Men's Perfume, Women's Perfume and Other Myths

One of the big trends in perfume now is the ambivalent fragrance, the scent that could be for men but might be for women. Back in the 1920s and through the perfume heyday of the 1980s, the fragrance departments were pretty much split on gender lines. Women wore My Sin by Lanvin or Chanel No. 5 and men wore English Leather. There was a pretty strict idea about what scents were feminine, which ones were masculine, and even the uneducated nose could tell them apart.

That all changed some time in the 1990s, as more and more hip scents entered that "green" zone between the male and female aisles of the perfume counter. Women were wearing fresh scents, men were wearing citrus and even subtle florals. Calvin Klein captured part of the feel when he released One.

We might think we're very trendy--inventing the unisex fragrance. Not quite. What was a recent invention was the opposite. The male/female distinction in perfumery is relatively new. In ancient times, scent was scent. Men wore florals. Women and men might very well dip into the very same cologne bottles.

Today, more men are experimenting with scents that might be considered decidedly feminine and not just because of the fancy foo-foo bottles. Florals and fruity scents once deemed very girly are finding their way (in subdued form, usually) into the male fragrance. Women are using more and more fresh and subtle fragrances.

But brave men are wearing women's classics and brave women, well, I don't know what brave women are doing. I doubt that they're slathering on Old Spice. But I think brave women are getting pretty comfortable with ambivalent scents, too.