Valentine’s Day, the most romantic day of the year, remains the day to express heartfelt gratitude for companionship, friendship and love. It also can be an occasion that will create fond memories for years to come.

And believe it or not, the fragrance that you wear on this romantic day can become a significant element of the experience. The reason? The brain’s smell center, the olfactory lobe, is closely linked to the area that controls our emotions and memories, the limbic system.

Olfaction, unlike the other senses, goes directly to the emotional rather than the reasoning part of the brain, which means you “feel” a fragrance, rather than “think” it through. Because of this phenomenon, for centuries women have relied on the ability of fragrance to elicit a desired response.

“Fragrance and romance have always gone hand-in-hand. So connected are the two that we’ve heard many women say that they continue to wear the scent from their wedding day,” says Darcy Miller, editor-in-chief of the magazine Martha Stewart Weddings.

Therefore, think carefully when selecting a fragrance to wear this Valentine’s Day, because it may be one of your most memorable.

“In its pure form, fragrance is an emotional experience,” says Karyn Khoury, senior vice president of Corporate Fragrance Development Worldwide, Estée Lauder Companies. “Not only does it express intense feelings, but fragrance can evoke them as well. And when a fragrance becomes associated with an event or inspires a positive reaction in another person, our bond to it becomes especially strong.”

Estée Lauder, for example, chose to capture the feelings of love in both its classic Beautiful and new Beautiful Love fragrances. By using a different combination and concentration of ingredients, each fragrance represents a different facet of love.

Beautiful celebrates the bride’s radiant moment of love with a heady bouquet of white flowers and rose, confident green notes and rich woods. Beautiful Love was designed to celebrate the depth of a couple’s shared love. To achieve this goal, the company created a scent that was inspired by the voluptuous white florals in the original Beautiful but in a more understated way.

The fragrance is also infused with a rich, velvety, deeper tonality, juxtaposed with a modern clarity. Beautiful Love uses less-intense green notes and leaves a creamier and more sensuous lasting impression.

Because of fragrance’s ability to incite love and passion, it’s no wonder that fragrance and Valentine’s Day go hand-in-hand.

(NewsUSA)