Rad Or Bad: A Primer For Your Perfume

Is it just us, or does it seem like there's a primer for everything today? One for the foundation, another for your eyeshadow, and don't forget the lips! There are even primers for your hair. Well, add one more to the list: While roaming the aisles at the Elements Showcase trade show in NYC, we stumbled across a perfume primer.

What's a perfume primer, you may ask? In this case, it's an all-natural, scent-free spray that creates a natural barrier between your skin and your scent. Spray it on, let dry, then spray your perfume of choice on top. According to the brand, having a natural barrier between your skin and the scent allows for it to last longer, as well as not get distorted by your body's natural pH or, as the brand so charmingly puts it, funk. That means it will smell the same in the bottle as it does on your skin.

We took it for a test drive to find out if it really made a difference. Upon spraying it, our noses were hit with an initial assault of noxious alcohol odor, but once the primer dried it was odorless. We applied our scent, then gave it a few sniffs. It did indeed smell the same in the bottle as it did on our skin. As far as longevity, we noticed around midday that our fragrance had faded, but it was still discernible if you were close enough — we awkwardly asked a few bemused co-workers to sniff us throughout the afternoon. However, at the end of the day, the scent was nothing more than a whisper.

While it technically did what it claimed, we're not sure a perfume primer is something we absolutely need in our lives in order to survive. We're perfectly happy just re-spritzing as the scent dissipates, or using more potent oil as opposed to quickly evaporating alcohol-based scents. As far as the whole "smelling the same on your skin as it does in the bottle," we kind of like how a scent mingles with our natural "funk" and develops over time into a more complex bouquet. But, if you're a fragrance purist — or if you really, really prefer the scent as it is in the bottle — then we understand how this could be a positive.