Fragrance family
Aromatic fragrances
Cool, clear, tidy. Lavender, rosemary, sage and mint. This family is described as clean more often than any other.
Find out whether herbs suit you
18 questions, about five minutes. The result costs 9.99 euros, and you pay only afterwards.
How to spot them
The impression is cool and slightly medicinal. No sugar, no fruit. What remains recalls a herb garden just after rain.
The four herbs
- Lavender – cool, soapy, calming
- Rosemary – resinous, angular
- Sage – dry, faintly smoky
- Mint – sharp, cold, short-lived
Why clean
Lavender and rosemary have been in soap and aftershave for decades.
What we read as clean is learned, not given. The note itself is not.
How to tell it from its neighbours
Herbs sit between green and wood. What decides is whether the fragrance stays cold or turns warm.
Green
Leaf instead of herb. Cooler still, thinner, without the resinous depth of rosemary and sage.
Citrus
Peel instead of herb. Brighter at the top, but often gone after an hour.
Woody
Warmer and quieter. Herbs stay cold, wood turns warm.
When herbs works
Herbs take heat better than most families. In warmth the coolness reads stronger, not weaker.
There is no evidence for this: neither retail nor manufacturers state occasion or season. Anyone sorting by them is guessing. That is why neither enters our scoring.
What the concentration changes
Eau de toilette, eau de parfum and extrait differ in the share of fragrance oil, rising in that order. More oil usually means longer wear.
Fixed percentage limits are not laid down in law, and the houses disagree. So ask about the concentration, not about the price.
Where the limit is
Lavender is the note that divides taste most sharply. For some it is soap, for others it is calm.
That is why every recommendation ends the same way here: the test on your skin decides.
Your next step
The test tells you whether herbs come out in front for your answers – and which three fragrances qualify, with the reasoning sentence by sentence.
Find out whether herbs suit you
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