Hi. HP here. Your resident Fragrance Virgin.
Until I recently began my quest for a Fall Fragrance, I never realized how much of a fragrance virgin I truly was. Not only about the various scents…but also about the HOW-TO.
I remember reading that you’re supposed to apply perfume to your pulse points: your neck, wrists, decolletage, and all the “creases” like your elbow fold and the backs of your knees (huh? who’s gonna be smelling back there?!).
The thinking behind this is that since heat “activates” fragrance, the blood flow will allow the scent to emanate and waft gracefully from your body.
Not sure if there is definitive scientific truth to this. ;P
Me, being the fragrance virgin that I am – I’ve always just kinda spritzed on my chest, underneath my clothes. But being that I’ve started wearing my first “I’m a grown-up now” fragrance (White Patchouli, à la Monsieur Tom Ford), I’ve started to wonder:
What IS the proper procedure to spritz perfume?
My fellow beauty gurus…any words of advice?
What is the proper perfume procedure?
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Hi, Heather. I think the idea behind spritzing behind your knees (or stomach) is to let the scent waft up. That’s what I do sometimes when I’m wearing a stronger scent, so it’s not so “in your face”.
AHHHH. thanks Jen!! That TOTALLY make sense. (although that pulse point near the crotch….rrr?)
I definitely can’t say whether this is the proper procedure — but I like to spritz on each wrist, my neck and do a couple spritzes into my hair. I feel like that way it’s not TOO strong, but I just have a nice fragrance surrounding me every day — and then when people go in for a hug, they always think I smell nice!
Yes the spraying behind the knees etc is for scent to waft up. I don’t do that myself, but you can. Really- spritz where you want. I like to do wrists and then back of neck into hair. The hair holds the scent longer and the wrists mean I get a whiff here and there. Chest area is good too. Just skip one of the others. 2-3 spritzs is the general rule to not overdo.
AH – thanks for the “behind-the-knee” explanation. That totally makes sense! Thanks for the guidance, ladies! I’m going to keep it to the wrists & neck/hair.