Choosing your signature scent can be challenging, given the wide range of fragrances. Moreover, there are many factors to consider, including your skin type, perfume concentration, and ingredients. How long a scent lasts on your body largely depends on the oil concentration and your skin type. But worry not. Here, you will learn everything to do with fragrance types and strengths to make things easier.

Fragrance categories

First, fragrances are categorized into different families depending on their characteristics. A fragrance wheel is a round diagram that displays all families and subfamilies of scents based on their features. Others are related while others are not. 

Fragrances are broken into four families: floral, woody, oriental, and fresh. While most scent products are not labeled with the scent family, you should be able to determine the fragrance based on the perfume ingredients.

Floral 

The floral scent family is the broadest and probably the most popular. It smells like cut flowers with a powdery note, perfect for spring and summer. Any perfume with a flowery and sweet smell will belong to this category using notes such as lilies, jasmine, apple, peach, pear, and rose. The fragrance is mainly used in women's perfumes and occasionally in men's colognes. It also comes in light or intense concentrations.

Oriental

When you hear oriental scents, think of herbs and spices with dry, powdery resin notes. Oriental perfumes are exotic, luxurious, and seductive, often made with interesting notes of vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom, jasmine, orchid, orange blossom, and more. They come in floral, soft, and woody oriental subfamilies. They are warm, sweet, and a little spicy, with woody orientals having a pinch of earthy notes.

Fresh

The fresh scent family is characterized by clean, bright scents mainly comprising water, citrus, and green notes. In other words, fresh fragrances have a refreshing, vibrant, and zesty smell. Oceanic herbs and citrusy fall under this family and are predominantly used in men's perfumes than women's. You may notice fresh scents as:

• Green notes smell like a freshly mowed lawn or crushed green leaves.

• Aquatic scents smell like rain mixed with sea spray or oceanic notes.

• Citrus with zesty notes.

• Aromatic- fresh herbs mixed with woody scents of lavender.

Fresh scents are also referred to as aromatic scents.

Woody 

Lastly, we have woody scents made of wood-based smells like sandalwood, cedarwood, amber, and vetiver. Woody fragrances are warm and opulent, with an occasional mix of fresh notes like floral and citrus. They are divided into dry woods with a smoky, leathery smell and mossy woods with an earthy but sweet undertone.

Fragrance notes

Experts use top, middle and base notes to describe fragrances. The top note is what you smell immediately when you spray the perfume-making the first impression. The middle note is the primary body of the scent left after the top note has evaporated. The base note is what is left or the lingering smell.

Final word

Now that you understand the fragrance families, you can order perfumes with scents you like and try them on your skin to see if you love them at the end of the day.