Unless you’re already familiar with the ones you’re browsing, home fragrances can be hard to shop for online. But don’t worry! Despite what the naysayers say, there are ways you can shop online for home fragrances without feeling like you’re gambling. You just have to know what to look for!
START BY CONSIDERING WHERE AND HOW YOU WANT TO USE YOUR HOME FRAGRANCES
Before you even look at the fragrance, think about how you want to use it. Do you want it to be an instant refresher? If so, go for a home spray. Do you want a faint but consistent home fragrance? Go for scented décor or a reed diffuser. But if you want something more powerful to use occasionally over several hours, candles and oil burners are your best bet. Finally, if atmosphere is what you’re going for and scent is secondary, go for tealights instead.
By choosing the right form of home fragrance, you’ll have already narrowed your options helpfully!
LOOK AT WHAT THE FRAGRANCE IS CALLED
The name of a fragrance is usually a good indication of its character. A great example is our Aussie Outback range. The name evokes so many ideas, and if that’s the right sort of character you want for your home, then you’ve got a potential candidate.
Likewise, if you’ve got something like Freshly Cut Pine Tree (see our home spray above), then you’ll know straight away that it’s going to smell like Christmas!
LOOK AT THE DETAILS: THE FRAGRANCE NOTES AND INGREDIENTS
Given a fragrance like Aussie Outback might mean so many different things, how do you get a more precise idea of what it actually smells like?
Well, you look at the ingredients. In fragrance language, these are called the notes. For personal fragrances, these are often divided into ‘head’, ‘heart’, and ‘base’ notes—basically, what you smell first, second, and last. This will give you some idea about how a fragrance will develop. Home fragrances don’t often describe themselves in these ways, but if the right story is told about the fragrance then usually you can still get a pretty good idea. For Aussie Outback, for example, the description is as follows: “a rich floral blend with notes of fresh green grass and green leaf fused with lemon pine and eucalyptus”. Now that tells you a whole lot more about the fragrance you’re about to buy!
FINALLY, REALISE THERE’S NO PERFECT WAY TO SHOP FOR FRAGRANCE
This is the case even if you shop in-store. After all:
- You’re not going to find out much about a scent by smelling the tip of a spray bottle.
- The smell of something in-store isn’t going to be exactly the same as it is in your home.
- And candles smell different in solid wax form compared to when they’re burning.
Even when at home, things don’t smell the same all the time. How a home fragrance interacts with the other fragrances flowing through your home will change over time. It’ll change with the windows being open or when you’re cooking something, for example. So there’s always going to be some uncertainty with buying fragrance, be it in person or online. It’s okay to feel uncertain.
Nevertheless, with these tips, you can rest assured that the home fragrances you pick online will no longer feel like random choices. Now go shopping!