I am currently wearing a spritz of Chloé Eau de Toilette in my belly button. I'm not crazy — according to Liv Tyler, this is actually a cozy little home for fragrance. Tyler told Into the Gloss that her father actually taught her the trick. The idea being that this concave area emanates body heat, which then magnifies the effect of the scent.
And Tyler's theory may be based in fact. The Huffington Post reported that the navel serves as a "repository" for scent. Elizabeth Barrial, a perfumer at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, told HowStuffWorks that body heat can help intensify fragrance. As your belly button is centrally located, it is ostensibly warmer than the other parts of the body, making it an ideal place to apply perfume.
I usually spray perfume on my wrists. That area is in constant motion and, therefore, should be the most fragrant, right? Throughout the day, I'm typing, waving, shaking hands — you'd think my wrists would be like a scented floodlight, announcing my presence to the world. My belly button, however, is rarely seen — it's usually cloaked in a T-shirt, hidden away — let alone smelled. So I put this trick to the test.
When I first applied the perfume, I asked my coworker beside me if my cloud of odor was encroaching on her space. "I can't smell you," she told me. Two hours later, she looked over. "Oh, yeah, now I can smell it."
Luckily we're both fans of Chloé, because the scent lingered for almost seven hours. If you, too, want to make your fragrance last, try it for yourself: Just spray a bit of perfume on your finger and dab it onto your belly button. Yes, you will feel weird — but damn, will you smell good.