I’m glad, SQ. Nice to know that even the experts don’t agree, and that it doesn’t really matter anyway! I hope other readers will check it out. Well, again, it doesn’t much matter — it only saves you time if you know there are families that you NEVER like, and that’s rare. No email notifications of comments, sorry! Thank you! An ingredient called calone (not cologne) is used to make these marine fragrances (also known as aquatics). Oops…but not clickable, just gives more information if you “mouse over” the different categories. A fragrance like that cannot be a fruity floral (and if it was, then nearly everything ever made would be a fruity floral). Surely we have florals now with barely a natural ingredient in ’em. Hi Robin, this was an excellent post!
My nose doesn’t read, it doesn’t consider notes, it operates on a simple principle of levels of yummy and levels of stinky. There are eight main categories which the aromas or fragrances of essential oils are divided into. that is so true, sometimes the sum of the components leads you to a different perfume family than what the individual components would let you think! Aromatic Fougère, a masculine scent family, used to be its own category, but was recategorized as a sub-category in the 2010 change. Some of my best friends are fruity florals, and there have been whole summers where I've worn virtually nothing else. Ironically, I had just sent off to my editor the chapter that included my take on FF’s a few hours before this appeared. Technically, ‘fragrance families’ are a classification system the perfume industry has used for years, to place individual perfumes into olfactory ‘groups’, based on their dominant characteristics. Although most of us know a few brands here or there, many of us don’t know about the classifications of fragrances.
Cool, huh?
There’s a reason why the fragrance industry brings in tons of money year after year.
Oriental Fragrance Family. I wonder if anyone’s familiar with the really excellent Choose Your Own Perfume Chart found on the Frederic Malle website at His yearly editions of Fragrances of the World (you can see the 2010 book announcement here) provide a reference guide for consumers and retailers, and variations of his system are in use at stores like Sephora.
The official fragrance family chart was updated in 2010 — Did you even know there was an official fragrance family chart? when recording notes about a fragrance. Some of the essential oils are classified into more than one category, since they can have the aroma that could be indicated by either of the categories.
Lipstick Rose (Sweet/Soft) is way out on the western frontier while Une Rose (Dry/Streamlined) is at the other end at the tip of the eastern edge, and they’re both about the same place towards the Warm/Rich southern half. As a wine critic I can say that the wine world would be lost if we went by flavours alone.
Grain de musc was so nice as to give me an example, to straighten things up for me… le PDT is a chypre… at this point I declare myself totally unable to assess chypres and don’t want to hear about them anymore.
I can’t imagine how they could cover even a fraction of the number we have now.
I don’t understand why they keep using it, it’s essentially lost its original meaning, and doesn’t seem to have a coherent new meaning either. Conversely, lighter scents are better in warmer weather. Most of the feminine fragrances are floral and as the name implies these contains various kinds of flower ingredients. Floral and Sweet for daytime, and perhaps an Oriental/Spicy scent for date night. Tagged fragrance families, men's fragrances, fragrance by Coty called ‘Chypre’ in 1917, Fragrance Wheel which is a classification chart introduced by Michael Edwards in 1983. And many brands don’t bother to tell you the FF in advance anyway. So, four different fragrances with identical notes used in different proportions could be classified into four different fragrance families. That section, unfortunately, is very short, and now probably out of date.
No, even if the category chypre had never existed, JWM would not be an oriental…surely it would be a floral woody or a woody floral or some such. I think this box is now longer available alone, the whole kit is a staggering 295 euros worth.. One thing that is becoming increasingly popular in the perfume industry are Fruity-Florals, where juicy fruit notes are combined with pretty florals creating a very flirty and young scent. Thank you Robin, for trying to take some of the mystery out of a very confusing subject.
Later chypres used a similar structure.
This family is sometimes referred as ‘Amber’ because the amber note occurs so often in these fragrances. Don't subscribe
Lemon and Grapefruit are some of the effervescent notes used in Citrus scents evoking nose-tingling energy boosters. (I love the smell of geraniums. I cheerfully remain in the “I like what I like, whatever you call it” camp. I like your idea of writing down the fragrance family, etc.
Christian Dior’s Dune is considered as the first ever Marine fragrance.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL, you are so funny I don’t find them limiting at all; they give me more information and lead to better decisions. I love the Hermes scents, but haven’t tried any of the others except for Calyx, and that was ages ago. A Fragrance Family is a term used to denote particular groupings of scent notes.