How To Apply Perfume

Use toiletries that are unscented or in the same scent as your perfume. You don’t want your shampoo, conditioner, soap, and deodorant to clash with each other—or your perfume.

Moisturize, ideally with a lotion or body oil that has the same scent as your perfume. Not only does this layer the fragrance, which helps it last throughout the day, but scent adheres to moisturized skin better than it does to dry.

If you have a perfume bottle with a spritzer, then just before getting dressed, spray the perfume into the air in front of you at chest level, pause, and then walk through it. This will give you an even, all-over scent.

Apply the fragrance to any of your pulse points, where the warmth of your body helps project the scent more: behind your knees, the inside of your wrists and elbows, at the base of your throat, and behind your ears.

Plan to reapply your scent after around 4 hours, but ask someone else to confirm that you need to. Because the nose becomes accustomed to smells over time, you’ll probably think the scent has worn off before it really has.

Since heat and humidity intensify smells, use a lighter version of your perfume—like just a lotion, the cologne, or the toilette—in summer. Save perfume and parfum, which have higher concentrations of the scent, for winter.

Pick a new scent for a very special occasion or for a vacation, and wear it only during that time. Later, when you smell the perfume, your brain will associate it with the event, and you’ll be flooded with memories.