The right place is neither your house (sorry, Kate) or the back of your knee. Let alone your wrists, where the blood flows. Perfumers agree that the good old nape of the neck wins.
“I only wear a few drops of perfume to bed,” claimed the famous seductress Marilyn Monroe. “My entire house is scented with an Eau de Toilette dominated by orange notes,” says the model Kate Moss. But that doesn’t tell us much about where we should spritz our fragrance to make those around us notice it and react in a positive way.
The right place is neither your house (sorry, Kate) or the back of your knee. Let alone your wrists, where the blood flows. Perfumers agree that the good old nape of the neck wins.
We are surrounded by a great variety of scents. How are we to navigate them and which ones are the most powerful aphrodisiacs? Definitely animal, animal-derived ingredients. One example that our nose and brain will not forget is musk, a scent sourced from the musk sac gland of a musk deer. However, its use is forbidden, and fragrances are formulated with vegetable or synthetic alternatives instead.
Female civet cats have also secured their spot on the fragrance market. They have scent glands near their genital tract that secrete a pungent substance called civet, formerly used in the perfume industry. Luckily, this (un)pleasantly fragrant ingredient is being used less and less.
You may also be familiar with ambergris, a secretion from the stomach of a sperm whale. When it finds its way out of the whale’s body naturally, it floats on the surface of the sea, sometimes even for decades, while it “matures” and oxidises. It changes its scent as the years go by, and as it “ages”, its aroma becomes more subtle and has an aquatic quality.
Something found in jasmine, orange blossom or tuberose is an aromatic substance called indole, which is like the half-sister of musk. It has a similar effect, but it’s purely plant-based. This ingredient also has a typical putrid note and can be almost vulgar in large amounts. But when the dose is just right, it evokes the scent of clean skin.
One of the most intense floral aphrodisiacs is jasmine, of which there are more than forty-three species that resemble animal musk. Various studies prove that jasmine enhances the libido and attracts the other sex like a magnet. In Hindu and Muslim cultures, jasmine is known as the “perfume of love” and especially in Asia, you can find these delicate white flowers as part of wedding ceremonies.
Fragrance experts also swear by sandalwood. Rumour has it that a woman who wears a perfume with this ingredient during intercourse will heighten desire and make love-making a more powerful experience.
Another interesting modern ingredient found in fragrances is salt, which reacts with the pH of the skin and is said to evoke the scent of the body after love-making. Cumin brings an animal touch to unisex perfumes and once again evokes the scent of sweaty bodies after sex.
Don’t forget that each day should be accompanied by a pleasant scent, but not the scent of a perfume or Eau de Toilette that your friend wears. Choose an intoxicating fragrance that your heart desires, regardless of others.