What is sillage in a fragrance

March 25th, 2007 | Perfumes

A friend asked what sillage is.

Sillage is how much fragrance follows you or is left in the room when or after you are in it — some fragrances can knock you out with it, especially if you don’t have a light hand…or if you can no longer smell it. as you once did because you wear it so often.

For some folks, adequate sillage actually increases their presence in a room. It gives a larger presence in another dimensional way, like an invisible radius around the one wearing it.

That can be either good or bad. It’s good to extend or increase our presence in some ways.

The trouble is, it’s not good to always assume others like a fragrance as well as you do, or necessarily think it even smells good on you, especially if they just plain don’t like it or have bad associations with it. OTOH, it might be a plus if there were someone you wanted to keep at arms length. If you knew they didn’t care for one of your fragrances, you could intentionally wear it when you knew they’d be around you, to keep them farther away…or just to keep them off balance a bit — a passive agressive (or aggressive, depending on how you look at it) way of dealing. It’s also not so good if it drowns out the fragrance you are wearing, because the only thing that can be smelled is the other fragrance — or if there are 10 competing fragrances all for the same space.

A fragrance with loads of sillage can be smelled farther away. One with little sillage is noticed only as you move closer. I think the latter can be even more interesting at times.

Most Estee Lauder fragrances have plenty of sillage — think of Knowing or Private Collection or Youth Dew.

Georgio has heavy sillage.

Some fragrances are fleeting, notably citrusy ones.

You always knew when my step-mother had been in a room. She wore a well known Estee Lauder scent that some love and others don’t. I’m not sure she had any concept how much she was wearing.

Here’s an article about someone being refused on a public bus in Canada for wearing her fragrance (Very Irresistable.) It’s actually not a bad fragrance, just one I don’t wear well. I can’t say I’ve ever smelled it on anyone. It makes me curious now why it would conjure up such a bad event.

It’s a floral scent, mostly rose, with notes of

Centifolia Rose, Peony Rose, Fantasia Rose, Passion Rose, Emotion Rose, Verbena Leaf, Star Anise

I don’t think of it as particularly strong.

How about you? do you wear it? is it strong?

Do you like sillage yourself? or on yourself?

I guess I prefer less sillage, though I sometimes appreciate it on others, depending on how much I like the fragrance, or like it on them. (I once spelled Knowing on a woman, and it was simply the best. She said it was her favorite. I could see why. It’s one I have to use on me in miniscule amounts, so I pretty much don’t wear it.)

Usually if I have a lot of sillage it is too strong for me, because I’m in the midst of it. There are, of course, a few exceptions and times of exception.

I also find that temperatures and climes affect a fragrance, so just because I wouldn’t wear it here, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t smell great on me in Michigan.

Karin

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