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Masculine, feminine — not so obvious?

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frogfoot

This has been making the rounds of Swedish newspapers lately, but I have not seen it mentioned here: A PhD thesis from Stockholm University reports that test subjects (heterosexual, aged 20-30) when asked to rank fragrances on a masculine/feminine scale performed rather poorly (with the "commercial gender" of the fragrance taken as the "right" answer) and, when asked to pick fragrances for themselves and for a hypothecical partner tended to chose the same fragrance for both, often "unisex" styled fragrances.

(Disclaimer: I haven't read the full text; it is available (in English!) through the link above for anyone with a deeper interest than I have. I realize that it is dangerous to draw any conclusions from the abstract (or, indeed, the conclusions...) of any scientific publication.)
 
Niles

Niles

I love to see people ignoring the retail gender assignments and judging a fragrance purely by their nose.
 
luvmysuper

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
I just made a post in the "Imaginary Authors" fragrance thread along these lines.

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/342043-Imaginary-Authors?p=5053971#post5053971

I personally believe that someone secure in their own gender can effectively wear what might otherwise be something considered for the "other" gender.
The Imaginary Authors scents are really incredible, and despite them being "named" after imaginary men and women, seem to just be amazing fragrances and not "A mans fragrance" or "A womans fragrance"
Just my personal opinion on it.
 
Aaron01

Aaron01

Dennard said:
I love to see people ignoring the retail gender assignments and judging a fragrance purely by their nose.
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+1 Something the Ph(ragrance)D's here have been saying for some time. Maybe we should get some sort of grant to fund our....uh....research :001_cool:
 
franz

franz

I'm certainly not surprised to hear this. These differences are more or less arbitrary, IMO. Scents are really about what you like, what images/memories/feelings they evoke for you, etc. I have sampled frags commonly considered very "masculine" that to my nose are the equivalent of being trapped in an old granny's powder room.
 
R

Renato1

All that study proves is that Swedish males - aged 20-30 - have a lousy sense of smell relative to males in the rest of the world.

If they can't tell the difference between scents loaded with woods and leathers basenotes and scents loaded with floral basenotes, and correlate that with the fact that most men wear the former and most women wear the latter, then they have an atypical deficiency, in my opinion.

Alternatively, the methodolgy may have been flawed. We all know that it is difficult to properly check out scents on the first blast, as there is a cacophony of different notes that hit ones nose at the same time. And also, that it is difficult for many to properly test more than four or six scents in one session. Perhaps the subjects got confused with the floral top and mid notes in the woody scents and with the floral top, mid and basenotes in the floral scents. And they may have been hit with too many scents, which confused them.

I find the notion that most men wouldn't be able to tell the diffference between say Paco Rabanne PH and Sara Jessica Parkers Lovely, is preposterous.
Cheers,
Renato
 
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Mick

Mick

that is what I do. I select based on what is pleasing to me. I have a few "gurlie" scents that sometimes get recognized and commented on by the ladies "gee I have the same scent as you are using" doh....
 
F

frogfoot

Renato1 said:
All that study proves is that Swedish males - aged 20-30 - have a lousy sense of smell relative to males in the rest of the world.
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The test groups were 50/50 men/women, so "swedish undergraduates" would be more true. :)

Renato1 said:
If they can't tell the difference between scents loaded with woods and leathers basenotes and scents loaded with floral basenotes, and correlate that with the fact that most men wear the former and most women wear the latter, then they have an atypical deficiency, in my opinion.
Click to expand...

The report does not give the brand names, but it does list (the manufacturer's idea of) the notes of the 12 samples used and, looking at the graphs, I'd say the result is more or less what one would expect. Sample 6, a commercially-feminine fragrance with notes listed as "Citrus, musk / vanilla, floral / sandalwood" has the test subjects completely baffled, whereas they have no problems with number 3, "Fruity / strawberry, sweet / amber, vanilla, musk".

Furthermore (and the the report does not seem to touch on this) classifying something as "masculine" because it is something men would wear (and ditto for "feminine … women") is fraught with peril, because the very reason that men wear it is that it is classified as masculine! Are strawberries inherently girly and wood inherently manly or is that just an artefact of cultural conditioning?
 
R

Renato1

frogfoot said:
Are strawberries inherently girly and wood inherently manly or is that just an artefact of cultural conditioning?
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Thanks for the additional explanation.

I've never thought of strawberries as being something automatically associated with women, since both sexes eat them - just like they both eat citrus fruit. Woods, however, are different - in their boyhoods men tended in the past to be more involved with whittling it, cutting it, climbing it and mucking around with it (as opposed to being heavily involved with the fine art of arranging flowers and making daisy chains). The vast majority of people who work with wood, carpenters, cabinet makers etc tend to be men. Innate or conditioned?
Cheers,
Renato
 
Matt555

Matt555

I seem to prefer what many seem to classify as more "feminine" scents. Midnight in Paris and Prada Amber are two examples.
 
john parker

john parker

It is interesting to me that I bought a decant of Bois des Iles which smells very nice to me, my wife appropriated it, and now I don't wear it. Bought her a bottle of Coromandel which, from an earlier sample I thought would be nice for me, she wears exclusively. Same thing happened with MpG Ambre. We seem to like the same type of fragrances, but, when she uses it, I surrender it to her. I do not know why that is! Some kind of psychological conditioning, I guess.
 
tehtimmeh

tehtimmeh

john parker said:
It is interesting to me that I bought a decant of Bois des Iles which smells very nice to me, my wife appropriated it, and now I don't wear it. Bought her a bottle of Coromandel which, from an earlier sample I thought would be nice for me, she wears exclusively. Same thing happened with MpG Ambre. We seem to like the same type of fragrances, but, when she uses it, I surrender it to her. I do not know why that is! Some kind of psychological conditioning, I guess.
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That sounds about like my wife ripping off my Windsor... Now I don't let her near the cologne cabinet. :)
 
Timmy Dee

Timmy Dee

john parker said:
It is interesting to me that I bought a decant of Bois des Iles which smells very nice to me, my wife appropriated it, and now I don't wear it. Bought her a bottle of Coromandel which, from an earlier sample I thought would be nice for me, she wears exclusively. Same thing happened with MpG Ambre. We seem to like the same type of fragrances, but, when she uses it, I surrender it to her. I do not know why that is! Some kind of psychological conditioning, I guess.
Click to expand...

So if I'm reading this correctly, you've surrendered Bois des Iles, Coromandel and MPG Ambre Precieux (unless you mean Ambre Dore)?
JP, it might be time to lay down the law, mate :)
Otherwise, buy me bottles of Bd'I and Coromandel.

I bought the missus her own frags, and although I regret surrendering the rights to Pen's Orange Blossom, she knows full well to stay away from my bottles :)
 
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