How to Apply Perfume for a Longer Lasting Scent

How to make your perfume last longer on your skin, plus other perfume and fragrance wearing tips on how to apply perfume and prevent fading.

A beautiful fragrance is warm poetic and complementary to the wearer but having your perfume fade and disappear within hours of your first spritz can be frustrating. Rather than dousing yourself in an excessive amount of perfume try these essential lessons and tips from the Lancôme fragrance team on how to apply perfume to ensure your perfume lasts longer.

How to Make Perfume Last Longer

Hydrate Skin Before Applying Perfume

Fragrance and perfumes tend to hold better when applied onto hydrated skin. As fragrances cling to emollients keeping your skin well-moisturized can help perfume last longer. Whilst any lotion can provide hydration to your skin prepping skin with a scented body wash and scented body lotion which match your signature scent can create a fully immersive fragrance experience. In addition to hydrating the skin to assist in helping your perfume last longer this also provides further fragrance that subtly lingers throughout the day. Lancôme La Vie Est Belle Fragrance line contains a matching La Vie Est Belle Shower Gel allowing you to layer for ultimate wear time to make your perfume last longer.

Don’t Rub Your Wrists Together

Rubbing your wrists together after applying perfume may help you to quickly immerse yourself in the entirety of a perfume but perfume and fragrance pros wince at this widespread (but mistaken) gesture. Rubbing perfume into the skin crushes its delicate scent molecules altering the scent and causing it to fade faster. Help your perfume last longer by applying your fragrance and letting it sit and set into the skin.

How to Apply Perfume

Select Your Fragrance Carefully

Some perfumes are designed to be worn as a light subtle and skin-like scent. Light perfumes may be suitable for moments such as beach trips and traveling where confinement is a given but if longevity is your biggest fragrance concern then consider choosing a specific variation of perfume. Eau de Parfum typically has a higher concentration of fragrance oil in comparison to Eau De Toilette fragrances which are often lighter and more subtle in fragrance. Idôle L'Intense and La Vie Est Belle Intesément are two Lancôme perfumes in the Eau de Parfum category which have been specially created to provide more intensity. Additionally spicy and musky fragrances such as La Nuit Trésor and Trésor Midnight Rose are often more intense and may have a longer period of wear time. Remember don’t expect a scent to smell the same on you as it does on someone else. Your body chemistry as well as your skin diet lifestyle and environment can all affect how a given perfume translates on you.

How to Apply Perfume Correctly

Perfume application benefits from a specialized approach. Avoid spritzing your perfume and walking through the mist. Although sashaying through a cloud of scent may feel glamorous it is not the most effective method of perfume application as doing so will give you only the slightest hint of fragrance that fades in a matter of hours. The best way how to apply perfume is to focus on the “pulse points” of the body to make perfume last longer. Apply perfume to the neck the insides of the wrists and the backs of the knees.

Don't Apply Perfume to Your Underarms

Whilst it may be tempting to spritz your perfume on certain areas to mask unpleasant scents it’s important to remember perfume doesn't work like deodorant. Perfume unlike deodorant has no antiperspirant or odor-banishing properties. Furthermore, consistent rubbing in areas such as the underarms may cause the essential notes in a fragrance to become disrupted and the high alcohol content in certain formulations may leave these areas of the skin suspectable to irritation.

Looking for a new perfume? Shop Lancôme fragrances here.