Main Navigation

Ideas Blog Ideas Blog Customer Account Account
Basket Basket
  • No items in cart

Items Total: 0

Sub Total: £0.00

LowPrices Low Online Discount Prices
NextDayDelivery Next Day Delivery On Certain Items
SafeSecureOnlineCheckout Safe and Secure Online Checkout
BigNameBrandDiscounts Big Name Brand Discounts

Top ten perfumes for males and females- and why it is important to smell good

woman spraying perfume

The perfume industry was worth as much as £31 billion in 2016, showing that is pays to smell good. We wanted to explore the science behind scent, including how it affect levels of attraction, and what the top ten perfumes are according to research, so you can come up smelling of roses. 

Science says the way we smell can make us sexier

man-putting-on-perfume

Image credit: George Rudy / Shutterstock

When questioned, 56% of women stated that they felt a fragrance could make a man appear more attractive to them.

Scientific tests have backed up this claim, stating that it works even on sub-conscious levels. Looking into research by academics at Universities in Scotland, Czech Republic and Austria, we discovered that smell has a heavy impact on human attraction. A woman’s natural body odour around ovulation can even raise a man’s testosterone levels.

Interestingly, artificial fragrance (like perfume) has also shown to impact our judgement of others. Studies show that the effect of perfume was significant in ratings of attractiveness, compared to the ratings of the same participants when they had no fragrance on. Men were found in some cases to be up to two times more attractive when wearing perfume.

Research also reveals that a perfume we have selected for ourselves, as opposed to one randomly allocated by the researchers, is perceived to be more pleasant when blended with our own personal body odour.

The population’s top ten perfumes

top ten perfumes

Image credit: Kolomiec / Shutterstock

We have been on the scent of the population’s favourite fragrances. To do this we have looked into the votes and reviews of over 66,000 participants on perfume encyclopaedia website Fragrantica, which refrences a list of 44,904 perfumes.

The results for women were as follows:

  1. Coco Mademoiselle- Chanel
  2. Hypnotic poison – Dior
  3. Alien – Mugler
  4. D&G Light Blue – Dolce and Gabbana
  5. Lolita Lempicka – Lolita Lempicka
  6. Flowerbomb – Viktor & Rolf
  7. Shalimar- Guerlain
  8. Coco Eau de Parfum – Chanel
  9. J’adore – Dior
  10. Euphoria – Calvin Klein

We discovered that women have a modern tendency to choose more masculine aromatic accords like wood or spice. Considering the top ten perfumes, voted for by women, we saw that 55% of women chose woody or spicy perfumes to be their signature scent, as opposed to floral notes, which were chosen as a signature scent for only 43% of women.

But it’s not just women who like heady male aromas in their fragrances, 63% of men seem to like them on women too. Yet when it comes to perfumes for themselves, men seem to be moving away from traditional woody or spicy scents and have a tendency to choose fresh aromatic accords like citrus. These were named as the most popular all-time fragrances for males:

  1. La Nuit de L’homme – YSL
  2. Terre d’Hermes – Hermes
  3. Bleu de Chanel – Chanel
  4. Aventus – Creed
  5. The One for Men – Dolce and Gabbana
  6. Fahrenheit – Dior
  7. Aqua di Gio -Armani
  8. L’Homme – YSL
  9. L’eau d’Issey pour Homme- Issey Miyake
  10. Allure Homme Sport- Chanel.

According to this list, 45% of men have chosen a citrus-based fragrance as their signature scent, as opposed to spicy notes, which were chosen as a signature scent by only 24% of men. When questioned, the majority of women (41%) voted citrus to be their preferred smell on a man

Ceris Mason, a 26-year-old perfume addict, looks for the following in a man’s fragrance:

“I look for strong, clean smells. Typically, base notes of citrus and cedar. Then a distinguished top note of something unique in order to differentiate from the ubiquitous Lynx body spray. Favourites are Chanel Allure edition blanche and Acqua di Parma cologne. It’s also important that it has strong staying power because men don’t top up during the day. Musk is pretty dated.”

Tips for picking out your summer perfume this year

top ten perfumes for women

Image credit: Ollyy / Shutterstock

Look for a perfume with fruity notes, like orange (a top note in Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle) grapefruit or even lime. Citrus is a great scent for summer as it is light. Adding floral touches can help the smell to last longer too.

Try different perfumes and let them sit on your skin for an hour or two. As well as testing out their longevity, this helps to make sure they suit your own personal body odour. Trying it out on a hot day will also give a good indication as to how it will wear in the summer months.

Pick up eau de toilette rather than the ‘parfum’ version of the same scent. This will come across as a lot cleaner and fresher, which is definitely desirable when it is hot and muggy out.

 

Feature image credit: Shutterstock.com/ titov dmitriy

 

Brands that you'll love

Rated as Excellent on Trustpilot with over 3000 reviews