Common fragrance terms explained in a perfume glossary.

There is a whole lot of terms used in the fragrance community that are hard to grasp when you’re reading them for the first time. Since that intimidates people I wanted to create my own little article that explains them – I hope it will help you understand the world of perfume better. Let’s get started!

• Blind buy – the act of purchasing something without sampling/testing the scent first. Risky move!
• Crowd pleaser – a perfume that’s easy to like and gets a lot of compliments without causing much controversy in your surroundings. 
• Decant – a small amount of original perfume poured into a little atomiser, oftentimes bought on perfume enthusiast groups/communities. Especially helpful with sampling pricey and/or rare perfume. Be careful with websites – they might seem fakes.
• Designer fragrance – a perfume released by a brand that’s widely available at perfumers such as Sephora/Douglas/Ulta, and usually has started as a clothing/jewellery/design business, with perfume released later in its lifespan. Usually safer, less daring, and more trend-following than the propositions of niche perfumery.
• Eau Cologne – a perfume that usually contains 2-4% of the fragrance composition.
• Eau de Parfum – a perfume that usually contains about 15-20% of the fragrance composition.
• Eau de Toilette – a perfume that usually contains 5-15% of the fragrance composition. 
• Extrait de Parfum – a perfume that contains between 20-40% of the fragrance composition.
• Flanker – a fragrance variation of a perfume that’s been released earlier in the same collection, and bears the original’s name. Has to be different from the original. Example – Guerlain Shalimar Millessime Tonka is a flanker of the original Shalimar.
• Fragrantica – one of the best databases for perfume content. I visit it religiously.
• Fougere – scent family that takes its name from the fern (fr. fougère), usually rich in lavender, moss and can feature spices, herbs and wood. 
• Gourmand – scents that are food-inspired, seem edible and mouthwatering. Praline, caramel, honey and chocolate are all examples of gourmand notes. Example – YSL Le Parfum
• Green scents – scents that evoke leaves, plants and overall green vegetation.
• Juice – the liquid content of the bottle.
• Longevity – the staying power of a fragrance. The higher the longevity the more wear time you get from a perfume.
• Niche fragrance – a fragrance that’s either released by a company that’s primary focused on perfume, or is not widely available at popular retail chains. Some say that private lines of designer brands (like Tom Ford’s Private Blends, or Armani’s Privé) can be included as niche, but it’s a fluid definition and more of an idea. Niche fragrances are usually more interesting than designers’.
• Nose – the perfumer behind a fragrance.
• Nose blindness – our nose becomes accustomed to fragrances, so it’s not unusual to stop detecting a fragrance after some time after applying. Doesn’t mean that other people can’t smell it though!
• Notes – the different elements that describe a fragrance. They can be literal (vanilla, litchi, rose…) or descriptive (solar notes, green notes…). Top notes are usually present in the opening of the fragrance and can be the most fleeting. Middle notes take over after the top notes evaporate, and base notes are what makes the heart of the fragrance. This is not so easy though, as there are different approaches to notes and different ways of combining them.
• Signature scent – the perfume you associate with yourself, your most used perfume or your fave. 
• Sillage – the way a fragrance permeates through the air during wear. When the sillage is intimate, it means that only you can smell it, or it’s a skin scent (described below). If the sillage is strong – people in the same room as you can detect it easily. 
• Skin scent – a fragrance that exhibits (or reaches) low sillage and can be detected only when in close proximity to the area it’s been applied.