MIND KIZZED RANTS AND RANDOMNESS: HOW TO MAKE FRAGRANCE LAST ALL DAY

As much as a scent can make your eyes roll with ecstasy and memory, it can also make you sputter and dry heave. Let's all remember that, fortunately, we don't use perfume to "cover" our stinking, unwashed bodies like they did back in ancient times. Or even in this very moment in France.


Perfume should work with you and your natural effluvia and like makeup, enhance your natural desirability.




          Easy Instructions

1.  A great way to maintain your fragrance all day is, of course, to layer. Now, I never subscribe to the"body wash" component of the layering process--frankly I think it's just a bitchy way for companies to get you to buy twenty five bucks worth of scented soap which usually A. doesn't clean particularly well and B. doesn't really smell like anything after you've emerged from the shower. So, the moral of this story is: don't buy sets. Sets inevitably include a body wash, and even though it looks like you're getting a better deal, you're not. Why? Because you're paying an hour's wage on a freaking soap.

  2.   If your favorite perfume company makes a body cream or lotion--buy it! If you first layer the cream, and then spritz with your cologne, the two will adhere and last longer throughout the day.

 3.   Better yet, if your fragrance also offers a body powder, invest in this. Powders really are the best of both worlds--they have long lasting powers, but usually have a lighter, crisper dose of the scent.

4.   I don't believe in the ol' spray-in-the-air-and-walk-into-the-plume trick. When my perfume costs as much as it does, I'm not gonna treat it like a friggin Glade plug-in. I spray it directly on neck, behind elbows and behind knees. When you spray on parts of you which have motion, the scent will combine with your natural body oils and last longer, smell better, and ultimately, smell more like you.

5.  Use a smellie which becomes your definitive scent. This is totally hypocritical of me because I'm a girl and it's basically my job to own 48 different bottles of perfume. But I get the best reactions when I repeatedly wear the same smell--people like associating you with a particular scent.

6.  Keep away from department store smells--why would you want something as personal and individual and scent to be available to every other slob? Try mixing fragrances, going on websites which custom-blend some of your favorite notes, or use a combination of oils. Just like you don't want people walking into your house and saying "Oh! I have that, too! Ikea, right?", you certainly don't want them saying "Oh, Light Blue from Dolce and Gabbana. I totally wore that last spring."

Tips & Warnings

Keep a little spray bottle in your purse for touch-ups..Spray one squirt in your hair--this really gives a lovely sense of the scent, and it's never overwhelming..  Men: don't wear anything from Calvin Klein, especially any of their fragrances which feature simply initials. Also no to Polo, Drakkar Noir and Cool Water. It doesn't matter why. Just don't do it.