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perfumes and colognes
Sunday, March 13th, 2011 04:24 pmI recently bought scent samples from The Mad Poet's Perfumery Menace. Because all of the descriptions sounded intriguing, I got one of each available scent. They are made with essential oils... I've got a nice collection of essential oils of my own, and sometimes use them to make a room smell nice. I enjoy sniffing new scents and combinations of scents; it's like opening a present to discover what's inside. So now I've got a bunch of little presents to open and sniff. So far, most of them have been quite a wonderful experience. I might even take to wearing them on my skin once in a while.
There's some underlying ingredient (I suspect artificial musk) in many commercial perfumes which is off-putting to me, but I don't have the same reaction to essential oils.
I got to wondering about the logic in having some scents marketed as "feminine" and some as "masculine". I'd expect heterosexual people to choose scents for themselves to wear, which are pleasant to both themselves and their existing and/or prospective partners.
Therefore a "feminine" scent should be pleasing to both women and men, and a "masculine" scent should also be pleasing to both women and men. So why are the scents marketed by gender? Why do women prefer a certain type of scent on themselves versus on their partners, and vice versa? If they like a certain scent on themselves, why wouldn't they like it on their partners too?
Or is there a non-cultural bias of men towards favoring certain scents, and women towards favoring other scents? As long as either group of scents isn't off-putting to the other gender, that could lead to a scent divide along gender lines. But that wouldn't explain why a woman would prefer one scent on her and a different scent on her masculine partner.
That seems to simply be cultural... certain types of scent have been deemed more acceptable for women, and other types have been deemed more acceptable for men.
Based on traditional divisions of work by gender... Food scents may be associated with women, because if a woman smells like nice food, that may indicate that she is a good cook. Woodsy scents may be associated with men, because if a man smells woodsy, that may mean he's been hard at work in the woods. Or if he smells spicy, that may mean he's been hard at work in the spice-mines. :-)
There's some underlying ingredient (I suspect artificial musk) in many commercial perfumes which is off-putting to me, but I don't have the same reaction to essential oils.
I got to wondering about the logic in having some scents marketed as "feminine" and some as "masculine". I'd expect heterosexual people to choose scents for themselves to wear, which are pleasant to both themselves and their existing and/or prospective partners.
Therefore a "feminine" scent should be pleasing to both women and men, and a "masculine" scent should also be pleasing to both women and men. So why are the scents marketed by gender? Why do women prefer a certain type of scent on themselves versus on their partners, and vice versa? If they like a certain scent on themselves, why wouldn't they like it on their partners too?
Or is there a non-cultural bias of men towards favoring certain scents, and women towards favoring other scents? As long as either group of scents isn't off-putting to the other gender, that could lead to a scent divide along gender lines. But that wouldn't explain why a woman would prefer one scent on her and a different scent on her masculine partner.
That seems to simply be cultural... certain types of scent have been deemed more acceptable for women, and other types have been deemed more acceptable for men.
Based on traditional divisions of work by gender... Food scents may be associated with women, because if a woman smells like nice food, that may indicate that she is a good cook. Woodsy scents may be associated with men, because if a man smells woodsy, that may mean he's been hard at work in the woods. Or if he smells spicy, that may mean he's been hard at work in the spice-mines. :-)