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What makes a fragrance smell masculine
Nothing in a fragrance is masculine by chemistry. What people usually mean is a set of notes that a century of marketing put on one side of the shop: woods, resins, leather, dry spice, bitter citrus and green aromatics, usually with the sweetness pulled back. Those notes are worth knowing because they describe a smell accurately. The category around them is worth ignoring.
What people are actually describing
Ask someone to describe a masculine fragrance and you will get texture words rather than notes: dry, sharp, dark, clean, woody. That vocabulary is real and it is useful. It just is not about gender. It is about where the weight of a composition sits.
Broadly, a fragrance reads as traditionally masculine when the sweetness is restrained, the base is woody or resinous rather than powdery, and the top is bitter or green rather than juicy. Change those three dials and the same materials read as feminine, which is the giveaway.
The notes doing the work
These are the materials the category is built from, and they are worth learning by smell rather than by label. Each one has its own entry in the ingredient glossary.
- Cedarwood and sandalwood. The structural woods. Cedar is dry and pencil-sharp, sandalwood is creamier and rounder. Both hold a fragrance down for hours.
- Vetiver. Earthy, rooty, faintly smoky. The note most responsible for a fragrance smelling serious.
- Agarwood, or oud. Dense, resinous and medicinal at the edges. A little goes a very long way.
- Leather. Not a plant, an effect: smoky, slightly bitter, a bit animal. Divisive, and the people who like it really like it.
- Cardamom, pink pepper and nutmeg. Dry spice, which adds lift without adding sugar.
- Sage and lavender. The aromatic, barbershop end. This is what most people mean by a clean masculine scent.
- Grapefruit and bergamot. Bitter citrus at the top, which reads as fresh rather than sweet.
- Tonka bean and vanilla. The warmth underneath. Used lightly they stop a woody base going cold and dusty.
Read that list against a note pyramid and you can predict a fragrance fairly well before you smell it. That is a more useful skill than any category label on a shelf.
Four from the range, and what each one is doing
All four are also made as perfume oils if you want the closer, quieter version.
- Next Gold is the resinous one: agarwood, Brazilian rosewood and sandalwood up top, cardamom and Sichuan pepper through the middle, vetiver, tonka bean and amber underneath. Warm, dry and deliberate.
- Next Slate is the wearable one: apple, plum, lemon and bergamot over cinnamon and carnation, landing on sandalwood, cedarwood and vetiver. Fresh at the front, woody by the afternoon. This is the one to try if you want something for ordinary days.
- Next Maroon is the dark fruit: black cherry and bitter almond, plum and Turkish rose, then tonka bean, vanilla, sandalwood and cinnamon. Sweeter than the others and much better in cold weather.
- Next Beige is the soft one: sandalwood and musk with iris, cardamom and violet, over amber and cedarwood. Close, warm and quiet enough for a shared office.
Our own catalogue does not agree with the category
Here is the awkward part. Of the products we sell, 14 are listed under both the men's and the women's collections, and 15 sit in the unisex range. The scents did not change. Only the label on the aisle did.
That is not us being modern about it. It is what happens when you tag the same 15 compositions honestly rather than splitting them for merchandising. Next Beige, the softest of the four above, is listed in the women's collection as well as the men's, and Next Maroon is tagged unisex. Neither of them changed to get there.
The strongest argument against the category is not political, it is practical: your nose is individual in a way the shelf is not. A single variation in one odorant receptor gene has been shown to change how intense a particular smell is and whether a person finds it pleasant at all. Two people can genuinely disagree about the same bottle. A sign above a display cannot account for that, and it is not trying to.
Choosing one that suits you
Two decisions do most of the work, and neither of them is which side of the shop you started on.
How much room do you want it to take up
An eau de parfum diffuses and carries. A perfume oil sits close and can hold longer without projecting. Traditionally masculine scents skew loud, which is fine at dinner and much less fine in a meeting room. If your days are shared, the oil is the smarter buy.
What is the weather doing
Heavy woods and resins bloom in the cold and can become oppressive in an Adelaide summer. Bitter citrus and aromatics do the opposite: sharp and welcome in heat, thin and short in winter. Two bottles across the year beats one bottle fighting the season.
If you want it to feel like yours
The quiet trick in this part of the range is layering: a warm oil underneath, a fresher spray over the top, so the base is yours and the trail is the one everyone else gets. The studio's method for wearing two at once covers the order and how much of each, and the honest version of the advice is to change the ratio before you change the bottle. Most failed combinations are one spray too many.
If you want to go further than the shelf, Make Your Own builds from formulas the studio has already blended and tested, and a bundle is the low-risk way to try several before you pick a signature.
Questions people ask
What notes make a fragrance smell masculine?
Woods such as cedarwood and sandalwood, earthy vetiver, resins including agarwood, leather, dry spices like cardamom and pink pepper, aromatics such as sage and lavender, and bitter citrus at the top. The common thread is restrained sweetness and a woody or resinous base.
Is there any chemical difference between men's and women's fragrance?
No. The same materials appear on both sides of the shop, in different proportions. The division is a marketing convention roughly a century old, not a property of the ingredients, and the same standards govern the materials either way.
Can a woman wear a masculine fragrance?
Yes, and plenty do. Most of our range is tagged for more than one collection precisely because the scents work across the label. If you like how it smells on your skin after an hour, it is for you.
Should I choose an eau de parfum or a perfume oil?
Choose by how much room you want it to take up. An eau de parfum diffuses and leaves a trail, which suits evenings and open air. A perfume oil sits close to the skin and can hold longer without projecting, which suits offices and anywhere shared.
Which fragrance suits an office?
Something close and quiet rather than something with reach. Next Beige is the softest of the four in this post, and any of them in perfume oil form will sit nearer the skin than the spray does. If in doubt, apply less and check with someone.
What is a good masculine fragrance for summer in Australia?
Bitter citrus and aromatics over a light base. Heat lifts a fragrance, so heavy resinous scents that were pleasant in July can be overpowering in January. Next Slate is the most seasonally flexible of the four; look at the summer collection if you want something lighter still.
Sources
- Keller et al., Nature (2007)Variation in a single human odorant receptor gene changes how intense and how pleasant an odour seems, which is why two people can disagree about the same bottle.
- IFRA Standards libraryThe same published ingredient standards apply to every fragrance, regardless of which shelf it is merchandised on.
Written by Olivia Clarke, Next Fragrance.