Guide to buying perfumes online or otherwise – How to choose a perfume based on scent families and fragrance notes.

Reading about Fragrance description of perfumes is like reading an English literature essay – fancy and nice but doesn’t help in deciding what to buy!

At Dopamine, simplicity of communication is an important promise that we have made to ourselves. Our Blogs and Information will be relatable, easy, and sometimes funny too.

So, after going over various technical articles and concepts, we have tried to summarize the fragrance wheel and scent families into easy to relate and understandable language. The objective we wish to achieve out of this is – you should be able to identify the smell and make an easier purchase decision, not only for our perfume but for any other perfume (though we would be jealous if you pick something else)

First, let’s get the complex technical picture first:

  1. There are 4 main families of fragrances (think of castes or kingdoms) based on how they smell- Fresh, Floral, Amber (known as Oriental before) and Woody.
  2. These 4 families are further subdivided in 14 sub – families like Soft Floral, Fruity, Floral Ambery, Woody Amber, Moss Wood, Dry Wood etc
  3. Various Ingredients that go in a perfume are classified based on the above 14 smell categories
  4. And a perfume itself is a concoction of multiple ingredients belonging to 3-4 such sub-families. Plus, the families are combined in varying degrees of intensity. Yes, it’s an art and a science both.

Wow!

These things make it complicated for a perfume shopper as far as imagining how a perfume will smell

So, how does one relate it to smelling?

Let’s try to make it easier. We have presented 8 categories below. This relatable list of families will help you.

Each of our Dopamine perfume product description is based on it. We try to explain how the perfume will smell by using maximum 3 out of the below lot based on their ‘dominance’ in the mix right from the top note to dry down stage.

For e.g., Dopamine Success is made of Fresh Lemon, Orange, Lavender, Peppermint, Musk etc in it. The dominant smell is of Orange followed by Lavender. So, we have classified it as ‘Fresh – Floral – Amber,’ which means that the dominating fragrance is Fresh and supporting fragrances are Floral (Lavender) followed by Amber (Musk).

Let’s get into the classification then:

  1. Fresh: All citrusy smells like Lemon, Bergamot, Mandarin Orange. These zesty and tangy notes are refreshing in nature.
  2. Floral: Scent of freshly cut flowers, sweeter and powdery. Rose, Jasmine, Lily, Iris etc. Think of Flower Bouquets. Yes, Fresh and Sweet aromas.
  3. Sweet: Fruity sweet smells. Imagine Strawberry, Apples, Pears etc
  4. Spicy: Imagine the smells of Herbs, Spices, Incense etc - aromatic and warm. Individually they might be strong like Cinnamon or Peppermint, but these are softened down with sweet notes (You don’t want to be walking out smelling like a Cinnamon stick)
  5. Green: These are naturals smells like freshly cut grass or leaves. Imaging walking into freshly mowed lawns.
  6. Oceanic: Aquatic scents like the smell of sea spray or rain or oceans.
  7. Amber: Amber notes are sweeter but not fresh and sweet (like fruits). Instead, they smell warm and cosy sweet like Vanilla, Musk. On the softer side. fun fact: would you believe Vanilla is classified as an amber smell? Technically, herbs and spices form a part of Amber but for our ease, we have excluded those as a separate classification above. 
  8. Woody:  Best imagined as Earthy, Smoky, Leathery, Smooth, and Sweet. These are royal and distinct is nature. Oakmoss, Cedar, Sandalwood, Patchouli etc are some of the ingredients that fall in this category

So go on and visit dopamineshop.in, check the product listing and try to imagine how the fragrance smells based on the description

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