I like to wear perfume but most of the time it seems pointless. Within about 20 minutes i can no longer smell it.

How often are you supposed to reapply perfume? Ive noticed that at work i can smell other peoples perfumes hours after we have started. Other people even comment on how nice the others perfume smell.

I dont know if price/brand affects anything but i wear the cheapy gift stuff like britney spears perfume, jlo perfume, beyonce perfume etc then for special occasions i have red diesel (or something like that) but all of them seem to smell nice for a few minutes then its gone.

What are the best brands for long lasting fragrance? Or is it best to reapply every few hours?

You can't smell it but other people can, just as you can smell other peoples when they can't. The worse thing you can do is to keep reapplying, it just becomes overpowering to those around you and becomes unpleasant.

This might help.

http://www.fragrancesoftheworld.com/...Questions.aspx

The perfume that I have found that lasts the longest is Jean Paul Gaultier Le Classique. I would get compliments on it even after 12 hours in a sweaty nightclub. I find the lighter ones don't last as long.

Eau de Parfum is also stronger than Eau de Toilette so lasts longer.

Agreed. A young girl in my work kept on re-applying throughout the day until you could smell it in the stairwell and it was giving me headaches I had to tell her to stop as it was so overpowering.

If you use the same body lotion and hair perfume (if the range has it ), it'll last much longer.
I recently bought some Angel perfume and use the other products and the smell lasts all evening .
As someone has said be careful about reapplying or you will be overpowering.

I have two Britney Spears perfumes, and one in particular I find lasts for hours.

Whenever I really like a perfume I will always get the matching shower gel and body lotion. It gives such a nice gentle trail of fragrance without being overpowering.

I always try to buy eu de Parfum as these are stronger, they last so much longer.

My absolute favourite is Tierry Mugler- Alien. Hands down the most most long lasting, nice smelling perfume I've ever bought (and I've tried a few).

I can always smell it on my clothes, gorgeous.

Is the fantasy one(s)..in the little round bottle and you undo it then you get two ?

I bought it today from Argos half price ( that's if its that one ), and yea i like it..never smelt it before and it lasts all day.still smell it now

Zara does some good perfumes. They are not expensive but they smell and look very sophisticated. A bit like their clothes. Love Zara.

I tend to find the Body Shop ranges pretty long lasting. I tend to spray some in the morning and that usually lasts all day. Only occasionally do I need a top up spray in the afternoon.

I find the Moroccan Rose and Smokey Musk from there to be the best for retaining the smell most of the day. Also Stella I found used to be quite long lasting as well.

I loved YSL Paris body lotion, I always thought it smelled better than the actual perfume, maybe something to do with the alcohol content. Not sure if you can still get it.

I don't have that one, have a big bottle of the purple half (Midnight Fantasy) which I love and always get compliments on. I also have Island Fantasy which is nice.

I concur as it is a lovely fragrance that lasts all day, although not my favourite. Most others I do reapply at least once a day.

Our noses adjust to regular scents - so if you're wearing the same perfume day after day, after 3 - 4 days, you will no longer smell it on yourself but others will continue to smell it.

The temptation is to spray more on but then it becomes overwhelming and can be offensive to others. In the days of the power scents like Youth Dew and Poison, I can remember not being able to properly taste food in a restaurant because the person at the next table was wafting so much Giorgio at me my sense of taste was impaired.

Unless you change your scent every couple of days, the sad fact is you're wearing it for others to enjoy, not for you.

Different scents suit different people which is why something that smells wonderful on one person can smell nasty or hardly at all on someone else. Diet can play a part in this - at the extreme, a scent can smell different on a vegan compared to a carnivore or on someone who eats a lot of spicy food.

I've not tried Alien... I'll have to track down a tester bottle and have a sniff.

I like Alien but it is very much an acquired taste I feel; much like marmite - you either love it or you hate it.

It smells lovely when my mum wears it but it smells different on me...

I bought the so..kiss me perfume today..love the body spray of it and thought i would treat myself today

I agree with the Body shop recommendation. I love my perfumes but my habit was getting too expensive and I purchased 3 different Bodyshop ones on the cheap from an outlet store for daytime wear, including the Smokey Musk which Tiggergirl mentioned.

Well, I love them and can still smell it at the end of a 12 hour shift at work. They do eau de toilette, parfum & an oil in all of their ranges (as far as I'm aware anyway!), the toilette is strong enough though imo.

I have a bottle of channel No 5 which my OH bought duty free a few years ago for my birthday, knowing it is so expensive ive still got half a bottle.

Im always on the lookout for a decent long lasting perfume and the other day I was in Savers the chemist and saw they had a cheap perfume called Coty L'Aimant, they also do the body spray and talc.

The 50ml bottle of perfume was only £5 and I remember my mum and grandma used to wear it so thought what the heck for a fiver I will give it a whirl.

I can say hand on heart it is almost an identical replica of Channel No 5 , maybe not as long lasting but putting the 2 perfumes on my wrists nobody in my family could guess which was which.

It is a very plesant smelling and afforable perfume and is now my new favourite. Yes its dated and hardly promoted however when I googled the history of the perfume I discovered that indeed Mr Coty copied Coco Channels No 5 and at first she was annoyed but eventually it apparently increased sales of her No5 so she stopped caring.

Might be worth a try for people that like Channel No 5 but not the hefty price tag.

Prior to rediscovering L'Aimant I used to buy Elizabeth Ardens Fifth avenue 125ml for around £25 when on offer in Superdrug, quite bland but okay for work and a good price for the size.

I'm glad I read that because I love my Chanel No 5 with a mad passion, but it is rather pricey, as you say. So I am going to give that Coty one a whirl
Thank you very much.

Although I'm a bloke, I'm seriously considering buying myself a bottle of Angel, just to spray and sniff at regular intervals. I think I'm addicted to it.

BTW - serious question this. Do any of you ladies know what that horrible muck is that middle aged women seem to put on themselves, that smells like some kind on manky baby ointment? Loads of them wear it when they've given up all hope of enjoying life and the cloying smell of it simply makes me feel sick.

I am a middle aged woman and I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe the smell is bile which is in your own nostrils? That was a serious question too.

No, it's more of a kind of baby powder or nappy rash cream kind of smell. It certainly seems more likely to originate from Johnsons than L'Oreal. Whatever it is it's deeply unpleasant, but also very prevalent. I can't think why anybody would choose to wear it.

No reason why you shouldn't buy a bottle of Angel if you like it.

If you really want to know what perfume a woman wears, ask her. There is no other way, because any woman on here who does wear whatever it is you hate so much is not going to recognise it based on your description of it.

It is more usual for people to ask the name of a perfume if they like the smell, of course. But provided you are pleasant when you ask one of these women, she'll tell you.
Dunno why you'd need to know of course, because it's not like you want to go and buy a bottle of it for your wife/Mum, seeing as you don't like it.

I wouldn't dare in case it's something medical, but I really don't think it is. I also can't imagine anybody bringing out a perfume that smells like it.

I've never smelt it on anybody who looks under the age of about 40, so it's obviously some kind of product that's only used by women of a certain age. I honestly assumed that it was something that women put on to remind themselves of when they were changing nappies, etc. It's really bugging me not knowing what it is, even though I hate the smell of it. I find it almost impossible to describe the smell, except to say that it would be deeply sad if it was worn by anybody in their 20s. It's a kind of creamy, powdery smell that seems to be designed to keep men at a distance - a bit like Poison, which used to smell of stale urine, which in turn was similar to Issy Myaki (or Pissy Cackie as we used to call it). In the late 1980s I used to work in an office full of women who used to wear some of the most vile concoctions ever dreamt up. There was a woman from another office who used to wear something that was like chemical warfare. We had to leave the windows wide open for twenty minutes after she'd left.