How to build a fragrance wardrobe

When we're trying to organise our - often chaotic, messy, and downright stressful - lives, the first things we might do usually involves sorting out our wardrobes, getting our finances in order, or sorting out our weekly schedule.

However, when it comes to the more fun things in life, such as our beauty regime, self-care, and wellness routines, they often fall to the wayside, in favour of, lets face it - much less exciting tasks.

But no more. Because the newest organisational concept to hit the beauty world is the idea of a fragrance wardrobe - and curating could be the answer to feeling your best self, every day.

If, like the team here at Woman & Home, your dressing table is a shameful mess of half-used perfumes and long forgotten scents, this could be for you. Co-founder and CEO of Sniph, a perfume subscription service, Elisabet Kjellqvist, has offered some tips to help you curate a fragrance wardrobe that'll work for you day in, day out.

But before we go on, what exactly is a fragrance wardrobe? And why is it important that we have one?

What is a fragrance wardrobe?

Put simply, it's a collection of scents we love, to use on a range of different occasions. According to Elisabet, it signals that it's time for us to ditch the idea of a "signature scent", and marks a chance for us to instead start exploring other fragrances we might not have tried before. She said, "You wouldn't wear the same shirt for all moments in life, so why would you smell the same?"

How many scents could we have in our wardrobe - and what should they signify?

"Your wardrobe of perfumes can consist of up to a hundred different fragrances, as long as they make you feel something, challenge you outside your comfort zone or communicate some silent message about you." Elisabet explains. "Your various moods, styles and life occasions are important and you should be able to match – and enhance – them using the power of scents."

When you think of a fragrance wardrobe, you may assume that it needs to match the weather outside, or whatever you have to do that day. In fact, it seems that a fragrance wardrobe shouldn't be limited to those structures. Elisabet insists that instead, perfumes can be used to brighten up a day, or bring some much-needed positive energy into a less than exciting event.

"The perfumes you choose to invest in could depend on what you're doing during your days, where you're going. But do not only let your perfumes depend on your life – let them reflect and impact your mood.

"A fresh verbena and bergamot fragrance could turn any grey Monday morning meeting into an experience of serenity and control. And do not limit your summer fragrances to July and August – reverse engineer and let coconut and sea salt fragrance heat up a cold any rainy day in November." Using scents to turn a bad day around? Sign us up!

Now, we know what you're thinking. Does curating a fragrance wardrobe mean we need to get rid of our trusty perfumes still in circulation on our dressing table? According to Elisabet - no way. She says, "Rule of thumb: Never throw out perfumes. Fragrance juice in bottles lasts for quite a few years and one of the best "throw back machines" is actually to spray on a perfume that used to "be you" and that you have created thousands of lovely memories with."

However, if you've had enough of one, "just put it up for sale online in a fragrance buy-and-sell forum (there are several ones to join on Facebook). Like that, your fragrance gets a second life and can make someone else happy." Elisabet advises.

But, there is one exception to the "no throwing away rule". Elisabet explains that we can easily get used to our own, long-loved perfumes over time, meaning our noses tune them out, so that we stop enjoying their delicious smell. "Your nose, for biological reasons, does get used to both good and bad smells." she revealed. But it's simply gives you a chance to start creating your dream fragrance wardrobe - Elisabeth says, "That's yet another reason for cheating on perfumes that you love and wear often – you'll fall in love with again when you bring it back in your life."

So won't putting together a fragrance wardrobe - e.g, buying a load of new perfumes, be an expensive undertaking? Not if you do it right, Elisabet insists. "If you go for the strategy of buying perfumes spontaneously or "blind buy" them online, sure, your fragrance wardrobe will definitely become an expensive project."

But luckily, that's exactly what Elisabet and her perfume subscription company, Sniph, are here for. She explained "For these reasons, we have created Sniph – a subscriptions based service, that introduces you to carefully curated scents from the best brands on the market – in pocket size format – at a fraction of the price of the full size bottles."

Every month, you'll get a box full of a range of beautiful, hand-selected fragrances through the door, to help you mix it up and find new scents you love. Prices start from £9 a month.

Now that your fragrance wardrobe is sorted though, it's time for those burning questions you've always had about your perfumes to be finally answered. Like, where should we be storing our perfumes?

How should we store perfume?

Well, it turns out that there's actually one key place we should never be putting our bottles, which we're probably all guilty of!

Elisabet explained, "When it comes to where you put your perfume, storing it in the bathroom or on your ledge is not optimal. It is better to keep them in your bedroom or in some other place where the sun isn't always shining, and where the temperature is rather stable.

How to apply perfume

And to get the most out of your favourite scent every day, the Sniph CEO recommends you apply it either to a just-moisturised body or your clothes, as opposed to dry skin. "If you love it, shower in it. The perfume molecule normally last longer if it can "hold on to" something such as the body lotion on your skin, your hair or your scarf. So, you get more power from the precious drops if you spray on your clothes rather than on dry skin.", she confesses. Well - you learn something new every day!