What we say with our smell

By Gabriela Marichal, intern

When we buy a perfume, we choose it because we like the smell, right? Well, this may or may not be true to everybody. Picking a scent is more than enjoying the fragrance. It’s about what we portray. 

Our smell represents us, people are often reminded of us by our perfumes, just like certain smells trigger certain memories for us all. When I walk into my grandma’s kitchen, the smells bring back memories of my childhood and her amazing food. That’s precisely what happens when we choose a perfume: we set a reflection of our identity. 

Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

Oftentimes, perfumes embody status. More than smelling like flowers or spices, we like to set a standard of what we think other people perceive us as. In addition, smells provoke simultaneous reactions within ourselves and others that may get a whiff of us. New York based fragrance company D.S. & Durga states on their website: “A great scent is a world you can return to over and over – a keyhole into another realm. You can travel via the mind-nose connection to larger collective spaces”. 

There are five main scent families. It’s worth mentioning that, due to the pursue of making smells more customized to each individual’s needs, companies like Veronique Gabai’s have engineered fragrance enhancers that can be used on their own or as add-ons to perfumes we may already have at home. This diversifies the purpose of one same bottle of perfume while, at the same time, giving us the power to personify what we’d like to represent via our aroma. 

  • Fresh
Photo by Marianne Krohn on Unsplash

Clean, citrusy, ocean-like and bright smells. 

  • Woods

Warm, sophisticated, warm and dry-like scents. 

  • Floral
Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Sweet, herbal, citrusy, musky and oily aromas. 

  • Spice
Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash

Peppery, warm, aromatic and nutty smells. 

  • Fruits
Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

Sweet, berry-like, fleshy, creamy scents. 

See more details about each scent family and its tones on our website on the series “Know the scent families”. 

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