and humidity, so the same bottle on two people will be a little different, and that is normal.
How to spray it and how to keep it
Warm areas of skin open a scent best: the wrist, behind the ear, the inner elbow. Spray from about a hand's span away so the mist spreads evenly, then leave it to dry by itself. Rubbing the two wrists together warms it and makes the opening fly off faster, so if you want to keep the whole structure, just leave it be.
Our 50 ml bottle gives about 600 sprays. At a rhythm of two or three times a day, that bottle travels with you for around seven to eight months. Essential oils composed by ZUNGZA keep best when the bottle stands somewhere cool, out of direct sun and away from constantly changing temperature, so a drawer in the bedroom is a better place than a windowsill or a bathroom shelf. The shelf life is three years from the date of production.
As for choosing, we still think scent is a matter of feeling. Choose whichever bottle makes you feel more like yourself in the day you are actually having, rather than following a season or any rule.
A few questions you often send us
What is perfume made of
Of fragrant materials dissolved in an alcohol base, and its structure opens out across three stretches of time on your skin.
Why does perfume smell different on me than on someone else
Because skin temperature, humidity and even each person's daily rhythm all take part in how the scent opens. The same bottle will tell two slightly different stories.
How long does a 50 ml bottle last
About 600 sprays, which is around seven to eight months if you use it two or three times a day.
Read more our two directions of perfume, where essential oil comes from, and the story of scent and memory.