If you are not perfume experts you will have wondered (walking half-heartedly in a perfume-shop aisle, with your significant other who loves perfumes) why there are different names other than "perfume," like Cologne, Eau de Parfum and Eau de Toilette. Are they all not perfumes after all? Well, yes and no. In this article we will try to clear some doubts.
Perfume. Its concept applies to any nice smell, not necessarily for the body. It can be natural like a flower or a spice, or chemical like an air freshener. In the world of "scents for the body", perfume has become a general term even if, as a matter of fact it refers to a specific category of body scents. Perfumes are complex, with different kinds of fragrances in them, like citrus, sweet, spicy and so on. What a particular perfume smells like depends on which moment we smell it.
Colognes. They last less than perfumes and are much stronger. The reason for that is that they are composed of a single element, which has a shorter life, and therefore is made more intense by perfume designers. It is generally believed that colognes are all for men. This is not true, as there are many types of cologne for women out there, but this misunderstanding is caused by the fact that there almost all perfumes for men are colognes, or perfumes labeled and marketed as such.
Eau de toilette - Eau de parfum. "Eau" is a French word and means "water." "Toilette" is an interesting word; other than "bathroom" it means the whole dressing-up process, from shower to make-up. They are usually sold in small easy-to-carry flasks. Both, like cologne, have a single note and no layers, but are less strong and less expensive than cologne. Eau de toilette is the least expensive, by far the most popular, and the lightest of the three.
