Nothing makes a house feel like home quite like the right fragrance. Adding fragrance products to any room, whether candles or flameless, can help create the perfect atmosphere. Our PartyLite candles are designed by Master Perfumers to bring the best ingredients to every scent we create. But shopping online for the right fragrance can sometimes be confusing. That’s where our Fragrance Personalities come in, helping you find your next favourite aroma, in whatever form you enjoy the most.
PartyLite Fragrance Personalities are the five unique families that we’ve split our scents up into. The Personalities are Floral, Fresh, Fruity, Exotic and Gourmand, and you can find out more about the aromatic ingredients that are used in each of those families later in this feature.
As well as our Personalities there are lots of factors that go into understanding fragrances, from their ingredients to how bold or subtle the scent. Our Master Perfumers work with the world’s leading fragrance brands to develop cosmetic and home aromas. They’re used to creating some of the most classic, recognisable and on-trend perfumery every day, made from the finest quality ingredients. PartyLite scent blends are made up of essential oils, where safe and quality aromatic oils are naturally derived from flowers and plants.
We’ve made it easy to understand the scents you want to shop. Whether it’s the specific Fragrance Personality that matches your taste, or the right scent intensity for your space. Keep reading to understand those tricky terms that demystify all things fragrance.
Fragrance Terms Made Simple
When it comes to the development of fragrances from scratch, Master Perfumers speak a unique language that helps describe the multi-faceted aspects of scent. While the scientific parts of this lexicon might be a little bit much for the average fragrance lover, there are plenty of terms that we can use to help us understand how to find aromas we’ll resonate with. Here’s just a few that we find really useful when talking about scents.
Masculine
We all typically associate certain scent notes with masculine fragrances, whether that’s in cologne, cosmetics or home aromas. Masculine scents are generally earthy or exotic notes like leather, musk, tobacco or smoke.
Feminine
The feminine counterpart to those masculine fragrances is at the other end of the spectrum, and many aromas can fall somewhere between the two. For feminine scents, floral petals and fruit sweetness tend to take the forefront, alongside vanilla, amber and lighter woods like sandalwood.
Top Notes
These are the first elements of a fragrance you will smell when it’s activated. They often disappear quickly, after making the blend’s first impression.
Middle Notes
The heart of any fragrance blend, these are the core elements of the scent which stick around most and are likely how you’d describe the aroma.
Bottom Notes
Bottom notes add depth and fullness to a fragrance, and are there largely to support the main middle notes. They last the longest and will linger after you’ve stopped using the scent product.
Watery
A complicated blend that requires expert perfumery, the term refers to cleverly blended marine elements like sea salt and herbs. The effect is cool, natural and evocative of ocean waves.
Warm
Edible spiced notes are normally referred to as warm when describing fragrance. Think cinnamon and cloves, pepper and ginger. Anything that warms up the nose with a tickle.
Woody
Wood notes feature in a huge range of scent blends, ranging from lighter cedarwood to rich smoked oaks. Woody scents can be combined with natural sweetness or can add a fuller base to make fresh fragrances more powerful.
Powdery
Picture the crisp freshness of clean laundry, and the polleny air of springtime, and you can imagine powdery scents. Notes like iris, light musk and amber resin keep these blends feeling lighter than air.
Aromatic
Herbal and clean smelling, aromatics are those fresh sprigs from nature that aren’t quite sweet, but are always beloved. Lavender, mint and sage are just a few. They’re the top notes that add a heady feeling to a fragrance.
Understanding Fragrance Intensity
Once you know the type of fragrance notes and characteristics you enjoy, there are other factors to consider when choosing the right match. Intensity also affects how you’ll enjoy a scent in your home, and can be the difference between something that fills a large room or stifles you in a space with little ventilation.
Fragrances range from light, to moderate, through to bold. Light fragrances are great for all day use, as they’re subtle and don’t overwhelm the senses. As you move from Light through to Moderate the power of the fragrance increases - that means more of the scent reaches your nose and you’ll discover a stronger smell when using any candle or flameless form. Moderate scents are excellent for use when you want to make a room feel noticeably perfumed, if guests are visiting or you simply want to relax with a new aroma.
Finally Bold fragrances are the most powerful, and are best used when you want a punchy scent that changes the tone of your surroundings. Think of setting the scene for a party or date night, or when you want to give new life to a room that’s been neglected.
It’s also worth remembering the size of the space you’re looking to fragrance. For example, you don’t want to overpower a small space with a large candle infused with a bold fragrance! So always look out for the key to intensity when shopping for yours, and let it guide how you’ll use it at home.
PartyLite’s Fragrance Personalities
So now you know what ingredients appeal most to you, and which intensity will work best for your space, it’s time to find out which of our Fragrance Personalities is most likely to suit your taste in scents…
Fresh
Made to invigorate your senses and leave the air smelling clean and natural. Fresh fragrances combine crisp, refreshing notes like fresh herbs, citrus peel, grasses and sea scents. While some of the scent ingredients can be fruits or flowers, they’re always on the cooler end of the scent palette and feel airy and zesty. They can be both masculine and feminine, and are popular to make the home feel bright and open.
Fruity
Sweet and joyful, fruit fragrances uplift the mood and fill your home with rich or zesty blends. With a combination of notes like berries, orchard fruits, citrus and tropical juices. They’re perfect to track the changing seasons, as spring hedgerows give way to summer tropics, followed by the ripeness of autumn. Fruit aromas are often feminine and can range from light and airy, to indulgent and powerful.
Floral
Floral fragrances are just what you expect, built around a key botanical ingredient at their core. They can be sweet and light like garden roses or rich and heady, with notes from exotic jungle blooms. Classic scents blend notes of lily, rose and hyacinth can also come straight from the garden. More modern blends incorporate exotic notes like hibiscus, magnolias and jasmine.
Gourmand
In fragrance terms, gourmand refers to fragrance notes that are almost edible. Taken from foods that translate well to aromas, they’re often sweet and very indulgent. Everything from marshmallow to cinnamon, coconut and candy floss is included in this category. They’re often scents that are powerful and nostalgic, and great for those who love bold sweetness.
Exotic
The most adventurous fragrance category, exotic scents are luxurious blends with ingredients from unusual sources. Mature and surprising, these aromas are sophisticated and designed to excite the senses. From tobaccos and wood notes to musks, resin and rich incense, they’re beloved by those who like strong flavours and unique combinations.
Our fragrance experts love to match these families together - fresh fragrances work beautifully with exotic, fruits with florals and gourmand with exotic. But the true beauty of our scents is that perfect combinations can be created from any two fragrances you love together. It’s all about your own touch. Want to unlock a new fragrance combination that’s unlike any other? Our enhancd* collection is scientifically designed to do just that, with formulas that boost the fragrance notes of your choice, when lit alongside any fragrance blend.
Now you know more about how our aromas are made for every taste, why not shop your match and discover our five Fragrance Personalities here. If you’re still unsure of which scent you’d love the most, take our Personality Quiz. Your next favourite might be a blend that you never expected.