It’s Valentine’s Day. Time to choose a perfume about love. It’s easy to grab a bottle of Jean Patou Joy or a pretty soliflore, but we’re real perfume enthusiasts here. There are at least a hundred kinds of love — shouldn’t there be more than one type of Valentine’s Day fragrance?

First, let’s consider the love that launched a thousand Harlequin romances: Grand Love. Grand Love is that delirious ardor that seems inevitable yet impossible. You can’t believe he actually loves you, yet aren’t you fated to be together? — you both adore the same John Lennon song and neither of you likes meat on the bone. You both guffaw at the Naked Gun movies and you both detest gin. The world gushes with joy (look at the flowers that sprout in the pavement! kitties, babies everywhere! why have you never noticed how beautiful the grocery store logo is!) and you mysteriously drop five pounds. Without even trying.

If this is you, enjoy the ride. You need a perfume as crazily hyperbolic as your emotional state…

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I have always been struck by one passage about love in the critic and teacher John Bayley's memoir of his forty-year marriage to the novelist Iris Murdoch, Elegy for Iris. The two are on their honeymoon and people-watching. Bayley notes:

Iris seemed to be in a reverie, too. I took her hand and it pressed mine. What was she thinking? I had no idea… I knew very well there was no way to find out. But this realization reassured me deeply… Such ignorance, such solitude! They suddenly seemed the best part of love and marriage. We were together because we were comforted and reassured by the solitariness each saw and was aware of in the other.

This is, of course, not the sort of all-consuming passion one normally yearns for as a young person…

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Yesterday's post discussed scents to wear for a romantic night out on Valentine's Day. But what might you wear if your relationship is still on tender ground, or if you’re not in a relationship at all? Once again, Amy Yang of Luilei and Lisa Slavik of Beautycafé have a few recommendations.

Lisa chooses Laila of Norway as a good fragrance to wear when you want to have a romantic presence but not go overboard…

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Just around the corner is Valentine's Day, and you might already be thinking about what scent you want to wear for the night out. Maybe you even want to try something new. I asked two fragrance experts, Amy Yang of Luilei in Brooklyn, New York and Lisa Slavik of Beautycafé in Plano, Texas, to weigh in on the best perfumes to wear on Valentine's Day. (Both stores sell over the internet, too.) Today's post focuses on the best scents for a full-bore romantic evening. Tomorrow we'll discuss the best scents for a tentative romance and for people who aren't in relationships but plan to go out and have a good time anyway…

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