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You've probably heard of perfume-layering before -- where your body wash matches your body cream matches your perfume so that you're one big ball of the same scent from head to toe.
The beauty industry loves to tell you to layer things, and there are all sorts of products and sets, from Philosophy's Amazing Grace layering kit that includes shower gel/bubble bath/shampoo (FYI, I love their 3-in-1s and own probably five or six of them now, but they're a little harsh as shampoo), shimmer body lotion, and eau de toilette, to the almost ridiculous amount of stuff you can get in this Pink Sugar set. Do you really need eau de toilette, massage oil (!), hair perfume (!!), body mousse (hilariously spelled "mouse" on Sephora.com), and body scrub all in sweet, sweet, Pink Sugar? If you do, then that's the kit for you. But otherwise, um, yikes.
And that's not even going into the other forms of solid perfume, like shimmer rollerballs or leg shine (in four! different! colors!).
I tend to find the concept of fully layering in one scent a little overwhelming, because while there are certain scents I like, I don't think I could fully commit to one scent in and out of the shower to create an aura of that scent around myself. I tried using a shower gel with a matching body cream, and I felt like I was going to knock out everyone with it. And that was without adding perfume on top.
That said, I do like the idea of layering different scents and discovering that two or more perfumes can turn into something amazing and unique. That's more interesting to me than using every single product with the same scent.
Chandler Burr, the New York Times perfume critic, wrote a book called The Perfect Scent, where he followed the development of two perfumes: Hermes' Un Jardin sur le Nil in Paris, and Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely in New York. In the book and in an article about her, he tells of a discussion he had with Sarah Jessica about the first perfume she created:
So you already had a specific scent in mind, I say.
"Oh, yeah. Very specific - and this sounds strange perhaps - but I had already created a fragrance, something I wore for years. Three scents I mixed on my skin, and honestly, it was terrific. The grips would say, 'Wow, what are you wearing?"'
What were the scents?
She hesitates. "Do you think it's bad to say?"
No. Why?
She considers. "Well, first, I'd buy a drugstore musk, $6.99 a bottle at Thrifty." What was it called? "Uhhh." She touches my arm. "I think I better not say." I pretend to look hurt. She laughs. O.K., and the second? "An Egyptian oil from an African-American gentleman who used to sell them on lower Broadway. Third was a fairly costly male scent." Off the record, she tells me what it is. I'm surprised - it's edgy, with a dark, forbidding aesthetic. That's not, I say, a combination I'd see you creating. "Oh, it's me," she says instantly. "Love it. Really dirty. Really sexy."
If you read on, Burr does reveal what two of the three components are.
Meanwhile, one of my favorite beauty and perfume bloggers is The Non-Blonde, who often experiments with layering her perfumes. She also reports, when testing a scented body product, how much the scent interferes with her perfume as well. Sometimes they work out well, such as her recent post on Fleurs d'Oranger and what really made it pop for her, and sometimes, well... things just don't work out.
Do you layer up on one scent, starting in the shower? Or do you have a secret combination of several scents?
