Coordinating Perfume with Body Care Products

[lunabee34]

I have made my first BPAL purchase! Thank you to everyone who gave me excellent suggestions.

As I wait for my imps to arrive, it suddenly occurs to me that I have been satisfying most of my smell pretty needs with soap, bath gel, and lotion. When I start testing out imps, best case scenario is that my body care products complement the new perfumes. Worst case scenario, I start smelling like the Yankee candle end of the mall.

So what do y'all do?

1. Do you "match" your body care products to your perfume? Or coordinate them to complement in some way? If so, what have you found that works for you?

2. Do you go the unscented, most neutral route so that only your perfume shines through? If so, what have you found that works for you?

3. To what extreme to you take it if you don't like other scents interfering with your perfume? Unscented laundry detergent? Etc?

Comments

[rydra_wong]

I haven't found that soap or shampoo scents stay on skin/hair enough to be a problem. Though I tend to use "natural" products scented with essential oils -- it's possible that some more mainstream products have more lingering scents? Or it may simply be the limits of my particular sense of smell.

I do use unscented body/hand lotion if I'm planning to wear perfume, so it doesn't clash.

Alternatively, I've made my own body lotion by dumping a sample vial of perfume into a bottle of unscented body lotion (the Neal's Yard unscented base is a good one for this); with a very powerful/long-lasting perfume (e.g. Bal a Versailles), this can be a nice way of getting a low-key/non-overwhelming scent all by itself.

Using a matching body lotion can also reportedly be a way of extending how long a scent lasts on your skin (especially as moisturized skin seems to hang onto scent better).

But people have also had fun using "mis-matched" body lotions and perfumes as a way of playing with layering, coming up with different combinations.

[cyprinella]

Alternatively, I've made my own body lotion Ah ha! I wondered if that was doable.

[rydra_wong]

Yes! A ready-made body lotion will already have an emulsifier etc.; you have to shake/stir it a lot to get it fully mixed, but (with a smallish amount of alcohol-based perfume, at least) then it doesn't seem to separate.

So it's just a question of tinkering with the amout of perfume until you get the scent strength you want.

[kaberett]

This also works with E45! (My current batch is bergamot-bay-black pepper.)


ETA -- of my various shower gel-y things (I tend to shower in the morning) I find that the Original Source mint+teatree and the Lush jasmine nonsense last longest (the Lush in particular is noticeable for much of the day).

[lunabee34]

Good to know!

I have never used any Lush products but they look amazing.

[lunabee34]

This is fantastic; thank you. Exactly what I was looking for.

I know that some of the products I use are pretty strongly scented and long-lasting so I'll take that into account when I start testing out the perfumes I bought. :)