If you find yourself at the fragrance counters diving into the samples and spritzing them on your skin, it's safe to say you have an easy time finding a perfume that you love. You're probably the perfect person to gift also, easily pleased with a fragrance gift pack that's in your standard scent profile - in short, you and fragrances really get along.
Then there's the flip side, where you find yourself spending a long time at fragrance counters for a different reason.
"I don't want to smell like a perfume, I just want to smell GOOD!", you exclaim - what are the right fragrances when you want something gentle but signature, something that takes your skin scent and amplifies it just enough?
Well, you've come to the right blog post - these are my favourite 'I'm-not-wearing-a-perfume-I-just-naturally-smell-great' fragrances that sit close to the body (not a lot of projection) and are fool-proof to apply.
As the name would suggest, this is anything but you're standard scent. It will smell differently on you than it might on a friend, with a base of Cetalox (a synthetic and widely used version of gray ambergris which was originally sourced from the digestive track of sperm whales), that gives very clean, musky, amber-y shape to the fragrance. It doesn't develop a tonne, so what you spray is what you get, but it's difficult to overdo this fragrance and it's perfect as a travel size to refresh during the day.
So this is definitely a luxury purchase, but Dear Polly has gentle notes of musk and tea which is sweet but refreshing. This brand is pretty new to Mecca, with one reviewer noting it "becomes a part of your body like a warm cup of tea."
It wouldn't be a fragrance post of mine without mentioning a Le Labo scent. AnOther 13 is filled with, yep, you guessed it, Ambroxan, also known as Cetalox. Are you seeing the theme here? Be warned, this is a scent that some are ansomnic to, meaning they can't pick up this scent at all (worth a tester spray on the skin), but if you can smell it, it's light, bright and fizzy grounded by jasmine which brings some warmth in at the end.
Even if you're a fragrance lover with a collection that spans half your vanity, there's always room for a skin scent like this for professional capacities when we want to be sure we won't offend (or even flights where we are in close quarters with others), but still want to feel fully dressed with a fragrance on top.