How to wear it, layer it and keep it

Step one

Wearing the perfume oil

Oil goes on skin and is warmed by it, so the warmer you are, the more it gives back. It sits close and can hold longer than a spray, but it will not fill a room, and that is the point of it.

1. 1Start cleanApply to clean, well-moisturised skin. Straight after a warm shower is the best moment you will get: warm skin takes the oil, and moisturised skin holds it.
2. 2Go for the pulse pointsWrists, the neck and behind the ears, the collarbones, the inner elbows, and behind the knees in warm weather. These run warm, which is what moves the scent.
3. 3Roll, then leave itTake the cap off, invert the bottle and roll it back and forth two or three times on each point. Do not rub it in. Rubbing breaks up the blend and shortens the top of it.

Step two

Wearing the eau de parfum

A spray diffuses and leaves a trail. An eau de parfum typically wears for most of a day on skin. This is the one to take when you want to be noticed.

1. 1Hold it backSpray from about 15 to 20cm away. Closer than that and you get a wet patch rather than a wearable veil.
2. 2Aim at the same warm placesNeck, wrists, inner elbows. A light mist over hair or clothing carries further and lasts longer on the fabric, though fabric will not develop the scent the way skin does.
3. 3Two to four is plentyYou stop smelling your own fragrance long before anyone else does, and that is the single most common reason people over-apply. Let it settle without rubbing.

Step three

Layering the two

Wearing an oil under a spray gives you something neither does alone: the oil holds low and close, the spray carries. Start light and build, because you cannot take a layer back off.

1. 1Put the oil down firstChoose the warmer, heavier of the two as your base and roll it onto your pulse points. Give it a minute or two to settle into the skin.
2. 2Mist the second scent over itSpray lightly onto the same points, or over your clothes if you want it softer. One or two sprays, not four.
3. 3Change one thing at a timeIf a pairing is not working, change the ratio before you change the scent. Most failed layers are one spray too many rather than the wrong bottle.

Between wears

Storing a bottle properly

Light, heat and air are what age a fragrance, and the bathroom is where all three live. Where you keep it matters more than anything you can do to it.

• Keep it out of direct sunlight. A windowsill will change the colour and the smell of a fragrance faster than years in a drawer.
• Keep it out of the bathroom. The heat and steam of a daily shower is the worst environment in the house for it.
• A drawer, a cupboard or the box it arrived in is ideal: cool, dark and dry, at a steady temperature.
• Keep the cap on between wears. Every hour it spends open is air getting at the top notes.
• Do not decant an oil or a spray into an unknown container. Some plastics react, and you will not know until it has already gone off.
• Leaving a bottle in a hot car for an afternoon can undo all of the above in one go.

Good to know

When it smells different from last time

Usually nothing is wrong with the bottle. Fragrance is a reaction between a blend and a person on a particular day, and all three variables move.

• Skin chemistry differs from person to person, which is why the same scent can be warmer on you than on the person who recommended it.
• Heat lifts a fragrance and cold holds it down. A bright, fresh scent that was perfect in January can read thin in July, and a heavy base can be too much in the other direction.
• Dry skin releases it faster. So does skin straight out of a hot shower, in the other direction.
• Your nose adapts to a scent you wear every day and stops registering it after a while. Other people can still smell it. Reach for a different bottle for a week rather than doubling the dose.
• The first ten minutes are not the fragrance. Give anything an hour on skin before you decide, including something you have decided you do not like.