There is one rule for fragrance at work and it is about distance, not about smell. Anything that reaches a colleague who did not choose to stand next to you is too much. Everything else is a matter of taste.
That single constraint does most of the choosing for you.
What it rules out
Not families, but concentrations and quantities. A heavy amber extrait at three sprays will fill a meeting room. The same fragrance at one spray, on the chest under a shirt, is entirely reasonable. Most of what gets called an inappropriate office fragrance is a perfectly good fragrance applied as though the wearer were going out that evening.
That said, some things are genuinely harder to keep quiet: oud, dense gourmands, and anything with a lot of sweetness will project further than you expect, especially in air conditioning.
What works
- Fresh and Citrus compositions sit close to the skin by nature. The trade-off is that you may want to reapply after lunch.
- Woody compositions with a cedar or vetiver base stay quiet through the afternoon and read as considered rather than as perfume.
- Soft Floral compositions work well if you keep them to one or two sprays; the ones to watch are the big white florals, which carry further than they seem to at first.
Application, specifically
For work, apply lower on the body than you would otherwise. Chest, under a shirt, or the inside of a forearm. Scent rises, so a low application arrives at nose height diluted, which is exactly what you want in a shared room. Avoid the neck and behind the ears, which project straight at whoever is talking to you.
One spray of an eau de parfum is usually enough for a shared office. Our Frequence range is eau de parfum; how long it stays with you depends on your skin, the weather and how much you apply.
The test nobody does
Ask someone you trust. Fragrance fatigue is real: your nose stops registering your own scent within about fifteen minutes, which is why people who wear too much genuinely cannot tell. If you find yourself thinking you can barely smell it, that is the expected outcome, not a reason to add another spray.
