Friday, September 26, 2008

Types of Perfumes and Fragrance Categories

Perfume has always been a essential part of human culture: people have perfumed their hair and bodies with oils, resins, flower and herb extracts and animal scents since earliest history. Wearing scent is enjoyable; it is an expression of individuality; it attracts mates and makes us nice to be close to. Perfumes are more for the wearer: they make us feel wonderful.

Fragrances are classed—and priced—by their alcohol content, with the least expensive being eau de toilettes and eau de colognes containing among 3% and 8% fragrance with the other 92-97% of the content being made up of alcohol, water and color. Eau de parfum contains real perfume oils of 8-15%. You pay more for perfume because it is stronger at request and lasts longer than eau de toilette. Perfume (or “parfum”) contains somewhere between 15% and 30% of perfume oils and lasts longer than other scent types—classically around six hours. Always try to take a sample of perfume home to try for a week or two and make sure it is the correct fragrance and strength for you before buying.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Sapphire Stones

Sapphire refers to gem varieties of the stone corundum, an aluminium oxide (Al2O3), when it is a color other than red. Sapphire can be found unsurprisingly or manufactured in large crystal boules. Because of its amazing hardness sapphire is used in many applications, including infrared optical components, watch crystals, high-durability windows, and wafers for the deposition of semiconductors, such as GaN nanorods.

The mineral corundum consists of clean aluminium oxide. Trace amounts of other elements such as iron, titanium and chromium provide corundum their blue, yellow, pink, purple, orange or greenish color. Sapphire includes any gemstone quality varieties of the mineral corundum apart from fully saturated red variety, which is instead known as ruby, and the pinkish-orange variety known as padparadscha.