How To Make Perfume Last Longer

So, you’ve discovered a wonderful perfume that fits you like a glove, and you understandably want to make the most of it. Knowing how to make your perfume last longer is a great way to showcase your sensational taste in scent, and to really fall in love with your latest fragrance. After all, everybody wants to leave an irresistible trail, no matter whether they’re out for an afternoon shopping, a romantic date, or a night on the town.

Here at Maison 21G, we’ve got the insider knowledge you need and all the tips for how to make your perfume last all day. Let’s dive right in, and uncover some secrets on how to make scents last longer, and how to level up your appeal with the power of beautiful fragrance!

Tricks to Make Your Perfume Last Longer

Before we get into specific techniques for making perfume last longer on your skin, let’s consider a few more general pointers that our scent designers have discovered.

If you want a long lasting perfume, you’re firstly going to have to choose the right category of scent. Every fragrance family has its own distinct characteristics, and quite simply, some have more sillage and lasting power than others.

While there are certainly some note-worthy exceptions, Oriental, Floriental, Woody, Leathery, Musky and Animalic and heavier white floral notes will be your new best friends when it comes to long-lasting appeal. These perfumes - made from ingredients including Amber, Incense, Vanilla, Tonka, Havana, Oud, Honey, and Cashmere Wood - contain heavier heart and bottom notes which take longer to evaporate, and as such, will stick to the skin. This is due to a heavier molecular weight and a low-level of volatility - both factors that keep your scent lingering all day.

We’d advise avoiding fresher and more citrus notes, as these tend to evaporate more quickly - again, due to their lightness and volatility. The same can be said for fresher florals - Muguet and Peony, for example - which will vanish faster than a heavier Tuberose, Jasmine or Gardenia.

That’s not to say these perfumes are in anyway ‘worse’ than their heavier counterparts - far from it! In fact, they’re often the perfect blending ingredients to craft your own bespoke Maison 21Gscent, ideal for elevating deeper perfumes and providing a fresh and vibrant edge. For example, fresher ingredients like Bergamot, Ginger and Tea are perfect for blending with woody notes like Vetiver, Cedar and Cashmere Wood, or a classic long-lasting ingredient like Orris.

Skin Tone and How to Make Scents Last Longer

Did you know that your skin tone has an impact on how long perfume can last? It’s true, and it’s just one aspect of the fascinating way in which perfumes take on a life of their own once they’re applied to the skin.

In general, darker skin tones will retain scents for longer, as they tend to be slightly oilier in composition, and natural skin oils capture fragrances more effectively.

Lighter-skinned perfume lovers need not worry, however. You can replicate the same effect by applying a nourishing cream to your pulse points, or wherever else you apply your fragrance.

Apply to Pulse Points and Clothes

It’s no coincidence that perfumes have always been applied to the wrists and the neck - these are pulse points, where the body naturally radiates heat and where blood flow is close to the surface. As such, they’re ideal places to maximize your sillage and scent aura for along time.

However, knowing how to apply perfume to last all day doesn’t end with the pulse points! We’d also advise applying your favourite fragrance to your arms, underarms (especially if you don’t have a deodorant!), the tips of your ears, and chest. If wearing a dress, applying your scent to the back of your knees will create a tempting trail when you walk.

One of our top tips, however, is to spray your perfume onto your clothes. The fibers of your clothing will trap the perfume compounds very effectively, allowing it to last longer no matter the weather or climatic conditions. We’d also highly recommend spraying perfume directly onto your hair - both for men and women - as hair reacts to scent in a similar way to clothing, and retains the perfume beautifully. You can also apply the perfume to your hairbrush for a more even distribution. This way, people around you will catch your scent everytime you move your head or seductively flick your hair!

Moisturise Your Skin Before Spraying

We always recommend moisturising your skin before applying your perfume. Why? Because dry skin will rapidly absorb your scent and lead to it fading more quickly, whereas moisturised skin gives the fragrance a surface to adhere to, increasing its presence and longevity.

Our advice would be to use an unscented body lotion where you wish to apply your perfume - you don’t want your perfume to clash with the scent of your moisturiser, after all!

Some individuals like to use specialist perfume wax to their skin before spraying their beloved fragrance. These waxes efficiently absorb your perfume, trapping it in place and helping it last longer. Some people also enjoy mixing and matching scented waxes with perfume, creating a unique scent identity that can endure all day or night.

Don’t Rub Your Wrists Together

Believe it or not, rubbing your wrists together isn’t the right approach if you’re looking for how to get perfume to last longer. Sure, it will allow the scent to bloom on your skin and it’s a great way to receive its full impact… but the friction increases the volatility, and causes faster evaporation. Instead, let the perfume settle in to your skin naturally.

Spritz After a Shower

An underrated top tip for making scent last longer is to apply perfume after you’ve dried off from a shower. This works because the hot water and steam from the shower primes your pores to retain more of those lovely scent molecules, and traps the fragrance for a maximised sillage.

Store Your Perfume in a Cool, Dark Place

For those seeking to uncover how to keep a perfume lasting longer, this really is a golden piece of advice. Perfume, as a result of its chemical composition, is a volatile substance. This means it will naturally evaporate and oxidize over time, degrading as a result of environmental factors such as warmth and sunlight.

If you’re able, we’d always recommend our perfumes are stored in a wine cellar, wardrobe, dark box or even the fridge, keeping those scents exactly as you want them for longer.

Keep Your Perfume in its Original Bottle

Very much related to the previous point, you really shouldn’t be decanting your perfumes into decorative bottles, no matter how attractive or treasured they may be.

As soon as perfume is released from a specially-made and sealed perfume bottle, it will behave in a volatile manner and be exposed to oxygen, which will begin breaking down the compounds and reducing its impact. Take care of your bottles, and they will take care of you! The same goes for shaking your perfume before use - it’s only going to increase the amount of oxidation within the bottle, degrading that precious formula and weakening its strength and sillage.

SCENT CONCENTRATION IS  KEY: ALWAYS GO FOR HIGHER!

Not all perfumes are created alike. While the above tips will help you understand how to make your cologne last longer, even the best cologne, eau de toilette or body mist won’t have the sillage and the lasting of an eau de parfum, which will always contain more perfume concentrate and so olfactive molecules.

At Maison 21G, we exclusively produce Eau de parfum as part of our commitment to consistently deliver the highest quality to our community. Eau de parfum, by definition, needs to have a minimum of 15-20% perfume concentrate in the bottle… but most brands won’t tell you the real percentage, as they cut costs by lacking transparency. At Maison 21G, you always know you’re getting an industry-beating 21%, as you weigh your perfume concentrate yourself! No other brands provide this level of transparency, and we believe the perfume industry needs to be more open, more honest, and capable of providing customers with better products and information about what they put in their bottles!

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What Type of Perfume Lasts the Longest?

Not all perfumes are created alike. While the above tips will help you understand how to make your cologne last longer, even the best cologne, eau de toilette or body mist won’t have the sillage of an eau de parfum, which will always contain more perfume concentrate and scent essence.

At Maison 21G, we exclusively produce eau de parfum as part of our commitment to consistently deliver the highest quality to our community. Eau de parfum, by definition, needs to have a minimum of 15-20% perfume concentrate in the bottle…but most brands won’t tell you the real percentage, as they cut costs by lacking transparency. At Maison 21G, you always know you’re getting an industry-beating 21%, as you weigh your perfume concentrate yourself! No other brands provide this level of transparency, and we believe the perfume industry needs to be more open, more honest, and capable of providing customers with better products.

The other point to keep in mind is that quality perfumes - which by their very nature, provide longer lasting scent -should always contain a high level of natural ingredients. Natural oils, extracted from natural ingredients, are perfumes in themselves. Powerful, impactful and long-lasting, nobody creates perfume quite like Mother Nature! This is just one of the reasons why natural extracts are so expensive; rose extract can cost $5000 US per kilo, vanilla is $20,000 US per kilo… but these ingredients will deliver texture, quality and sillage in ways that man-made compounds cannot compete with.

The bigger brands in the perfume industry, we’re sorry to tell you, will pull the wool over their consumers’ eyes again and again when it comes to quantity and quality of natural ingredients. At Maison 21G, it’s a wholly different story: we guarantee a minimum of 20%natural ingredients in your perfume formula, ensuring a scent that’s not only clean, not only irresistible, but long lasting and endlessly alluring too.

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