Gender-scent stereotyping is nothing new. But is there any point to it? What’s the use in all the pour homme/pour femme nonsense when perfumes don’t even have a gender to begin with?
Advertising agencies love to put people into boxes, and nowhere is this more true than in the fragrance business, where gender labels govern just about everything we buy. Male fragrances, we’re told, are fresh and spicy, and women’s fragrances, floral and sweet. But rarely are these guidelines stuck to.
Rejecting these stereotypes, however, is no easy feat. The designations of what’s male and what’s female run deep and have done for decades, meaning we often pigeonhole certain scents before we even know what they are. Question is: when did all this stereotyping begin?
Why do the stereotypes exist?
Back in ancient times, there was no such thing as “masculine” and “feminine” fragrances. People generally wore perfume for two reasons: as a mark of honour or to mask body odor.
Then, in the 19th century an interesting shift happened. Socio-economic improvements meant that previously poor people suddenly had more money to spend and more time to enjoy themselves.
Men who were once working class began to work white collar jobs, leaving women free to stay at home and pursue leisure activities like playing music or arranging flowers. Women who, in previous circumstances, would have worked alongside men on farms or in shops but now no longer needed to.
This change in gender roles was soon reflected elsewhere, namely in the fragrance world. Light and delicate scents that were popular with the elite became associated with women, and helped to set in stone a female gender-scent connection that still persists today. Which is that floral, sweet perfumes are for women.
This stereotype continued into the 20th century, with the arrival Chanel’s iconic No 5 perfume in 1921, which marked a new dawn in history of women’s fragrances.
As the ‘60s and ‘70s rolled around, a clear distinction was drawn between men’s and women’s fragrances. The labels ‘for him’ and ‘for her’ began being used, perpetuating a gender divide which then became the norm.
On one end of the spectrum was Brut - a mossy, green scent, marketed as the “essence of men” - and, on the other end Rive Gauche - a classic floral in a hairspray style-bottle aimed at elegant, independent women.
Even the word “perfume” itself took on female connotations. Men’s fragrances were instead referred to as “colognes” or “aftershaves” - and still are to this day.
Is there any truth to these stereotypes?
To a certain extent - yes. The popularity of stereotypically male and female scents reveals a clear conformance with the labels ascribed to them. As more and more men bought into the notion of smelling “macho”, so too did women buy "feminine" fragrances.
Problem is, the dividing line between male and female fragrances isn’t quite as wide as advertisers would have you belief. Brut and Rive Gauche, for example, share similar mid-notes of jasmine, geranium and ylang ylang, and a base of tonka, oakmoss and musk.
This begs the question: are notes gender specific? And, if so, do they sway fragrance in one direction more than another?
Are notes gender-specific?
Those in the Fragrantica community agree that fragrances don’t really have a gender but that green, woodsy notes tend to lean masculine and floral notes feminine.
As one user summaries: “There are some notes that are considered more masculine by the average consumer. Like woods, vetiver, spices, lavender... especially when these are combined. Feminine would be floral, fruits and sweets.”
Were that statement true, it would mean that quite a perfumes I own have been mislabelled. After all, not all scents can be either “floral bombs” or green monsters”. Meeting in the middle is inevitable, which might go to explain the recent move towards “gender-free” fragrances.
Gender-free, you say?
The 1990s saw an explosion in clean, watery, unisex fragrances (or aquatics, as they’re better known) which mirrored the growing androgyny of the decade.
Fragrances such as CK One were equally popular with men as women, and those classified as “for him” or “for her” were often indistinguishable from one another. This laid the foundations for today’s unisex fragrances. Fragrances which, for the most part, run hand-in-hand with the prevailing LQBTQIA* movement.
In recent years, perfumers such as Eccentric Molecule, Le Labo, Tom Ford, Laboratory and Aesop have broken down barriers by releasing gender-neutral perfumes.
Eccentric’s Molecule 01 centres around a single aroma molecule that works on both male and female skin, reacting with the wearer’s own pheromones, while Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille brings together the opposing masculine-feminine notes of tobacco and vanilla in a scent that’s both strong and gentle. Gucci’s Memoire d’une Odeur, meanwhile, takes things a step further with an olfactory composition described as “transcending gender and time”.
What can we learn from these releases? Are traditional gender scent stereotypes as we know them on the way out or are fragrance companies simply jumping on the “inclusivity” bandwagon?
Fuck the labels
Fragrance wearing isn’t a box ticking exercise. Just because a perfume isn’t aimed you, doesn’t mean you can’t wear it. Some of the best scents I own are unisex and the fragrances I do have which are aimed at men could easily be rocked by women as well.
With traditional gender-scent stereotypes so fraught with contractions, the message couldn’t be clearer: there are no out-and-out male or female scents. Just fragrances for people.
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