Do the perfume scents you’re drawn to tell you what sort of person you are? Here’s a great piece from our fabulous regular contributor TriedTestedLoved about the impact of fragrance on your own wellbeing, how people have come to think that scent preferences can be a reflection on a persons personality and how hormones can also have an impact on this.

What does the perfume you wear say about your character? Do you veer towards so-called uplifting citrus notes? Or are you drawn towards languid, sensual florals? Maybe spicy rich orientals transport you to sunnier climates?

There is a school of thought that believes our scent preferences are a reflection of our personality type, that some fragrances are more for the extroverted, others for the introverted, and allocates traits like confidence, passion, imagination and sensitivity to groups of fragrances.

This may well be true but presents a problem for someone who likes a variety of fragrance types as there is the risk of suffering from multiple personalities! In reality, selecting a perfume on the basis of your mood or nature, is very logical and might actually be good for your wellbeing.

“In reality selecting a perfume on the basis of your mood or nature, is very logical and might actually be good for your wellbeing.”

As humans, we are programmed to use our sense of smell to identify potential dangers, sniff out a mate or at least a friendly and safe environment. Smell is one of the higher senses, and is one that evolved early on for our protection. We often detect a fragrance before we have been able to process what is actually is.  The odorant molecules enter the “smell brain” within our limbic system which is like a data bank of fragrance. The odour is identified, the brain confirms if our association with this is positive or negative and also the life experience we link to it. This then influences whether we like a smell or not, et voila!

So, if you do find that your fragrance choices are always in the same type of olfactory family, that just means that certain aromas work for you on a physiological level; your nose and your brain are simply drawn to these and it is not something you can always control. And why should you? These choices are probably hard-wired into your system and may be hard to re-programme.

If, like many of us, you can be seduced down a different scented path according to the situation or your mood, go for it.

It is always very personal, even if most of us can recognise the same molecules, our association and experiences will be different which is one of the reasons we can love a scent someone else hates and vice versa.

The positive feelings and benefits of perfume from nature, flowers, foods and of course perfume can definitely help with wellbeing, your mood and the way you feel around other people, even if you can’t explain why. Conversely, if you just don’t like something, that is often a defence mechanism used by the brain to remind you of bad memory or bad experience. Or danger!

It is also important to bear in mind that our hormones and body chemistry are often in a state of flux, so what smells great one day may smell completely different another time. All of this gives you a perfect excuse to buy as many or as few perfumes as you want. Just follow your nose….!