Long-lasting perfume – how to make the scent last all day

Why does the scent disappear?

Perfume evaporates. The alcohol lifts the fragrance in the first few minutes, and after that your skin type determines how long it lingers. Dry skin releases scent faster than moist skin, and heat makes it evaporate more quickly.

Your nose also adjusts to the scent within 20–30 minutes. Often you'll still smell of perfume to others long after you've stopped noticing it yourself.

Six tricks that make it last longer

Spray onto damp skin straight after a shower, or apply a fragrance-free moisturiser first.

Spray on pulse points where the skin is warm – wrists, behind the ears, the inside of the elbow.

Don't rub your wrists together: it crushes the top notes.

Store the bottle somewhere dark and cool, not in the bathroom, where steam and temperature swings break the scent down.

Choose eau de parfum over eau de toilette – a higher concentration lasts longer.

Layer it: a scented shower gel or lotion in the same fragrance family gives the perfume something to cling to.

The trick that lasts the longest: spray onto a disc

A porous ceramic disc absorbs the perfume and releases it slowly again – not over the space of an hour, but over 12–24 hours. That's far longer than most perfumes last on skin.

In a piece of AMBRA jewellery, the disc sits inside the bracelet or hair tie. Spray it once in the morning, and the scent stays with you the rest of the day. As a bonus, neither your skin nor your clothes come into contact with the perfume.

Try it yourself

Spray the disc with the perfume you already use, let it dry for a minute, and click it back into the jewellery. Notice how much longer the scent lasts compared with spraying it on your skin – the difference is usually clear by mid-afternoon.