Woman World Web

September 29th, 2009 by Joseph Archibald

The word “perfume” does not fit in well when describing men’s fragrances - not in a masculine world anyhow. The preferred name or names if you like, are cologne or aftershave, even though these names are not necessarily technically correct.

Eau de toilette is another name - French of course - used for cologne, although it does tend to be a little stronger than cologne with a more concentrated make-up. And usually stronger goes hand in hand with higher price tag.

There are nine definite fragrances that can be blended together in various levels to produce the men’s fragrances we are familiar with today. These include herbal, musk, citrus, spice, fruity, floral, leather, powdery and woody.

High end men’s fragrances tend to be made up of layers. There is the top or head notes, the middle or heart notes and the base notes. The first aroma you will smell when initially applying a fragrance will be the top note which very often will be fresh or spicy. The mid notes will often be spicy or citrus which provides for an undertone to the top notes. Finally the base notes can be produced from a variety of blends. The top notes fairly typically in a high end fragrance will last for 3 to 4 hours, the mid notes for a bit less and the bottom notes will stay for longer. A good perfume can last the whole day.

The top notes can remain for around 3 hours or so although this depends on the quality of the fragrance and on the wearer. The mid notes will be made up of citrus or spicy aromas and will not remain for long but give a pleasant undertone to the top note. The base notes can be made of various blends and tend to stay for longer, particularly in a higher quality fragrance.

When using leather to describe an aroma in a fragrance this will mean woods, honeys and tobaccos. Leather is often to be found as a base or mid note undertone.

Leather encompasses the likes of tobacco, woods, and honey and will often be used as the mid note or base note in a fragrance. An example of a fragrance with leather is Dana’s English Leather, strangely enough. Woody fragrances include sandalwood, pathchouli and cedars and again will often be found in either mid or base notes. Envy by Gucci is a woody fragrance.

Once a fragrance has been used and is out of the bottle it will take on a different character depending on the wearer and his surroundings. This will vary depending on stress levels - stress increases body heat and thus the fragrance from the perfume is heightened, depends too on the environment the wearer is in - the weather, smoky surroundings, climate etc.

The manufacture process of men’s fragrances is highly complex and very difficult to be copied by the layman. So even if the ingredients of a well known fragrance were well known it would be far from easy to reproduce the perfume in such a way as to arrive at the same end result. Its constituents include an alcohol base and perfume oils diluted down.