Gender Free Fragrances

Should all fragrances be gender free? Or at least should we restrict feminine fragrances to women only and masculine fragrances to men only?

That question has been buzzing me for months and the reason is most people who attend my Perfume Discovery workshop get a chance to create their own fragrance and they never cease to amaze me with their creations & comments.

One of the fragrance family that we smell during that discovery journey is Fougère. It can be translated to "Fern" in English but actually the smell has nothing to do with this plant. The fragrance was first created in 1882 by Houbigant in Fougère Royale. The scent made of lavender, geranium, vetiver, tonka bean and oakmoss can be described as classic, masculine, elegant and is reminiscent of men's after-shave. So definitely not feminine. Recently, I run a serie of workshop with several groups of over 25 young Singaporean ladies and while they got busy making and blending their own perfume, I noticed many of them (actually almost all of them) used Fougère. So I asked them if they were creating a fragrance for their husband/boyfriend, but no was the answer I got. I couldn't resist to ask them why. Yes, why are you using Fougère in your fragrance?

And their answers took me by surprise. "I like it, it smells fresh and clean", "it smells like soap", "it reminds me of the smell after shower". Interesting, isn't it? Especially in a region where fragrance consumption is still low and brand dominated. 

Since then, I keep wondering if those ladies would wear (more) fragrances if they could tap into the masculine fougère fragrances available in Asia.

What do you think?