Projection vs sillage: the difference

Projection is how far a perfume radiates off your skin while you stand still. Sillage is the trail it leaves in the air when you move. A fragrance can be strong in one and weak in the other, which is why the two words exist and why reviews mention both.

	Projection	Sillage
What it measures	The scent bubble around you	The trail behind you
When it shows	Standing or sitting near people	Walking through a space
How to test	A friend at arm's length after 30 minutes	Leave a room, return a minute later
Typical driver	Top and heart notes, freshly sprayed	Heavy base notes over hours

Why the difference matters when buying

For desk work and dinners, projection is the number to watch: it decides whether the colleague next to you smells your perfume all afternoon. For occasions where you pass through, a hallway, a party, a first entrance, sillage does the talking. Plenty of crowd-pleasers project for the first hour and then collapse into a skin scent with no trail at all; some dense ambers do the opposite and quietly perfume every room you cross.

The deeper explanation of trails, and how much of one you actually want, is in what sillage means. Both behaviors fade with time on skin, which is a separate measure again: perfume longevity.

If a bottle you are considering needs to behave in an office, check the sillage rating on its product page here before paying for it. Loud is only a virtue outdoors.