How Women's Perfumes and Men's Colognes are Categorized and Classified

Fragrances fit in one of five scent groupings: floral, Oriental, wood, clean and fougere. 

A popular women's and men's item is wonderful, fragrant perfume or cologne.  Using men's colognes or women's perfumes is a normal behavior for many men and women, and they put it on regularly to increase their fragrant call to others they may encounter. The fragrance companies are continually introducing innovative scents, many of which rapidly reach their peak in popularity, only to become yesterday's fragrance as they are supplanted by the freshest, newest and greatest aroma.  Fragrances fit into one of five scent groupings: floral, Oriental, wood, clean and fougere.

So how are fragrances categorized and classified? Michael Edwards, a fragrance industry consultant, originated a diagram known as the fragrance wheel.  The wheel places the basic fragrances into groups. At the hub of the wheel is the fougere group (it's pronounced foo-jeer), which contains elements of the other four groupings, and as a result is its own family with distinctions and likenesses of the others.  Each of the other four groups (floral, oriental, wood, clean and fougere) occupy places around the perimeter of the wheel.  Subgroups further characterize the fragrances.  Typically, men's cologne is characterized by combinations of the groups, with the exception of select fragrances from the floral family which are primarily used in women's perfume.

Popular men's colognes of the wood family frequently hinge on a familiar wood scent, mossy woods and dry woods. The wood sub category contains aromatics such as cedar, frankincense and myrrh. Mossy woods use fragrances characteristic of oak moss, and the dry woods actually are constructed from fragrances of tobacco and leather.

Oriental subgroups are soft Oriental, Oriental and woody Oriental. Soft Oriental contains the fragrances of incense and amber, and the Oriental subgroup dances of Oriental resins, vanilla and musk. Then, the woody Oriental subgroup features aromatic woods such as patchouli and sandalwood.

There are three sub-headings of the floral group: floral, Oriental floral and soft Oriental.  Fragrances of fresh flowers such as gardenia, honeysuckle, jasmine, lilac, rose and orchid are classified as floral. It also contains soft notes such as Moroccan jasmine and amber powder and Russian Rose. Orange blossoms and sweet spices are included, too.

The fresh group carries citrus, green, water and fruity scents, along with fragrances of lemon, orange and lime. Green sometimes smells of fresh cut grass, and water uses the chemical called Calone which is described as reminiscent of an ocean breeze.

One thing to keep in mind about fragrances that makes them unique: they smell slightly different on each man who wears them due to everyone's different body chemistry.