by Joanna McLaughlin

Exclusive to thePerfume-Reporter.com

Those terms that get thrown around so much at the perfume counter, things like "eau de parfum" or perfume or even (yuck) toilet water, are not marketing gimmicks or some way to fast-talk you. They're actually industry terms and although they are not completely standardized, they're designed to help you understand what you're buying.

Fragrance products involve putting a scent of some kind into a solvent or vehicle. That might be scent in a solvent (perfume) or scent in a lotion (fragrant lotion). Right now, we're going to focus on the liquid scents.

One problem you run into talking about perfume is that perfume is sometimes mistakenly used as the noun for any liquid fragrance product. It's sort of like what we do down south with the word "Coke," which for us can mean either the specific product of the Coca-Cola company or any old soft drink. A person in the south who says, "Thanks for the coke," may actually be thanking you for giving him a root beer. That's how some people treat the word perfume.

Actually, perfume refers to a specific type of fragrance product. In fact, it's the purest and strongest form of liquid fragrance. You may hear perfume called by its French name (parfum) or perfume extract. They're all the same thing.

Now the perfume world is not rigidly standardized, but as a rule of thumb, expect perfume to contain 20% to 40% scent in relation to solvent. It's about as much smell as you would want to pack into a fragrance product. (You don't want 100% fragrance, because it's much too potent to be pleasant and you don't want scent without solvent because many people find that irritates the skin.) When shopping for perfume, consider these two points:

• You only wear a little bit of perfume at a time, maybe just two drops
• Perfume is the longest-lasting type of fragrance on the market

Perfume is also the most luxurious, most elegant, and by far the most expensive category of fragrance product. If you shop for real perfume, you're going to start seeing little tiny bottles with great big price tags.

One notch below perfume is something called "eau de parfum." That's the only name for it, and even people who don't like to mess with foreign-sounding words have to say the name in French. An eau de parfum (pronounce it oh-deh-parr-fam where "fam" sounds like the first syllable in famine). This contains about 10% to 30% scent and is very potent and long-lasting. It's also not exactly cheap.

Don't think that just because a fragrance is a perfume or an eau de parfum that it can't be sprayed. Many perfumes and eau de parfum products do come in liquid form (which you dab on with a finger), you can also get them with spray nozzles. In the great old heyday of perfume they had big bulb atomizers and sprayed that way; sometimes you can still find these.

The next type of scent is called by the unfortunate translation of toilet water. In French, it's eau de toilette, a name we also use in the English-speaking world, and toilette refers to a woman's daily process of getting dressed, coifed, and made up. I have also seen the term spelled toilette water, which is a way to avoid speaking more French than you have to and simultaneously not having to say toilet. However you say it, this stuff is a lighter version but still serious. Expect to find 5% to 20% scent.

Now you're probably noticing that there is some overlap in percentages. Could you actually buy a perfume with a relatively low percentage that turned out to have as much scent in it as an eau de toilette with a high percentage? The answer is yes and no, and it proves that mathematics is not the answer to everything.

When a manufacturer develops a scent, it tiers or groups the fragrance product in such a way that the perfume has the highest percentage of scent, eau de parfum the next-highest percentage, and toilette water the next highest. In other words, it's relative.

The final category is called cologne or eau de cologne, and it's literally named after the German city of Cologne. Although not universally revered for their mastery of subtelty or their light hand, it was the Germans who gave the world the lightest, airiest version of fragrance. Cologne has a very low percentage of scent, often just 2% or 3%. Colognes can be almost splashed on, they don't last very long without frequent re-touching, and they're not typically expensive.

In bed and bath stores, you may also find other types of spritz-on fragrance that is even less concentrated than a true cologne. Again, these are splash-on products.

So which product is right for you? Some perfumistas will tell you it depends on the scent, which is true of course (never contradict a perfumista), but it also depends a bit on you.

Perfume is great for people who work in crazy-busy creative fields, who spend more than $200 on their everyday shoes, can and do wear red and other flashy colors, and know very specifically at least a few fragrances that don't work for them. Perfume is pretty forceful, and it takes a confident, creative type to deal with that. They are also serious luxuries, so a woman has to have the confidence to dab on a $10 drop of scent behind her knee.

For those who are very young, very active, work out often, and have eclectic tastes and interests, cologne is much more likely to be the best choice. It's lighter, more youthful, and is the kind of thing that you can spritz and run.

Cologne is also the better choice for women who are more subdued and conservative and who aren't sure if they can "get away with" wearing much fragrance at all. Alas, such ladies exist, and for them, the lighter the scent the better.

Sometimes the choice is made not by woman but by the fragrance. Heavier, dramatic, spicy, or Oriental scents can be almost overwhelming in pure perfume form but manageable in cologne or toilette water. Likewise, if you love strong perfume and happen to like a particular wispy, ethereal fragrance, buying it in the perfume form may be the best way to give that lightweight scent some oomph.

Which is more economical? Frugality and perfume do not necessarily go together but this is a fair question. You need to think about your own experiences, but the answer is certainly not in the price tag. Perfumes are always the most expensive product but very tiny amounts are used and last a long time. Colognes are comparatively cheap and even come in bigger bottles for less money, but most women use more in a single application and re-apply several times over the course of the day. In short, perfume costs more but less is required. If a bottle of perfume lasts three times as long as a comparable amount of cologne, it's a better deal providing it's not three times as expensive as the cologne.

(Let me put it this way: if you spend $100 on perfume that lasts you for four months in everyday use, a cologne that cost $50 would have to last at least two months in everyday use to cost the same as the perfume. If the cologne only lasted you a month, the perfume is actually cheaper. Funny, huh?)

<take me back to NEWS>