Fragrance families are not marketing labels; they are structures with a history. Knowing them lets you understand any new perfume in minutes, brief a perfumer clearly and explain scents to customers.
Each week pairs one or two families with landmark perfumes you can usually find as samples, and a small making exercise.
By the end you will be able to
- Recognise the structure of the eight main families
- Place any perfume on the fragrance wheel
- Explain how a family evolved from its classics to today
- Write a structural analysis of a modern bestseller
Your kit
- Samples of the reference perfumes listed (any you can find; similar substitutes are fine)
- Smelling strips and your palette from Masterclass 02
- A copy of Michael Edwards’ Fragrance Wheel
Week 1 · Citrus and cologne
Eau de Cologne was popularised in Cologne in the early 18th century: bergamot, lemon, neroli, petitgrain, lavender and rosemary on a light musky base. Bright, short-lived and endlessly reinvented.
Exercises
- Make a simple cologne on strips: bergamot 30, lemon 20, neroli 10, petitgrain 15, lavender 10, rosemary 5, musk 10 (parts).
Homework: Smell two modern colognes and note what they add to the classic structure (woods, musk, tea).
Week 2 · Florals: soliflores and bouquets
A soliflore portrays one flower; a bouquet blends several. Reference points: Joy by Jean Patou (1930) for rich jasmine and rose, Fracas by Robert Piguet (1948) for tuberose, Diorissimo (1956) for lily of the valley.
Exercises
- For one floral perfume, list which flower leads and which molecules you can recognise from Masterclass 02.
Homework: Write a 100-word comparison of a vintage-style and a modern floral.
Week 3 · Chypre and fougère
Chypre (Chypre de Coty, 1917; Mitsouko, 1919) and fougère (Fougère Royale, 1882) are the two great “structural” families. Today they are rebuilt around IFRA rules for oakmoss, and modern versions often add patchouli or woody ambers.
Exercises
- Compare your chypre and fougère accords from Masterclass 03 with one commercial example of each.
Homework: Explain the difference between chypre and fougère to a friend in under a minute.
Week 4 · Amber (oriental) and gourmand
The family once called “oriental” is now usually called amber: vanilla, resins, spices and labdanum, as in Shalimar (1925) and Opium (1977). Gourmand grew from it with Angel (1992), built around ethyl maltol and patchouli.
Exercises
- Smell an amber and a gourmand side by side and list which materials are shared.
Homework: Map three Venaro amber or sweet perfumes onto the fragrance wheel.
Week 5 · Woody and aromatic
Woody perfumes centre on vetiver, cedar, sandalwood, patchouli or modern woody ambers. Classics include Guerlain Vetiver (1959) and Terre d’Hermès (2006), a mineral woody citrus.
Exercises
- Smell vetiver, cedar and Iso E Super on strips, then find them in a woody perfume.
Homework: Write the pyramid of a woody perfume you own.
Week 6 · Aquatic, fresh and modern hybrids
Calone and dihydromyrcenol shaped the fresh, aquatic perfumes of the late 1980s and 1990s, such as Cool Water (1988) and L’Eau d’Issey (1992). Many bestsellers today are hybrids: fresh woody, floral gourmand, amber woody.
Exercises
- Choose a current bestseller and break it down into its family, its main accords and its key molecules.
Homework: Final project (below).
Final project
Final project: a two-page structural analysis of a modern bestseller (family, pyramid, likely key materials, who it is for) and a one-paragraph proposal for your own twist on it.
Safety
Smell samples on strips first. Avoid wearing many perfumes on skin in one session: olfactory fatigue makes evaluations unreliable.
Further reading
- Michael Edwards, Perfume Legends: French Feminine Fragrances
- Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, Perfumes: The A–Z Guide
