Complete Guide to Fragrance Types, Categories, and Concentrations

[Music] hi everyone welcome back to my channel so a little bit of a different video for

you today I wanted to give you a bit of an updated explanation on fragrance categories types of fragrances the

fragrance wheel I get a lot of questions from you guys around do you have advice for someone starting out with their

perfume collection um and what other fragrances will I like if I like this so I hope this video will be useful for you

if you are new here then hello and welcome I'm all about perfumes I have hundreds of videos going through new

releases perfume notes whole ranges so do check them out and if you are a regular make sure you're subscribed and

give the video a thumbs up and down below in the description box you'll find a link to my blog and where you can get

my fragrances Empress Aphrodite on my super concentrated soywax candles all on my website soy london.com cool so I

first really got into fragrances when I was a student and I worked in a perfume shop an independent perfumery for a year

I worked there full-time and I learned so much about fragran is there and one of the things that I'm really stuck out

to me after I've been there a few months is that a lot of people don't really know what they like so someone would

come in and say I don't want anything flowery I hate flowery and then after you've been with them for a while trying

different ones they'd end up buying something that was a floral perfume um so there are lots of these categories

and I feel like a lot of reviewing YouTubers use terminology to describe things and I just find it quite

confusing and I wanted to just simplify it all for you guys and demystify it so there is a thing called the fragrance

wheel which kind of categorizes each perfumes and you can fit pretty much every perfume into one of these

categories so the first and probably the most like well-known is a floral perfume So within that you have different types

of floral so you can have quite a green floral fragrance where you can smell the leaves the stem trees the bush a more

green fresh type floral kind of like fresh cut flowers like walking into a flower shop good example of this is

Ellis Brooklyn florist which is literally meant to recreate that feeling of walking into a flower shop you then

have um soft florals or musky florals good example of this is Nissa Rodriguez for her so these use musky notes which

is kind of like a powdery clean tone which is combined with floral these tend to be a little bit more softer but more

subtle and sometimes they can have alahh tides in now alahh is a synthetic creation that was very popular in

perfumes in the ' 50s and the 60s a lot of famous perfumes Chanel Number Five the classic Estee ones use alahh and as

a result it feels quite a dated note It's associated with perfumes from the past so most fragrance houses don't

release perfumes with alahh highes in at the moment they tend to do more of the green floral or they'll do a fruity

floral which is very common so that's where you have a top note of a fruity note whether it's like a berry a citrus

and then you'll have a floral heart and most of the new releases at the moment use a Jasmine floral heart so like PR of

paradox pakar ran Fame they all have this Jasmine heart and that's probably the most popular floral note at the

moment in the past it was more a rose but Jasmine is really taking over and you can get some floral

spicy perfumes which would be called more towards Oriental so the next category is called oriental and these

are inspired by fragrances on of the Orient so the Middle East Central Asia and they will use spicy notes like

saffron cardamon and then you'll also get ones which use incense Amber oud which are very deep warm intense Woody

notes so you'll get sort of floral Orient orientals ambery orientals and then you can get these very deep Woody

orientals as well you then have like a woody category and these tend to be more male fragrances So within the Woody

category though you do have aromatic perfumes so aromatic kind of like aroma therapy it's referring to those very

calming notes um like loxian so lavender Sage mint those very sort of like walking into a spa or having a bath

those very calming cleaning south of France notes that would be an aromatic fragrance I think the loxit 10 perfumes

are probably the best example of that like their lavender ones you also have vea which is used in a lot of male

fragrances it's actually a grass but it has a very green Woody scent um and it's in the base of a lot of male fragrances

you then have more Mossy Woody fragrances so Oak Moss is a very common ingredient in male fragrances and in

some female fragrances and it was used a lot more in the past and female fragrances in what are called sheepa

perfumes which is a type of perfume that has an oak Moss or a Laburnum vase which has a similar scent to oakmoss so kind

of green Woody pachuli as well would fit in that category then you have rose heart and usually a citrus top note that

would be a sheepa most famous Shea at the moment is Coco mamelle from Chanel that's like citrus Rose pachuli it

doesn't have oat moss in probably the biggest Oak Moss perfume at the moment is Chloe Nomad that's quite a modern Oak

Moss you then have more dry Woody notes and this sometimes can have a suede quality or a leather quality again they

tend to be more male by the fireplace from Mesa Mella very Woody those leathery notes as well can create really

nice fragrances for men it's particularly for like the evening and then the final category really is like

fresh and fruity notes probably the most fresh is Citrus notes Citrus in general tends to be a fragrance an like scent

Accord which by itself isn't really strong enough to be a perfume it won't sort of last that long so it tends to be

a top note or mix with something sweet so for example the new Doling gabana devotion has like an orange but then it

has um a bunch of vanilla in so it's a sweet orange and the vanilla is what sustains the fragrance perfumes that

have um a lot of vanilla praline caramel are called gourand fragrances so kind of like a sweet sweet shop fragrance that

you could almost eat would be called a gourand my Empress kind of fits into the gourand sheeper category you then have

Oceanic fragrances or also called Marine fragrances or aquatic which use very like clean watery notes often they'll

have like a sea salt type note in very very like watery a lot of the iyaki fragrances I like this then you'll have

green fragrances which literally like smelling a tree or a green grass Chanel number 19 is probably the best example

of a green fragrance and then you've got your fruity fragrances so usually berries are the main note in a fruity

fragrance black currant strawberry raspberry um but you might also get other ones like my aphrodite has mango

as one of the main notes and then you're kind of back to Floral so you get your fruity floral so that's kind of the

wheel um so if you're starting out like on getting into fragrances I think the best thing to do is to figure out what

you like on the wheel and you you don't have to just like one area you could be like floral during the day and Oriental

at night or for different moods and stuff um but I think once you've identified a particular area that you

love you'll probably then be able to find other perfumes that have similar notes that you'll also like say you try

a Musky floral you don't like it it doesn't mean that you won't like an oriental floral or a fruity Floral so

don't like let one thing put you off the whole a whole area whole category so the other thing I thought would be useful

would be to explain the different concentrations and um what the different phrases mean like OD paam so basically

what they mean is how much perfume oil is in a perfume so in a perfume you've got alcohol um water preservatives and

then the fragrance oil itself which is the smell the reason why there's alcohol and perfumes is because when you spray

it alcohol evaporates and it takes the scent with it so that's why when you spray something not on your nose you can

still smell it because that alcohol is evaporating and transporting the scent around you so a fragrance that's called

odap paam typically has 10 to 20% fragrance oil concentrate and that 10 to 20 can make a massive difference if it's

up to 20 it can last up to like 8 hours on you you then have odor tetes which are lighter so these should could be

anywhere from 5% to 15 % so you really do get some odor toilets that last like less than an hour and then other ones

that last really well that are probably closer to 15% like noisa Rodriguez for her odor tolet lasts so well better than

some odor paams and I think odor tolet like toilet water the idea was it was something you spray in the bathroom in

The Powder Room when you're out and about it wasn't meant to be like your main scent that really should be an Oda

pfam you then have Oda cologne um this is lighter sort of 2 to 4% a tella cologne a lot of the joone fragrances

are cologne again I find these very light and tend not to recommend them because they're just so like after an

hour there's nothing there so in my view like what's the point of having a perfume if it doesn't last you also have

things called oesh which can be like 1 to 3% maybe up to 5% again it's kind of just another word for OD toilet but it

could be even lighter again I tend to not recommend them so some brands also sell PA fam or sometimes it might be

called Elixir or intense now these tend to be over 20% perfume concentration so the heavier the better it's really hard

to know what the concentration would be in this cuz it could just it just sort of means anything over like 20% um so my

Empress is an intense and it is 40% fragrance oil so we're talking like twice maybe three times more than a

typical odor peram you can also get perfume oils like the Chanel perfumes have these Pam oils which are really

small and they don't have the alcohol in so they're just an oil these are maybe 10 20% and they should last well on you

they just won't give you that initial scent like Cloud that you get from the alcohol in odor pams odor toilettes cuz

they don't have alcohol in and but they will stay on the skin quite nicely because of the alcohol in perfumes they

people don't tend to recommend spraying on your hair and a lot of brands are now releasing hair Mists which are better

for spraying on your hair cuz I really recommend hair Mists I love spraying perfume on my hair I find it last well

usually what's making your perfume disappear is that you're sweating it off so having it in your hair means you're

not sweating off and I do also recommend spraying on clothes as well I find really good perfumes can last for days

on clothes cool so that's it guys I hope you found that useful helpful let me know if there's any other questions or

videos you'd like me to do like this um do let me know in the comments I do read all your comments and I'll leave links

to all the perfumes I've mentioned down below but that's it guys so thanks so much for watching as always and I will

see you in the next video [Music] bye