We live in a world in which only 20% of men regularly use perfume. And that might sound like a lot to some. Truth is, even if you apply a perfume, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you actually know how to wear perfume.
Wearing perfume is a delicate matter in which most guys unfortunately do not have the intuitive skills many women have.
Not knowing how to wear perfume does not only make you waste your perfume (and your hard-earned money), but it does one more thing that might surprise you…
It actually makes your perfume smell less good.
What I mean by that is that if you don’t apply it the right way – and let it mix with your natural body chemistry it will be less effective.
And less effective here can mean several things. Either the perfume will be less strong. So nobody will be able to smell it.
Or it can be too strong (and we’ve all been around men who used way too much cologne for it to smell good anymore)
It can also make you smell too chemical. Therefore it’s important that you know how to wear perfume the right way.
But before we get into how to do that, let me show you a couple of ways many people waste their expensive fragrances.
Why so many people waste their perfume
A penny saved is a penny earned, and this also goes for fragrances. You want to use your fragrance in strategic places where they get the chance to mix well with your own body chemistry.
Therefore there are several things many people do that are a waste of good cologne. Take a look at the following list and see if you are making one of the following mistakes:
- You’re putting your perfume on clothes. Always put perfume on bare skin so it can mix well with your own smell. Also, the longitude drastically decreases when applied to clothes.
- Spraying in a cloud and walking through it. It might look like the right way to make your entire body covered in your perfume, but all it does it waste the fragrance. Not only does it not get applied well enough to your own body – you’re also mainly getting it on your clothes.
- Another mistake is that people simply apply their perfume in the wrong places. Like on hair or the back of your neck. I have dedicated an entire section below to which body parts should be used for applying perfume.
- The last thing you could be doing wrong is rubbing the perfume after you’ve put it on. Maybe you just put a lot of perfume on one wrist and you want to ‘transfer’ it to the other. Don’t do this. The rubbing kills the note and breaks down the molecular bonds – making your perfume weaker.
As you see, there are many ways to waste your perfume, and now that you know what not to do, it’s time to go to the right way how to wear perfume…

The right way how to wear perfume
We’ll dive right into the most asked question by people about how to wear perfume:
“Where do I apply it?”
In the last section we’ve dispelled a couple of common myths about places that are bad to apply your perfume to. So now it’s time to let you know which places you should apply it to. There are 7 places on the human body where perfume has the most effect:
The 7 recommended areas for wearing perfume
If you want to get the most out of your fragrance, pick one or two of the following places of your body and apply your perfume to it.
- lower jaw
- neck
- shoulder
- chest
- inner elbow
- forearm
- wrist
Why these places? The answer is simple. Is because these places radiate heat. And that is exactly what makes them the most suitable for applying perfume to it.
By applying it to these places you’ll ensure that the perfume will mix well with your natural body chemistry and that the scent will radiate around you, creating a nice aura of good fragrance around you. It will also cause your body to push out the scent throughout the day. This will leave a nice trail of the perfume behind you everywhere you go.
How to wear perfume: the rules
Now that you know exactly where to apply your perfume, it’s time to get to the rules of wearing perfume. use these rules to get the most out of your perfume. This means that you’ll use less of the perfume to achieve the best smell.
After all, you don’t want to overdo perfume. So, let’s not wait anymore and start with the rules how to wear perfume:
- Start light. Like I said before, you don’t want to be that guy who reeks of perfume. not only does it smell bad, it also makes you come across as a try hard. Therefore always start light with a perfume. It should be smelled 1 – 2 meters away from you, not all across the street.
- Apply it to the warmest parts of your body. These are the parts we discussed in the previous section.
- Don’t respray too soon. While you might feel that your smell is fading after a couple of hours (or maybe sooner) chances are big you’re only getting used to the smell of your perfume. Don’t respray right away otherwise you might break rule #1. If you have to respray it usually is good to do it on the wrists in the second part of the day.
- Avoid the mistakes. Covered in the first section on this page. Don’t spray it on your clothes or into a mist or break the note by rubbing it.
And that’s it. Of course there are more advanced ways to really get the most out of each bottle of perfume you own, but by following these rules and avoiding the mistakes most people make, you’ll get further than about 80% (if not more) of all people who wear perfume.
P.S. If you want to know which perfume I recommend if you want to smell good all day and receive compliments from women – then check out my Bvlgari Aqva review where I give you all the information you need about this citrus-marine scented fragrance.