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FRAGRANCE GUIDES
HOW TO APPLY PERFUME & MAKE IT LAST LONGER?

5 TIPS ON HOW TO APPLY PERFUME & MAKE IT LAST LONGER

Perfume can be personal statement of self-expression, but curating the perfect fragrance wardrobe requires time and attention to detail. Ensuring a scent lasts for hours and base notes linger on the skin into the night is important if you want to get the most out of your signature fragrance. Beyond supporting a lasting scent, understanding how to use perfume and proper maintenance can help you feel confident stepping into the world wearing a fragrance that encapsulates your personality. Ahead, discover our guide to achieving long lasting perfume with our favourite application tips.

How to achieve long lasting perfume

We all desire a fragrance that smells incredible and lasts all day, but learning how to make perfume last longer can be a process of trial and error. Instead, implement our perfume application tips so you never again find yourself asking, ‘why doesn’t my perfume last?’

1. Moisturise before applying perfume

2. Focus on pulse points

3. Store and maintain fragrances properly

4. Learn how to layer scents

5. Understand fragrance intensity

Let's delve into each of these tips a little more deeply so you can achieve a long lasting perfume scent.

1. Moisturise before applying perfume

Wondering how to put perfume on properly? When to apply fragrance is just as important as where to spray perfume. Fragrance clings to moisture, so spritzing your perfume after showering and applying moisturiser can elongate the life of a scent and uplift its intensity. The warmth of your skin after showering can also help to diffuse a perfume across the body and highlight individual fragrance notes. This can be particularly ideal to enhance perfumes with a lower concentration of fragrance oil, like the lavender and white tea notes of the Libre Eau De Toilette.

2. Focus on pulse points

In terms of how to make perfume last longer, strategic placement could be the key to unlocking an enduring scent. It’s important to spray perfume directly to the skin and refrain from massaging the liquid into the skin as this can break down a scent and cause it to fade quickly. Understanding where to apply perfume is also an essential element in enhancing the life of a fragrance on the skin. Pulse points are areas of the body where the rhythm of your heart can be felt, and they emit warmth that help a perfume to slowly diffuse across the body. Enhance the lavender and orange blossom notes of Libre Eau De Parfum by spritzing the scent on pulse points such as the neck, behind the ears, wrists and inner elbows.

3. Store and maintain fragrances properly

Learning the proper techniques for how to apply perfume is not the only factor that can influence a lasting scent. To get the most out of your fragrance wardrobe, proper perfume storage is paramount. While it’s common practice to keep fragrances in a bathroom cabinet, the changing temperature and moisture in the air can cause scents to degrade quickly. Instead, store perfume in a cool room away from sunlight – a bedroom dresser is the perfect place to display your perfume collection, and statement bottles can add a touch of luxury to a space.

4. Learn how to layer scents

Whether you want to feel confident, elegant or sensual, each YSL fragrance is expertly crafted to balance rich and evocative fragrance notes in long lasting perfume formulas. But if you want to extend the life of a scent and create a bespoke fragrance experience, learning the proper techniques for layering perfumes can be effective. It’s common to pair fresh citrus notes with softer floral fragrances, but if you prefer spiced scents it can be difficult to know which fragrance notes to look for when layering. The woody and peppery notes of Caftan Eau De Parfum can uplift botanic scents like the lavender and tonka beans notes of Libre Eau De Parfum Intense.

5. Understand fragrance intensity

While there are differences in the intensity of different kinds of fragrances, like eau de parfums and eau de toilettes, long lasting perfume is achievable with any scent. A perfume’s fragrance oil concentration influences the strength of a scent; so while an eau de toilette will typically have a light scent, it can still last for hours on the skin. More intense scents are associated with perfumes with a higher fragrance oil content, like Black Opium Le Parfum or Black Opium Eau De Parfum. These kinds of perfumes often have a stronger scent with bold base notes that can linger for an hour or two longer than gentler fragrances.

Loved our tips to long lasting perfume? Discover your signature scent with our guide to fragrance notes and perfume profiles.