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When it comes to the perfume world, everything is categorized into fragrance families. It’s not uncommon to find yourself drawn to perfumes with similar olfactive scent profiles.
Fragrances are crafted using different notes and accords that help to determine what each fragrance smells like.
While olfactive families aren’t a method for categorizing ingredients, they’re used to categorize the notes, or the descriptors of scents. In other words, olfactive families are an easy way to break down what a perfume smells like rather than what it contains.
WHAT ARE NOTES AND ACCORDS?
Perfumes are often described by ‘notes,’ or the different fragrances that you can smell within a perfume. These fragrances originate from different raw materials or from certain accords, or combinations of raw materials or odor molecules.
By mentioning a specific note in a perfume, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the product is present in the fragrance. It’s more like wine - if a wine smells like cocoa, berries or citrus, it doesn’t necessarily mean that these elements are actually in the wine. Rather, it’s the different molecules within the wine that bring out these scents.
It’s almost impossible to smell all of the different notes in a perfume separately - much of it depends on how developed your olfactory organ is and how well you train your nose to recognize them. A specific scent also has to be present in a high enough quantity for you to recognize it. There are often a few notes that you can smell more clearly in any perfume, which will help determine its character.
As scent molecules all have different weights, they’re not released all at the same time. The lightest molecules dissipate the fastest, making them the first notes that you smell - otherwise known as top notes. Twenty minutes later, the slightly heavier molecules are released, forming the core of the perfume, or the ‘heart notes.’ The heaviest molecules will be detected after an hour, also known as the ‘base notes.’
But this isn’t too important - what really matters is whether you like a scent or not! However, it can be useful to know what notes you prefer to help you choose a new perfume you’ll love.
THE FRAGRANCE WHEEL
There are many different notes, with new ones being added all the time. Choosing a scent based on the mentioned notes can be a quite complex process! To make it easier to make a choice, perfume expert Michael Edwards created the ‘Fragrance Wheel.’
This wheel groups perfumes into four major scent families: floral, oriental, woody and fresh. These four categories are then further divided into subcategories, with 14 categories in total. Even with this breakout, it’s still quite complex, since a perfume with different notes can be difficult to classify into just one category. Some experts even disagree where a perfume belongs! In short, the Fragrance Wheel is a useful tool, but it’s not flawless.
Here are the different fragrance families that Michael Edwards has distinguished:
One of the largest and oldest families in the history of perfumery, this family gathers fragrances with the major theme of flowers that work together to form a real bouquet that is a favorite of women’s perfumery. It’s also used in many men’s fragrances, alongside spicier and more aromatic ingredients. Many flowery fragrances include: rose, jasmine, violet, lilac, lily of the valley, narcissus, tuberose and more.
OUR FAVORITE FLORAL PERFUMES
[TWIST FLORAL PERFUMES]
The Aromatics / Ferns
A family of pure fantasy, the fern accords are a group of fragrances with an accord that follows a lavender scent with an aromatic topnote, accented with thyme and rosemary, a floral heart of geranium and a woody and vanilla base note with oakmoss and coumarin. This family gets its name from an emblematic perfume, Fougère royale, a scent that revolutionized the world of perfumery in 1882.
OUR FAVORITE AROMATIC PERFUMES
[TWIST AROMATIC PERFUMES]
The Chypre
A new addition to the Fragrance Wheel, this scent family occupies a prominent place in the world of perfumery. Named for the perfume created by Francois Coty in 1917, this olfactory family includes fragrances with oakmoss, ciste-labdanum and bergamot accords. These accords have been modernized with new ingredients such as patchouli. The fragrance of this type of perfume is difficult to describe, as it’s so complex. It can offer a scent of damp undergrowth and autumnal scents and more.
OUR FAVORITE CHYPRE PERFUMES
[TWIST CHYPRE PERFUMES]
The Woody
A family composed of warm, resinous or smoky notes, this olfactory family of woody fragrances is present in a vast majority of perfumes. For many years, these compositions were considered to be more masculine, but have recently found their way into feminine scents alongside flowers or fruits. This fragrance family includes odoriferous woods such as cedar or sandalwood as well as leaves and roots with patchouli and vetiver.
OUR FAVORITE WOODY PERFUMES
[TWIST WOODY PERFUMES]
The Orientals / Amber
One of the original perfume families, these scents are a huge part of the fragrance market. This family was built on ingredients of an animal origin: ambergris. Today, we can recreate these notes without the use of animals, filling these fragrances with sweet, powdery and spicy notes including cinnamon, ciste-labdanum and oud.
OUR FAVORITE ORIENTAL / AMBER PERFUMES
[TWIST ORIENTAL / AMBER PERFUMES]
The Leathers
A unique part of the perfume world, this olfactory family holds fragrances with smoky and dry notes that attempt to reproduce the characteristic scent of leather (burnt, tarred with shades of tobacco). These fragrances evoke burnt woods with a raw aspect.
