Ingenious Markets

In the cut-throat world of perfume design and manufacturing, perfume is a complex chemical mixture of essential oils, aroma compounds, fixatives, solvents, beautiful bottles and celebrity-endorsed marketing. For those who wear perfume however, the final product is much more than the sum of its parts: for many, perfume is a much-loved element of personal preparation, as essential as dressing or brushing one’s teeth.

A quick tour of the cosmetics and personal care section of any department store reveals the wide array of perfume available on the market, with many more available exclusively through high-end perfume boutiques or import shops. There are so many choices, in fact, that knowing what to buy can be confusing.

Depending on their chemical composition and ratio of fragrance oil to solvent, scents generally fall into one of the following categories:

Perfume extracts (20%-40% aromatic compounds), eau de perfume (10%-30% aromatic compounds), eau de toilette (5%-20 % aromatic compounds) or eau de cologne (2%-3% aromatic compounds). The more aromatic compound that is used the longer the scent will last. Perfume is made up of dozens of ingredients, so it can be difficult to describe the overall effect as just one scent. However, it is possible to identify different contributing scents, similar to how one who knows wine can taste the varying flavors of its composition.

Perfume fragrances are generally categorized by olfactive families such as floral (self explanatory), Chypre (used to describe scents such as apricot), Fougre (woody or herbaceous scents), leather (honey, tobacco, or wood tar scents so named because they are reminiscent of leather), woody (such as sandalwood-, cedar- or patchouli-dominated scents), ambers (vanilla or animal scents), and citrus (refreshing scents).

‘Notes’ are another way to describe or categorize perfume and how it smells as it evaporates off the skin over a period of hours.

• Top notes: this is what one first notices after applying perfume. Top notes are generally pleasing and strong, but evaporate quickly.

• Middle notes: also called the ‘heart notes’ a perfume’s middle notes are considered the main body of a perfume, and tend to be less strong than top notes. Middle notes are noticeable anywhere from a few minutes up to more than an hour after perfume application.

• Base notes: the lasting impressions from a perfume application, base notes give a fragrance its depth thanks to the holding power of the fixatives used in the perfume formulation.

The creation of the art of making perfume is attributed to the Egyptians, but perfume has been embraced by the rest of the world with uses as wide ranging as religious duty in some Islamic culture, camouflage for poor hygiene in early Europe, and even as a slow-absorbing poison! Today, however, perfume is used by both men and women for personal enjoyment and appeal. Many consider a particular scent as part of their identity, and thanks to this loyalty, many popular perfume fragrances, such as No 5 by Chanel, have been around for nearly a century.

As lovely as perfume can be, many people are allergic to it, so always be sure your scent of choice is not offensive to anyone before you wear it in a crowded area.

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With prom season right around the corner, you are no doubt already thinking about how you want to wear your hair for the special night. While many of your friends may end up spending a fortune getting their hair done at a salon, you can easily do your hair at home and achieve stunning results. The key is in the details.

When creating updos at home, one of the hardest things to do is craft perfect twists and dramatic effects. But you can have equally stunning results by taking a few shortcuts. Here are a couple of ideas that you can do yourself at home.

Loose, Romantic Updo

Remember Kate Winslet’s hair in the Titanic? This classic, romantic updo is very simple to pull off at home. All you need is a medium sized curling iron, some bobby pins and super-hold finishing spray.

To begin, start with dry hair. Give your hair a once over with the hairspray and start to curl your hair in ringlets. You can do this by taking ” sections starting in the nape while pinning the rest of the hair up. After completing each section, pull down another ” parting and curl until the whole head is covered in Shirley Temple ringlets. (Don’t worry; it’s not going to stay like that.)

Next, pull hair in 1″ sections from around the hair line. Twisting slightly and loosely, pull the sections up and back toward the top of the crown and pin into place. Continue around the entire perimeter of the head until all of the hair is pinned up. If the curls on the crown look a bit funky, rearrange them to where you would like them and pin into place. You can also leave tendrils of soft hair falling around the face and neck of this updo to create a wispy effect. Spray to hold.

Fun and Modern Updo

This updo is extremely easy to create. Start again dry hair. First, create a dramatic design parting in the front and top of the head. You can do a zigzag parting or an angled parting, really any parting that adds interest. Sleek the rest of the hair down and back to the nape of the neck in a temporary ponytail. Holding the ponytail in your fist, twist up until the end of the hair are pointing up and over the crown leaving only about 1″ of hair to play with. Hold with a clip and fan the ends out with some pomade or styling wax. Spray to finish.

You see, it’s not that hard. And when your friends all show up with cookie-cutter hairdos and less money in their pockets, you can smile with the knowledge that you not only have an individual updo but that you also have more money to burn.

Jenny is a hair expert, and the author of an incredible free minicourse, that explains how to find your unique style, how long or short you should have your hair, how to find the right hair color for you, how to find the right salon, and a lot more. Go to www.hairstylevillage.com/ now and get this amazing hair minicourse – absolutely free.