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Chanel No. 5 perfume. Released on May 5, 1921.
  • Chanel No. 5 perfume. Released on May 5, 1921.
  • Eight & Bob. Since 1937. JFK's favorite cologne.
  • Eau de Cologne 4711.
  • Eau Sauvage created by Edmond Roudnitska for Christian Dior (1966): US$95.
  • Opium by Yves Saint Laurent.
  • Floris for men.
  • Dolce & Gabbana Velvet Love.
  • Miss Dior - 'I have created this perfume to dress each woman in the scent of desire, and to see each of my dresses emerging from its bottle...', Christian Dior.

Top 400 Best High-End Men's & Women's Fragrances

Eau de Cologne (Top 20+) Eau de Toilette (Top 35+) Fragrance & Perfume Resources
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    "A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future." - Coco Chanel.

    "A woman’s perfume tells more about her than her handwriting." - Christian Dior.

    PERFUME is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, animals, objects, and living spaces a pleasant scent. The odoriferous compounds that make up a perfume can be manufactured synthetically or extracted from plant or animal sources.

    Perfumes have been known to exist in some of the earliest human civilisations either through ancient texts or from archaeological digs. Modern perfumery began in the late 19th century with the commercial synthesis of aroma compounds such as vanillin or coumarin, which allowed for the composition of perfumes with smells previously unattainable solely from natural aromatics alone.

    The precise formulae of commercial perfumes are kept secret. Even if they were widely published, they would be dominated by such complex ingredients and odorants that they would be of little use in providing a guide to the general consumer in description of the experience of a scent. Nonetheless, connoisseurs of perfume can become extremely skillful at identifying components and origins of scents in the same manner as wine experts.

    The most practical way to start describing a perfume is according to the elements of the fragrance notes of the scent or the "family" it belongs to, all of which affect the overall impression of a perfume from first application to the last lingering hint of scent.

    The traditional classification which emerged around 1900 comprised the following categories: Single Floral, fragrances that are dominated by a scent from one particular flower; in French called a soliflore. Floral Bouquet is a combination of fragrance of several flowers in a perfume compound. Ambered, or "Oriental", a large fragrance class featuring the sweet slightly animalic scents of ambergris or labdanum, often combined with vanilla, tonka bean, flowers and woods. Can be enhanced by camphorous oils and incense resins, which bring to mind Victorian era imagery of the Middle East and Far East. Wood, fragrances that are dominated by woody scents, typically of agarwood, sandalwood and cedarwood. Patchouli, with its camphoraceous smell, is commonly found in these perfumes. Leather, a family of fragrances which features the scents of honey, tobacco, wood and wood tars in its middle or base notes and a scent that alludes to leather. Chypre, meaning Cyprus in French, this includes fragrances built on a similar accord consisting of bergamot, oakmoss, patchouli, and labdanum. Fougère, meaning Fern in French, built on a base of lavender, onion, coumarin and oakmoss. Houbigant's Fougère Royale pioneered the use of this base. Many men's fragrances belong to this family of fragrances, which is not characterized by its sharp herbaceous and woody scent.

    NOTES in perfumery are descriptors of scents that can be sensed upon the application of a perfume. Notes are separated into three classes; top/head notes, middle/heart notes, and base notes; which denote groups of scents which can be sensed with respect to the time after the application of a perfume. These notes are created carefully with knowledge of the evaporation process and intended use of the perfume. The presence of one note may alter the perception of another - for instance, the presence of certain base or heart notes will alter the scent perceived when the top notes are strongest, and likewise the scent of base notes in the dry-down will often be altered depending on the smells of the heart notes.

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