What type of cologne

Something that, over time, everyone will associate with you and come to recognize as your own unique musk? Take it slow! There are a lot of fragrances on the market that smell good—it'd be a waste to settle on something right away. This, after all, is going to be your signature scent.

It needs to stand out. It needs to turn heads. It needs to start conversations. It needs to leave a lasting impression. It needs to be well thought-out. One: Notes reveal themselves in three layers: Top, heart, and base. The top notes will be strongest at first, but will evaporate and make way for the others. The heart notes are often florals—something that balances the scent and binds nicely to the ends. The base notes are usually the most prominent, and they always last the longest.

Two: These notes will often change from one season to the next, with heavier notes in the winter fragrances. You should also know what type of scent family you want to draw from. Thank you. To recieve the latest updates on the Absolute Collection and other Clive Christian perfumes, sign up to access the world of Clive Christian. By signing up to our newsletter you agree to our Privacy Policy. Perfume and the practice of perfuming is thousands of years old.

In the 19th century synthetic aroma chemicals, called aldehydes, were first discovered and the fragrance industry became what we know it to be today — a great spectrum of different types of perfume and diverse scents and not just for royalty and nobility as it had been in the past.

Over new fragrances, with a variety of perfume strengths are launched every year. There are different categories in perfumery for different perfume types. These terms actually refer to concentration which describes the amount of pure perfume oil within a fragrance.

Generally, the higher the perfume concentration, the higher the longevity on the skin and also the higher the price point. The most important type of perfume, Parfum, also known as Pure Perfume or Extrait de Parfum , boasts the highest fragrance concentration. From all types of fragrances Parfum commands the highest price and perfume strength excluding absolute perfume oils of course due to its high concentration of fragrance oil, meaning it lasts the longest on the skin whilst giving the wearer a full spectrum of Top, Heart and Base Notes that are released over time.

The colognes would seem crude to us, but back then they were a mixture of the essential oils of flora and fauna yes, fauna plus whatever fruits were around. Hopefully, you mixed a pleasant smell the gods would enjoy, so they would take pity on you. Generally, recorded history lists the Egyptians as the first to use colognes in their religious rituals in addition to smelling nice. Colognes have always distinguished the upper classes from the little people.

Cologne was believed to be the sweat from Ra the sun god. Nefertum was the goddess of scent. She is pictured wearing a headdress of water lilies which was the main ingredient of cologne in those days. Archeology has dug up recipes for cologne which was part of daily life if you were royalty or the aristocracy. The ingredients for Egyptian cologne came from Africa in the form of myrrh and woodsy scents.

It was a big trade item and formed the basis of international relationships between the two. Ancient Persians were the next to experiment with scent. Their royalty and aristocracy were also heavily invested in cologne, even having paintings of Darius and Xerxes holding their cologne bottles and the flowers that went into them.

He is thought to be the father of distillation and the discoverer of base alcohol. Thus, the Persians led the way in cologne making for many hundreds of years. Archeology in addition to the writings of Pliny the Elder has illuminated recipes for cologne.

We are now able to recreate the scent worn by Julius Caesar, for example. The ancient Greeks and Romans were careful to document every little thing in their lives, and this included the scents they used for beautification as well as ritual endeavors.

Cyprus was believed to be the home of the mythological goddess of love Aphrodite. What is believed to be the oldest perfume factory in history is located there. The thinking goes that the perfume factory-supplied scent for temples and the persons who worshipped there.

The scent was used in public baths, in beauty and health products, and, so rumor has it, on the soles of the feet.

They believed that scent purified their rooms and disinfected them. These were also used for medicinal purposes. Europeans needed something with which to combat this, so they carried around little sachets or pomanders containing aromatic herbs and spices.

These were believed to keep your personal space clean which in turn fought infections. Add to this the fact that the Crusaders brought back to Europe the cologne making secrets of the East. Far removed from ancient Rome, the Italians of the Middle Ages are responsible for lots of cool things.

One of them was the creation of 95 percent alcohol combined with herbs and spices to make a scent called aqua mirabilis. Fast-forward to Catherine de Medici, who, when she married the French king, had her own cologne formulated by an Italian. Thought to contain water with bergamot and orange, the idea spread far and wide to England, Germany, and points north and south.

And that brings us to Cologne, Germany. Giovanni Maria Farina was homesick for Italy. He combined tobacco, jasmine, rosemary, lemon, orange, thyme, bergamot, tangerine, lavender, neroli, and grapefruit essential oils and called it cologne for his new hometown. Farina wore his Eau de Cologne or water of cologne out of homesickness, but it caught on so fast and furious that crowned heads all over the known world wanted it. The factory remains in Cologne to this day. It is joined by two other perfumeries based in the same city, however, the other two call their colognes by other names and even numbers to distinguish them from the original cologne.

Laurent, and Usher are just a few. The enduring classics, though, include Christian Dior and Coco Chanel. The cologne that best describes me is Giorgio Gold, for instance. While it seems as if you can find anything your imagination can name in any store including convenience stores, there really are myriad places from which to purchase cologne.

Generally, any store that carries a wide variety of products will carry cologne. For example, almost every pharmacy has a glass case filled with colorful boxes of cologne. Dollar stores might carry knock-offs, but they do carry cologne. One of the places you might not think would carry colognes is the post exchange on any military base in the world. They need a PX to give them a flavor of home. They have access to groceries, clothing, shoes, jewelry, hardware, and other accouterments of the home.

This includes cologne. Of course, there are the kiosks in malls that carry everything from sneakers to handmade keychains and jewelry to photographs to, you guessed it, cologne. In his hand will be a cardboard box of cologne. He, too, is an independent contractor selling whatever wares his company makes. I, personally, have bought my Giorgio Gold from such contractors.