How to wear an extrait de parfum

An extrait is not an eau de parfum worn harder. It is a different thing entirely — between 20 and 30 percent perfume oil against the 15 percent of an eau de parfum — and it asks to be worn differently.

Start with less than you think. One press at the base of the throat, one at the inside of each wrist. That is the whole application. An extrait carries further and lasts longer than you expect, and the most common mistake is wearing three times what the composition needs.

Apply to skin, not to cloth. Fabric holds the top notes and lets the base evaporate unevenly, so a scent sprayed onto a shirt smells like its opening for an hour and then like nothing. Skin is warm and slightly oily, which is what lets a fragrance move through its structure the way it was composed to.

Do not rub your wrists together. The friction bruises the top notes and pushes the composition forward too fast. Press, and let it settle.

Give it twenty minutes before you judge it. What you smell in the first moments is the most volatile part of the composition and the least representative of it. The heart arrives at around twenty minutes, and the base — the part you will actually be remembered for — settles somewhere after the first hour.