Overhaul Your Spring Fragrance Wardrobe With These 10 Body Splashes

According to fragrance lore, eau de cologne officially came into being in the early 1700s. As the story goes, an Italian perfumer named Giovanni Maria Farina had moved to Cologne, Germany, from Santa Maria Maggiore in Valle Vigezzo and developed a fragrance that reminded him of Italian spring morning breezes thick with the scent of orange blossoms. Named after Farina’s new hometown, the fresh scent brimming with low concentrations of Italian bergamot, lemon, and neroli oils and blended into a high alcohol–content solution became an oft-imitated, lighter take on heavier eaux de parfum. As word of eau de cologne spread across Europe, inspiring many imitations, it became a category all its own.

When I discovered cologne more than 200 years later, around age 12, the word was used as a blanket, masculine term for the more feminine “perfume.” As for the widespread essences that borrowed colognes’ deliberately diluted formulas without much regard for its rich, citrus top notes, those were known simply as the bastardized “body splash.” I gained access to the wonderful world of body splashes the way I learned about most things in 1994: from the mall. Between Bath & Body Works’s best sellers, like Sun-Ripened Raspberry and Freesia, and the Gap’s wildly popular body mist range that included the cultish Earth, Dream, Om, Heaven, Day, and Grass, a personal favorite, my entire perception of fragrance was informed by the idea that it should come on strong and dissipate just as quickly with little need for staying power. (That’s what a specific scent’s corresponding body lotion was for.) I’d discover more complex and concentrated eaux de toilette and eaux de parfum in adulthood, of course, but I still have a nostalgic soft spot for the fleeting fancy of colognes—both the original, tangerine- and grapefruit-tinged classics, and the more mellow perfume alternatives—particularly when the weather turns warm and a quick burst of noncommittal refreshment feels just right.

The post Overhaul Your Spring Fragrance Wardrobe With These 10 Body Splashes appeared first on Vogue.