Find your signature scent

Written by GlenN lauritz andersson & denis vasilije, fragrance experts

When you choose your signature scent, it should be a fragrance you love—one that complements you and your personality. A scent that makes you feel confident and at ease.

Summary

Your signature scent is a perfume that reflects your personality and style through how it develops from top to base.
A fragrance should always be tested on skin, since your body chemistry affects how the perfume actually wears over time.
Finding the right signature scent is about feeling and recognition rather than brand names or trends.

A signature scent is the ultimate personal statement.

To identify your signature scent, it helps to understand how a perfume is built. A fragrance moves through three phases, all of which shape your senses and your impression of the scent:

Top notes

A light, fresh impression—often floral and citrus. Top notes typically last around 10–15 minutes.

Heart notes

A deeper character that blends with your own skin scent. The heart notes decide how the perfume smells on you specifically. They tend to last longer—around 2–4 hours.

Base noteS

Base notes are often made up of woods or other powerful ingredients, such as amber. The base is what lingers longest on skin—often for at least 6 hours.

Don’t judge a scent too quickly

What people often do when trying a fragrance is spray it on a blotter (the paper strips we use) or into the air, smell it, and then decide whether they like it or not. When you do it that way, you mainly pick up the top notes, which are usually fresh like citrus and florals. During the first 15 minutes, it can be hard to tell what you’re actually smelling—that’s how long the top notes last. Then the fragrance transitions into the heart notes, and finally settles into the base notes.

If you don’t try a fragrance on your own skin, it can be misleading, since everyone has a different pH level and skin type—so the same scent can smell completely different on different people. That’s why it’s important to test the perfume on your skin instead of on a blotter, which can’t compare to how it wears on you.

Don’t choose a scent because it’s how you want to smell, because of a brand name or a certain designer—it can easily be a mismatch. Trust your instinct, your experience, and how it feels when you wear it. A fragrance is something you wear just like clothing or an accessory; it often signals who you are or how you want to be perceived.