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Where does the concept of smelling "manly" come from?

post #1 of 56
4/6/12 at 2:51pm
Thread Starter 
After wearing Insense and thinking whether it was a masculine scent, I spent some time wondering about the concept. How does one define a masculine smell, and why is it ever changing?

Historically, nobility wore scents that were floral and citrus heavy (if my memory serves me properly) and some of the note compositions would seem feminine by today's standards. Then the 20th century hits, and if you look at the evolution of scents since the 60s, the definition of a masculine smell has been in a constant state of flux.

I'm trying to pinpoint what causes the scents to change. I have my theories based on social norms of the time, but I hit a dead end in the 90s when the aquatics hit.

This view is completely biased towards the American experience and I apologize for that, but bear with me.


Start at the 60s and 70s: The sexual revolution, losing the Vietnam war, President being impeached, rise of feminism, etc. American men were questioning their masculinity at this point. Losing the first war in ages, women "threatening" their power, the most powerful man in the world (their view) failing, etc. The response can be seen in the ultra masculine style of 70's fashion, and in the fragrances of the time. Heavy on spices, woods, patchouli, etc.

80's: The era of excess. The lust for more money and power put doubts regarding masculinity on the backseat, and now fragrances became loud. The rise of the powerhouse lead to my favorite era in fragrances history, many of my favorite scents are from 1978-1989. The powerhouse term refers to projection, not a particular smell. There are soapy powerhouses, woody ones, citrus dominant scents, leather, etc. It's a feeling more than a smell.


90's: Aquatics. This is where my theory breaks down a little. I can concede that aquatics were initially popular as a backlash to the overpowering miasma of powerhouse scents and as an olfactory revolt against the nature of the 80s in general. What doesn't make sense is the lack of progression past this point. We've been mired in the same weak smelling, safe, clean/fresh scents for almost 25 years now.

Following 9/11, the failure of the economy and the president(depending on your political leaning), and a feeling of unease and lack of safety, I'd expect a resurgence of more powerful scents to compensate. There has been a revival of 80's style fashion, music, cinema and Reagan has basically been canonized as a saint by the Republican party. Military spending is spiraling back up to Cold War levels, and we're poised for another Cold War with China. Complete lack of oversight on the economic market mirrors the 80s as well, frankly the social atmosphere is very similar, if not slightly more cynical. Everything else about American consumer culture has changed since the 90s, and yet the aquatics remain dominate.

Why is that? Previous scents obviously sold well, however anyone who's been to a retail store and talked to a sales associate has probably had a fragrance forced on them while being told how clean/fresh it smelled. The concept of smelling like a many has moved from exotic spices and heavy woods to an imaginary ocean, light fruits and laundry detergent.


What are your theories on this matter?


Niche fragrances are an entirely different matter so for the sake of discussion let's just look at mainstream.
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post #2 of 56
4/6/12 at 3:16pm
Not sure what causes them to change over time, but for me, I've always felt that woods, spices, leather, and incense were "manly" smells.
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post #3 of 56
4/6/12 at 3:25pm
Very good points. I am also dismayed by the prevailing aquatic sporty tsunami which doesn't seem to recede.

You are linking the taste in fragrance only to political-social events. But I think one important trend of the last 20 years here in the US has been the sanitization of living and working environments. No smoking (which is good of course), but also twice daily showers, 24/7 washer/dryer cycles, and absolute unacceptability of body odors. This trend prevents the come back of old, stronger dirtier perfumes. For some reason, aquatics are perceived by most people as sanitized, even if unpleasant. The other trend is the teen-centric mainstream culture. But instead of teens wanting to be adult, we have mainstream culture catering to the lowest denominator of teen tastes: clean and sweet. Hence, again, aquatic, plus the second trend in masculine perfumes, that of clean sweet gourmands, which now occupy about half of the shelf space in dept stores (that not occupied by ozon-aquas, that is).

Correspondingly, in female perfumes, we have the tide of pink fruity florals, or, better, slutty-florals. The aesthetic model is the pink cupcake people (mostly women) line up for in many US cities (including here - I am always puzzled at the lines in front of a certain store here in DC selling said concoctions). As women slowly make headways into professions and power position, they seem entitled to revert to their teen tastes in perfumes.

cacio
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post #4 of 56
4/6/12 at 3:41pm
Blame the marketing people as they are the ones conditioning and manipulating societies taste since as long as I can remember.
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post #5 of 56
4/6/12 at 4:17pm
Personally I consider aquatics popular but no longer a trend. I tend to think that major trends to a large degree ended with the 90s. Trends are largely driven by values. Contemporary society is more defined by value relativism, you don't have a defined movement that determines the contemporary aesthetic. I think now, it can be anything and everything. Thus you have Basenotes and thousands of niche brands. That is the 21st century.
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post #6 of 56
4/6/12 at 4:24pm
Interesting question by the way.
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post #7 of 56
4/6/12 at 4:31pm
ask those in the marketing dept.
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post #8 of 56
4/6/12 at 4:51pm
Great analysis Cartier!
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post #9 of 56
4/6/12 at 6:28pm
I think this is strangest bunch of bullshit that I have heard recently.
You, yourself, admit the fault in your proposition without noting that a central flaw is your view that powerhouse fragrance were a feeling rather than attributable to the composition, hence the smell itself.
Admittedly, a saturation point must have been attained wherein new angles of fragrances were advanced just to capture those seeking something out of the ordinary (ordinary being strong and vibrant fragrances at the time).
Your political perspective has clouded your thinking. Apparently, the last four years are artfully avoided in your conversation. And further, your choice not to address the sexual revolution of our times - the marriage of any individuals - and the accompanying wussification of our children play little in the selection, manufacture and marketing of scents.
Perhaps, the 1920s with their elaborate fragrances and their demise, warranted by the world's direction being focused on the out of hand machinations of emperors, dictators, shahs and what have you, seems to escape your analysis. From the 1920s to the 1960s is a long time, but apparently, is inconsequential. Is the 1990s until the present any longer?
Your choice to limit the discussion to an American perspective, at least in your political sense, is irrational and condescending. Tom Ford was and is an American perfumier; but so were and are the great European perfumiers, who incidentially controlled and control the offerings. Perhaps, a broader perspective will yield a more accurate appraisal.
Man, as opposed to androgynous males and females, has been relegated, for the moment, to an incidental part of society, especially since the purchasing power of that society lays in the hands of others.
Please temper your comments with at least some moments of historical facts.
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post #10 of 56
4/6/12 at 7:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cacio View Post

Very good points. I am also dismayed by the prevailing aquatic sporty tsunami which doesn't seem to recede.

You are linking the taste in fragrance only to political-social events. But I think one important trend of the last 20 years here in the US has been the sanitization of living and working environments. No smoking (which is good of course), but also twice daily showers, 24/7 washer/dryer cycles, and absolute unacceptability of body odors. This trend prevents the come back of old, stronger dirtier perfumes. For some reason, aquatics are perceived by most people as sanitized, even if unpleasant. The other trend is the teen-centric mainstream culture. But instead of teens wanting to be adult, we have mainstream culture catering to the lowest denominator of teen tastes: clean and sweet. Hence, again, aquatic, plus the second trend in masculine perfumes, that of clean sweet gourmands, which now occupy about half of the shelf space in dept stores (that not occupied by ozon-aquas, that is).

Correspondingly, in female perfumes, we have the tide of pink fruity florals, or, better, slutty-florals. The aesthetic model is the pink cupcake people (mostly women) line up for in many US cities (including here - I am always puzzled at the lines in front of a certain store here in DC selling said concoctions). As women slowly make headways into professions and power position, they seem entitled to revert to their teen tastes in perfumes.

cacio

These are excellent points. We tend to forget that, until the 1950s, American men did not wear deodorants (they were considered extremely feminine) and the normal bath quota was once a week. Meanwhile, aging garbage and horses were still common on city streets until the 1940s. So people were used to far more pungent smells in daily life. (We are not going to even go into smells before the 20th century, before modern sanitation systems, and during periods when bathing was considered unhygienic.)

B.O. was invented by cosmetics marketers in the 1950s to get men to start using deodorants. It worked. Since then natural male smells have been considered unpleasant and undesirable in all contexts, even ones (construction sites, factories, warehouses, playing fields) once considered macho. So it is not surprising the norm of men's scents got a lot less powerful and animalistic. Meanwhile, many notes in male fragrance (tobacco, port, leather, lavender, vetiver) were based on what men smelled like from their everyday lives and those lives are mainly now filled with the weak, artificial scents of shopping malls, rest rooms, and office towers.

Jean Baudrillard has written extensively (and hilariously) about the infantilization of American culture. Before the 1960s, men tried to look grown up and masculine as soon as they could. College students wore coats and ties and smoked pipes. Now we seem to have moved beyond even idolizing youth to trying to pretend that there is no history and nothing really exists beyond late adolescence. (My sense is that this situation is not as extreme in other parts of the world; however, world culture is increasingly homogenized and the base touch-point around the world is American consumer culture).

So you get all sorts of fashions that emphasize this Lost Boys in Neverland ideal: baggy clothes that look like hand-me-downs, baseball caps and sneakers everywhere, and juvenile fragrances.
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post #11 of 56
4/6/12 at 7:15pm
I think men's or "manly" fragrances are a little sharper and rougher around the edges that a woman's fragrance. Personally I like unisex fragrances, because outstanding men's fragrances are few and far between. The perfect men's fragrance for me is one that has some balls to it but at the same time is not afraid to tip it's hat to the most beautiful thing on this earth. Women.

If I had to take a guess where the term was coined, it would be the old west.
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post #12 of 56
4/6/12 at 7:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by silentrich View Post

I think men's or "manly" fragrances are a little sharper and rougher around the edges that a woman's fragrance. Personally I like unisex fragrances, because outstanding men's fragrances are few and far between. The perfect men's fragrance for me is one that has some balls to it but at the same time is not afraid to tip it's hat to the most beautiful thing on this earth. Women.

If I had to take a guess where the term was coined, it would be the old west.

I checked the OED and the earliest cited uses of the term "manly" date from the early 13th-century! The primary meaning is "having the virtues of a man, as opposed to a woman or a child."
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post #13 of 56
4/6/12 at 8:01pm
I think there has been a trend in the last few years towards gourmands. Not saying that the aquatic dominance of the mainstream market is over, but there has been a bit of a flux.
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post #14 of 56
4/6/12 at 8:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BurgundyMarsh View Post

I checked the OED and the earliest cited uses of the term "manly" date from the early 13th-century! The primary meaning is "having the virtues of a man, as opposed to a woman or a child."

Makes sense since Genghis Khan was part of the 13th Century. Nothing feminine about that Mongol.
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post #15 of 56
4/6/12 at 8:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BurgundyMarsh View Post

These are excellent points. We tend to forget that, until the 1950s, American men did not wear deodorants (they were considered extremely feminine) and the normal bath quota was once a week. Meanwhile, aging garbage and horses were still common on city streets until the 1940s. So people were used to far more pungent smells in daily life. (We are not going to even go into smells before the 20th century, before modern sanitation systems, and during periods when bathing was considered unhygienic.)

B.O. was invented by cosmetics marketers in the 1950s to get men to start using deodorants. It worked. Since then natural male smells have been considered unpleasant and undesirable in all contexts, even ones (construction sites, factories, warehouses, playing fields) once considered macho. So it is not surprising the norm of men's scents got a lot less powerful and animalistic. Meanwhile, many notes in male fragrance (tobacco, port, leather, lavender, vetiver) were based on what men smelled like from their everyday lives and those lives are mainly now filled with the weak, artificial scents of shopping malls, rest rooms, and office towers.

Jean Baudrillard has written extensively (and hilariously) about the infantilization of American culture. Before the 1960s, men tried to look grown up and masculine as soon as they could. College students wore coats and ties and smoked pipes. Now we seem to have moved beyond even idolizing youth to trying to pretend that there is no history and nothing really exists beyond late adolescence. (My sense is that this situation is not as extreme in other parts of the world; however, world culture is increasingly homogenized and the base touch-point around the world is American consumer culture).

So you get all sorts of fashions that emphasize this Lost Boys in Neverland ideal: baggy clothes that look like hand-me-downs, baseball caps and sneakers everywhere, and juvenile fragrances.

err, I've never liked the smell of sweat and body odour. I myself am a pretty sweat individual, but I consider myself to be fairly hygienic yet I really enjoy the pungency of Kouros. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I love eating Indian food as well.
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post #16 of 56
4/6/12 at 9:48pm
Hunter's on to something with the marketing angle. Think about this; with the EU banning and severely limiting the use of many of the staple ingredients of the great fragrances of yesteryear perfumery outfits are constantly forced to create synthetic recreations that can do the job. With the advent of calone they latched onto a synthesized scent note that is loud, resilient, and fresh. Building on that success, 'recreated' scents made production cheaper. Following the monstrous success of CK Eternity and, just a few short years later, Le Male, fake fresh and loud sweet took the limelight in favor of the 'dad's cologne' that probably wasn't tapping the impressionable youth market at the time. This is where marketing began to rewrite the modern definition of masculinity (and where/when 'metrosexuality' came in). If they couldn't sell the old product, they'd just redefine the game. So my response is that the idea of masculinity, at least in scent, is generational, and dependent on developmental experience. None of my younger coworkers seem to appreciate the fragrances I wear from '76-'94, but after that I get all compliments. I believe this stems from the fact that most young urbanites and citydwellers don't know what the real ingredients smell like in their natural form, and have been raised on assumption and approximation, like cherry lollipops and jasmine-fresh detergents. After regulatory reformulations we can't go back to the brilliant originals many of us still yearn for
but we can at least hope that some magicians will continue to twist the new laws in our favor. The 21st century needs a Mitsouko.
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post #17 of 56
4/6/12 at 9:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cartierfan View Post

After wearing Insense and thinking whether it was a masculine scent, I spent some time wondering about the concept. How does one define a masculine smell, and why is it ever changing?

I don't agree the hypothesis.
When I check out the H&R Chart at
http://www.leffingwell.com/h&rfragra...e_masculin.pdf
well, pretty much all the listed scents I've tried from that century seem masculine to me.

Up top at the left hand side is Mennen's Skin Bracer from 1913. I wore it yesterday, splashing it on after I shaved.

I'll admit that 4711 from 1792 at the top of the right hand side smells a tad feminine to me, but the first entry at the top of the left hand side - Atkinison's English Lavender from 1910, which I also have, smells masculine to me.

My theory is that 95% of the male population and 95% of the female population can instantly identify something as masculine or feminine, usually arising from what they innately wanted to smell and play with as children (girls flowers, boys climbing and whittling trees, wood and branches). And that is what the designers market to - else they'd be out of business.

Aquatics - men's ones usually have more pronounced woody bases to them, women's ones usually have more pronounced floral bases.

Niche - a huge number of niche scents are just a mix of components usually used in mens scents and of those usually used in womens' scents, mixed together and called unisex. Although the ratio is never exactly right so that everyone thinks them somewhat masculine or somewhat feminine. To my nose, numerous scents by Serge Lutens, Villoresi, L'Artisan and Etro can be described by this recipe.
Regards,
Renato
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post #18 of 56
4/6/12 at 11:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BurgundyMarsh View Post

These are excellent points. We tend to forget that, until the 1950s, American men did not wear deodorants (they were considered extremely feminine) and the normal bath quota was once a week. Meanwhile, aging garbage and horses were still common on city streets until the 1940s. So people were used to far more pungent smells in daily life. (We are not going to even go into smells before the 20th century, before modern sanitation systems, and during periods when bathing was considered unhygienic.)

B.O. was invented by cosmetics marketers in the 1950s to get men to start using deodorants. It worked.

Uhhmm - We tend to forget that the Romans built bath houses covering up to hundreds of acres to keep its citizens clean and washed - frequently - not to mention the huge sanitation systems. Just because it took another 1500 years to get out of the cleanliness dark ages, doesn't mean we should necessarily look back on those dark ages as the baseline norm for standards of cleanliness.
Regards,
Renato
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post #19 of 56
4/7/12 at 12:02am
It's all gender programming and marketing.

There was this insanely silly thread that was eventually locked that went over this too many times. What a laughable mess.

In the 19th century, the most "manly men" (dueling, bare-knuckle boxing, pistol-packing womanizers, they were) wore orange blossom and jasmine. Only in the end of the 19th century was there a gender split attempted.

http://www.basenotes.net/threads/249...-sensibilities
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post #20 of 56
4/7/12 at 12:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Primrose View Post

It's all gender programming and marketing.

If it were all subject to "gender programming" (like Pavlov's dog?) and marketing - there would be heaps of money to be made by those marketers and manufacturers - every decade or two, just reprogram us - and we'd have to throw out our old scents and start afresh with the new feminine scents we males would have suddenly decided we have to now wear. Even moreso for the feminine scents that females would have to abandon, as they suddenly started really digging woods and leather.

It doesn't happen.
Why are these supposed capitalists foregoing many billions of dollars of extra profits in the middle of a financial crisis?
Regards,
Renato
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post #21 of 56
4/7/12 at 1:41am
Here's my 2 cents: It's probably linked to how people subconsciously relate income to scents. The 'moneyed' people don't have to sweat it out so they tend to stay fresh. Manual laborers due to the nature of physical labor, will smell different - i.e. the scent of low income, crude as it sounds. Lol. That's why girls like their guys 'freshly scrubbed'. It spells: stable income, good white collar job. To extend thus idea further we now have guys who wish to smell 'wealthy' in the belief women somehow find such tenuous link to wealth attractive. And so we get stuff like Puredistance M, Creed, Clive Christian, Amouage, Xerjoff etc with allusions to luxury.


Call it Marketing, social reengineering or simple mindf**k.
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post #22 of 56
4/7/12 at 5:29am
Just different fashions and inventions (e.g. aquatics, gourmands, etc), I'd say.

Plus there is a long time project, run by our reptile masters, possibly involving tap water, to make men more and more effeminate as to sell them more make up, clothing and hair products.
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post #23 of 56
4/7/12 at 6:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Renato View Post

Uhhmm - We tend to forget that the Romans built bath houses covering up to hundreds of acres to keep its citizens clean and washed - frequently - not to mention the huge sanitation systems. Just because it took another 1500 years to get out of the cleanliness dark ages, doesn't mean we should necessarily look back on those dark ages as the baseline norm for standards of cleanliness.
Regards,
Renato

Oh of course I don't want to go back to the Middle Ages! This was for historical reference only. I do tend to think that affluent contemporary societies really overdo things to the point of creating ecological damage with all the chemicals and water used in washing, laundering, and sanitizing while much of the rest of the world doesn't even have clean drinking water or decent toilets. It smacks a bit of decadence, as did the Roman baths in the end, which started out as big public welfare projects and ended as a venue for idle socializing and self-indulgence. One can only imagine what the baths were like when the empire started to fall apart, imperial largesse faded, and the maintenance budgets were cut back...

I do think, despite the baths, the smells of Roman society at its peak were pretty vivid compared to the 21st-century West: lots of heavy perfumes and ointments, street food with exotic spice, a richly multicultural society with cooking fires and different religious rituals, including burnt animal sacrifice, and, of course, horses and every other sort of animal more or less everywhere. The odor of smoke must have been everywhere because all the cooking and heating, including heating the baths, was done with wood or charcoal. There were also large, crowded tenement blocks and, because windows did not have glass, there was no way to shut out the smells of the street.

Ovid writes quite a lot of matters of male personal hygiene of the period, by the way.
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post #24 of 56
4/7/12 at 6:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diamondflame View Post

Here's my 2 cents: It's probably linked to how people subconsciously relate income to scents. The 'moneyed' people don't have to sweat it out so they tend to stay fresh. Manual laborers due to the nature of physical labor, will smell different - i.e. the scent of low income, crude as it sounds. Lol. That's why girls like their guys 'freshly scrubbed'. It spells: stable income, good white collar job. To extend thus idea further we now have guys who wish to smell 'wealthy' in the belief women somehow find such tenuous link to wealth attractive. And so we get stuff like Puredistance M, Creed, Clive Christian, Amouage, Xerjoff etc with allusions to luxury.


Call it Marketing, social reengineering or simple mindf**k.

Things that imply excessive disposable income and lots of leisure time always confer status and these shift with the times. Think about tanning. Rich people (especially women) avoided the sun like the plague because tans were associated with people who had to labor out-doors. When the working classes moved into factories and the leisure classes went to the beach, tanning became fashionable. There might be something similar going on with fragrances.
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post #25 of 56
4/7/12 at 6:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BurgundyMarsh View Post

because windows did not have glass, there was no way to shut out the smells of the street.

Short of closing the shutters, no.
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post #26 of 56
4/7/12 at 6:59am
Well, I'm a girl and I feld like pulling of Bel Ami today. So am I weird?
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post #27 of 56
4/7/12 at 7:38am
I think y'all are looking way too far into it. Classic masculine scents (bitter herbs, leather, wood, citrus) mask and complement the smell of tobacco smoke on the individual. Floral scents generally don't mix well with tobacco smoke residue. Perhaps that's the answer.
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post #28 of 56
4/7/12 at 8:13am
Great thread and very interesting.

Having lived for 4 years in America, in the mid west of all places, I feel that America is rather far behind Europe on so many levels. I could not believe my bank when they gave me a box of checks and most people did not even do direct debit etc. Obviously different trends on the East coast such as New York which is a trend setter to an extent.
My personal experience was that I was the only person to wear fragrance to work and I found this strange. As mentioned in this thread already, marketing is to blame for the vast majority of trends. Within all sections of life, we have marketing teams ramming commercials down our throats all day. We have the vast majority of people more interested in what some dumb celebrity is wearing or who they are dating. People are dumbed down into the capitalist machine and programmed from such a young age into what is hip and trendy.
I love the 80's. I am an avid movie collector. My favorite genre is the 80's. I love the style of comedies back then, the clothes, the hair, the cars, I love it all. Korous screams 80's masculine to me. As does Paco Rabbane pour homme.
Very interesting topic here.
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post #29 of 56
4/7/12 at 8:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by maitiu View Post

Great thread and very interesting.

Having lived for 4 years in America, in the mid west of all places, I feel that America is rather far behind Europe on so many levels. I could not believe my bank when they gave me a box of checks and most people did not even do direct debit etc. Obviously different trends on the East coast such as New York which is a trend setter to an extent.
My personal experience was that I was the only person to wear fragrance to work and I found this strange. As mentioned in this thread already, marketing is to blame for the vast majority of trends. Within all sections of life, we have marketing teams ramming commercials down our throats all day. We have the vast majority of people more interested in what some dumb celebrity is wearing or who they are dating. People are dumbed down into the capitalist machine and programmed from such a young age into what is hip and trendy.
I love the 80's. I am an avid movie collector. My favorite genre is the 80's. I love the style of comedies back then, the clothes, the hair, the cars, I love it all. Korous screams 80's masculine to me. As does Paco Rabbane pour homme.
Very interesting topic here.

When were you in the US? Most businesses don't even accept personal checks anymore.
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post #30 of 56
4/7/12 at 8:44am
90's: Aquatics. This is where my theory breaks down a little. I can concede that aquatics were initially popular as a backlash to the overpowering miasma of powerhouse scents and as an olfactory revolt against the nature of the 80s in general. What doesn't make sense is the lack of progression past this point. We've been mired in the same weak smelling, safe, clean/fresh scents for almost 25 years now.

Great points indeed. Strong belief that the 90's being the decade of AIDS awareness that the shift was to clean scents. You mention the previous decades excess. This was an attempt to seperate from them and appear clean, fresh, possibly safe. I too don't understand why they are still so popular. I think fashion trends stay around a lot longer than they used too. Good or bad that is up to the individual. I find like movies, music, books that I tend to revisit older works or what could be termed classics because there was something genuine and compelling there.
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post #31 of 56
4/7/12 at 8:46am
90's: Aquatics. This is where my theory breaks down a little. I can concede that aquatics were initially popular as a backlash to the overpowering miasma of powerhouse scents and as an olfactory revolt against the nature of the 80s in general. What doesn't make sense is the lack of progression past this point. We've been mired in the same weak smelling, safe, clean/fresh scents for almost 25 years now.

Great points indeed. Strong belief that the 90's being the decade of AIDS awareness that the shift was to clean scents. You mention the previous decades excess. This was an attempt to seperate from them and appear clean, fresh, possibly safe. I too don't understand why they are still so popular. I think fashion trends stay around a lot longer than they used too. Good or bad that is up to the individual. I find like movies, music, books that I tend to revisit older works or what could be termed classics because there was something genuine and compelling there.
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post #32 of 56
4/7/12 at 8:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jojo Lapin X View Post

Short of closing the shutters, no.

Shutters not so effective in keeping out smoke, rotten odors in the street, etc. According to the literature, they weren't even all that effective in shutting out the cold...
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post #33 of 56
4/7/12 at 9:31am
Not me. Thats my story, and I'm sticken to it!
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post #34 of 56
4/7/12 at 9:35am
For someone who has done absolutely no research on the subject, here are my two cents:

Is it possible that we are over-analyzing? Way back when they used flower water (which sounds feminine), maybe that's what you did....you only bathed once a month, so one used flower water. So did women, maybe? As for what we, nowadays, think of as masculine, maybe it was quite by accident. When they were creating barbershop products....shaving creams, etc, they just arbitrarily decided on certain notes that subsequently seem masculine now. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think it was so much a political issue, but an accident. Which came first...the chicken or the egg? ...a fragrance being used by a man and therefore associated with masculinity, or a scent "DESIGNED" to be masculine?
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post #35 of 56
4/7/12 at 10:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DieNase View Post

Well, I'm a girl and I feld like pulling of Bel Ami today. So am I weird?

Good for you, DieNase! Wear what you like and make no apologies. That's true fragrance connoisseurship.

Quote:
Originally Posted by lionheart View Post

For someone who has done absolutely no research on the subject, here are my two cents:

Is it possible that we are over-analyzing? Way back when they used flower water (which sounds feminine), maybe that's what you did....you only bathed once a month, so one used flower water. So did women, maybe? As for what we, nowadays, think of as masculine, maybe it was quite by accident. When they were creating barbershop products....shaving creams, etc, they just arbitrarily decided on certain notes that subsequently seem masculine now. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think it was so much a political issue, but an accident. Which came first...the chicken or the egg? ...a fragrance being used by a man and therefore associated with masculinity, or a scent "DESIGNED" to be masculine?

Lionheart, I think there is, indeed, some sense in scrutinizing gender marketing. For instance, the history of Jicky is a case in point. If, I can recall, more men took to Jicky than women. Now it is marketed as a women's scent. Nonetheless, many men wear it today. It is a classic for those who appreciate it. It has a younger brother: Mouchoir de Monsieur.

In the early part of the 19th century, as I noted earlier, orange blossom and jasmine were worn by men as well as women. The indoles in the orange blossom and jasmine, I presume, were very masculine.

According to Roja Dove: "Jicky was launched exactly 100 years after the French Revolution; it too was revolutionary, and shocked in a way that has rarely been equaled. The volume of civet in its base is truly outrageous, and any trained nose would wonder how he got away with it: in true Guerlain style, Aime created something magnificent. No woman in polite society would have dared wear it and only the most audacious man took the risk (perhaps it reminded them of the civet of the earlier part of the century). It was to take many years before women readily adopted it, but adopt it they most certainly did."
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post #36 of 56
4/7/12 at 10:28am
hi,

please take a look at this ancient advertisement of fougere royale by houbigant,

Attachment 12878 click on the thumbnail to enlarge.
LL
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post #37 of 56
4/7/12 at 11:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DieNase View Post

Well, I'm a girl and I feld like pulling of Bel Ami today. So am I weird?

Quote:
Originally Posted by gido View Post

hi,

please take a look at this ancient advertisement of fougere royale by houbigant,

Attachment 12878 click on the thumbnail to enlarge.

Great post, but lavender is a big feature of fougeres, and I swear lavender is a little light violet-coloured flower. There are a lot of other flowers in Fougere Royale.

The ad appears to be from the 1930s.

Notes:

Top notes are lavender, clary sage and bergamot; middle notes are carnation, orchid, heliotrope, rose and geranium; base notes are tonka bean, musk, vanilla, oakmoss and coumarin.

I don't think anyone can argue that lavender, carnation, orchid, heliotrope, rose or geranium aren't flowers.

You can put as much testosterone-laced ad copy you want but there are still flowers in Fougere Royale.

Historically, some men had no problems rising for a duel before dawn smelling like jasmine, then going on to win that duel.

Check the pyramid here on the archives:

http://www.basenotes.net/ID26120633.html
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post #38 of 56
4/7/12 at 11:35am
Yes, that was very interesting to read. This fragrance has two versions, feminine and masculine but, personally, I would recommend "Pour lui" for both men and women. This one is mild and smells manly. Dunhill has been making pipes since the early 1900's. Amber Road is described as open a box of treasure, hand-picked from exotic lands, to discover glowing red cedar and resinous incense and is a manly scent. It smells like Calvin Klein's Obsession cologne.

Andrea
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post #39 of 56
4/7/12 at 11:42am
Has anyone yet established what "manly" means in a fragrance?
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post #40 of 56
4/7/12 at 11:53am
Quote:
Great post, but lavender is a big feature of fougeres, and I swear lavender is a little light violet flower. There are a lot of other flowers in Fougere Royale.

certainly. but it doesn't smell floral, and that is their point. the flower oils are used here to construct an new, abstract odor, the fougere accord.

nearly every perfume in existence contains floral elements, even the ones that are everything but floral.

this advertisement is obviously just a commercial message, don't mistake it for truth. i posted it to show this sentiment at the dawn of masculinity in modern perfumery.

Quote:
The ad appears to be from the 1930s.

i would have guessed from the 1920's, but i certainly can be off a decade or two. it doesn't really matter much.

Quote:
I don't think anyone can argue that lavender, carnation, orchid, heliotrope, rose or geramium aren't flowers.

these notes lists say very little. but did you get this list from houbigant? it's interesting to note that floral notes are used now to market the product, if that's the case.

rose isn't part of the classic fougere accord. geranium is. i think that the 'rose' in fougere royale is really geranium, or at best geranium with just a faint touch of rose to enhance it's odor.

but the thing with masculine floral notes is, that the dryer ones are generally preferred over the sweet ones. preferring geranium over rose is the best example i can think of. what is generally avoided is the typical rose/jasmine accord (because it has become a stereotype,) as well as obvious floral notes/accords with the exception of a very few. floral elements are mainly used as modifiers in the construction.
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post #41 of 56
4/7/12 at 11:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Primrose View Post

Has anyone yet established what "manly" means in a fragrance?

there is a very complicated answer, and a very simple one. the simple one is 'dryness'.


ps. please don't come up with lists of exceptions. i know there are plenty.
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post #42 of 56
4/7/12 at 12:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gido View Post

certainly. but it doesn't smell floral, and that is their point. the flower oils are used here to construct an new, abstract odor, the fougere accord.

nearly every perfume in existence contains floral elements, even the ones that are everything but floral.

this advertisement is obviously just a commercial message, don't mistake it for truth. i posted it to show this sentiment at the dawn of masculinity in modern perfumery.

i would have guessed from the 1920's, but i certainly can be off a decade or two. it doesn't really matter much.

these notes lists say very little. but did you get this list from houbigant? it's interesting to note that floral notes are used now to market the product, if that's the case.

rose isn't part of the classic fougere accord. geranium is. i think that the 'rose' in fougere royale is really geranium, or at best geranium with just a faint touch of rose to enhance it's odor.

but the thing with masculine floral notes is, that the dryer ones are generally preferred over the sweet ones. preferring geranium over rose is the best example i can think of. what is generally avoided is the typical rose/jasmine accord (because it has become a stereotype,) as well as obvious floral notes/accords with the exception of a very few. floral elements are mainly used as modifiers in the construction.

I got the list from the BN archives and posted the link.

Quote:
Originally Posted by gido View Post

there is a very complicated answer, and a very simple one. the simple one is 'dryness'.


ps. please don't come up with lists of exceptions. i know there are plenty.

Dryness? That is just your opinion. In fragrance, there are no absolutes.

How come Azuree a women's scent? It's a dry leather chypre. Ditto for Balmain's Jolie Madame. How about Piguet's Bandit?

Plenty of men wear Tabac Blond.

I happily wear Derby, Equipage, Habit Rouge, Mouchoir de Monsieur, Coriolan, Parfum d'Habit, Guerlain Vetiver, Bel Ami, Terre d'Hermes, Eau d'Hermes, VC&A Tsar, and Piver Cuir.

Again, there are no such things as absolutes in fragrance. That you think "dryness" denotes masculinity is only your opinion.

The masculinity or femininity of a given scent is all in the perception of the wearer and his or her own enjoyment and confidence.

If you construe a scent as "masculine," then wear it and enjoy it. Don't try to pronounce your definition for everyone, who are free to disagree with your definition.
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post #43 of 56
4/7/12 at 12:28pm
This is from the ad copy of Fougere Royale. The word "floral" is used many times:

The Essence:
Fougère Royale opens with an uplifting cocktail of sparkling citrus oils that blends into an aromatic bouquet of Mediterranean herbs, where lavender and Moroccan chamomile oil dictate the tempo. A redolent heart follows, where the floral-*spicy "Rondeletia" accord is revealed through rich geranium nuances and warm spices.

A floral intermezzo showcases rare rose essences and absolutes, spiked by pepper, cinnamon and carnation. Finally, a grand finale of earthy, ambery and woody harmonies, where moss notes join a sensual patchouli theme enriched by warm coumarinic undertones of tonka beans and clary sage absolute.

The Packaging:
All the details present on the original design have been incorporated but the over all look has been revisited to make it more masculine and modern. Each little square is cut in the glass in a diamond shape, which gives more luminosity to the bottle. The details on the shoulders of the bottle maintain the art deco spirit of the beginning of the1900s The front and back of the bottle have a cushion/ curved effect that gives the bottle a more opulent effect.
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post #44 of 56
4/7/12 at 12:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lovingthealien View Post

When were you in the US? Most businesses don't even accept personal checks anymore.

2006 - 2011
I lived in crappy ass Minnesota.
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post #45 of 56
4/7/12 at 1:40pm
Thread Starter 
The odor sterilization of American culture is fascinating because it's true to some extent but I would argue that it might be blown out of proportion, just as my view of society/politics affecting fragrance may have been oversimplified as well.

I think it's not that body odor wasn't popular and suddenly became unpopular. The poster that cited the Roman practices of hygiene was spot on, hygiene practices of Europe lagged behind Asia, the middle east and South America as well. Several accounts of native americans encounters with conquistadors relate instances of the indigenous people commenting on the european's stench from not washing. It was more to do with convenience. Post WW2 the american home went appliance crazy. TVs, microwaves, better ovens, and yes the washer and dryer. Here was a great invention that completely took the labor out of washing clothes, and if you've ever had to wash a load of laundry without a washing and dryer, you will realize labor is a completely accurate term. Why not use it often? I don't think anyone ever truly wanted to smell dirty, it's just that technology finally caught up to the point where people could practice the level of hygiene they desired. Also, "modern medicine" used to take the view that bathing more than once a week was unhealthy, which given the conditions of an areas water supply at any given time during the middle ages, this may have been true. So now in the 20th century, we have easy access to machines that make our clothes smell clean and fresh whenever we want, and basically unlimited access to clean, fresh, safe water any time of day. And this water can be heated instantly! Imagine having to heat a bath tub full of hot water every time you wanted to use it. In the winter. In a house that is probably freezing when you step out of it. Suddenly you don't smell that bad anymore, and can hold on till next week.

I was fortunate growing up to have a great relationship with my grandparents. They were Polish immigrants, my entire family on my mom's side came over during the 30s and 40s. My great grandmother was 98 when she died, and would chastise my grandfather growing up if he stank or was dirty and didn't clean up. My grandfather was 6'3, about 260 lbs and was the union foreman of a steel mill in the 50's, basically as much of a man's man as you could get and he was thrilled to have deodorant and felt grimy if he didn't shower when he got home. Sure, this may be due to society's views on odor being crammed down his throat, but I think part of it is people are just happy not to stink and maybe went too far with the concept of being fresh.
Perhaps men's scents aren't as powerful/animalistic simply because they no longer have to be to mask the smell.

In regards to odor not being acceptable in macho areas like construction and sports, apparently the US Army did not get that memo. I served in the infantry and if a guy wore anything other than unscented deodorant, his sexuality would instantly be loudly and vigorously questioned. Whether this had anything to do with the perception of odor or the rampant homophobia is debatable.




Side note: I basically got my interest in colognes from my grandfather, he wore Guerlain Vetiver, Eau Sauvage, Old Spice (of course), Aramis and Havana. His absolute favorite was Monogram by Ralph Lauren though, and the family went nuts when it got discontinued and everyone tried to find a replacement.
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post #46 of 56
4/7/12 at 2:02pm
Thread Starter 
Edit: My PC is acting weird, didn't even see my first post go up, Apologies for the double posting
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post #47 of 56
4/7/12 at 2:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cartierfan View Post

Edit: My PC is acting weird, didn't even see my first post go up, Apologies for the double posting

Sometimes the site itself hiccups, so don't worry. Many of use double-post!
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post #48 of 56
4/7/12 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cartierfan View Post

Several accounts of native americans encounters with conquistadors relate instances of the indigenous people commenting on the european's stench from not washing.

I'd forgotten about this one, though I've read of the reaction attributed to differences in diet more than not washing. Seems like there was a fairly long period (a good thousand years anyway) when European men were pretty pungent. The English King James I (around the same time as the conquistadors) was so afraid of bathing he never indulged. There are a lot of references in literature to Elizabethan London stinking to high heaven, though mostly from raw sewerage and rotting refuse, so maybe body odor just wasn't noticed that much.

I also recently read an early 20th-century memoir set in Peking which suggests upper-crust Chinese men were thoroughly washed and heavily perfumed, at least during the final years of the Empire. And the Arabs kept up Classical bathing practices in Spain and other parts of the former Roman Empire. So there are clearly both cultural and historical differences.

I certainly have read of natural male body odor described in positive terms in previous periods (see Walt Whitman, for example). Alexander the Great's body odor was said to be quite wonderful. Was this ever the cultural norm though? Was B.O. just a clever marketing ploy? I have no idea really. But I think it is pretty clear that we must live in the most deodorized era of human history.

By the way, the original sense of "manly" had nothing to do with hygiene or fashion but was an attribute of virtue (which itself derived from the Latin word for "man"), especially in the sense of (OED again) "courageous, independent in spirit, frank, upright."
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post #49 of 56
4/7/12 at 3:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by maitiu View Post

2006 - 2011
I lived in crappy ass Minnesota.

Garrison Keilor sends his sympathies.
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post #50 of 56
4/7/12 at 3:03pm
Thread Starter 
I don't think BO can be described as clever marketing. If you read on the history of deodorant, one of the first references was to made to an underarm deodorant being used in the 9th century by Abdul I-Hasan (I think I got the spelling right). He also invented a toothpaste of sorts. So someone clearly didn't like the smell of BO before 20th century marketing got ahold of it.

Granted, marketing probably blew the whole concept out of proportion. Not to be crude, but look at feminine hygiene product marketing from the 50s. The female vagina when it's healthy shouldn't smell "fishy", however it most certainly also shouldn't smell like roses as douche ads would lead us to believe.

All this talk of clean and fresh has me filled with desire to wear Kouros, however I am meeting my girlfriend's family tonight so I am not going to run with that idea.
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post #51 of 56
4/7/12 at 3:11pm
The dislike of the natural smell of too much body odor is not a new concept. The Japanese have raised bathing to a cultural activity.

In the Middle East, a dentifrice called miswak was used.

In the West, orris root and parsley were used to freshen the breath.
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post #52 of 56
4/7/12 at 11:39pm
hello primrose,

i'm sorry, you're entirely wrong. ;-P

it's not my definition, it's my observation.

i'm not saying that dryness makes a perfume more masculine. i frankly don't give a crap. i just compare what has been traditionally marketed as masculine versus marketed as feminine, and i see a few differences that the majority has in common. dryness is in my mind the one that sticks out as the most obvious (and most often re-occurring) factor.

and i had already said, please don't come with lists, i am well aware of many perfumes that contradict this. those are the exceptions. :-)
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post #53 of 56
4/8/12 at 11:18am
Where is jcpetrucci when we need him?
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post #54 of 56
4/8/12 at 11:44am
Gourmands have taken over. Younger men dont wear cologne to smell like a man, their primary objective is "impressing chicks". I can't speak to the older generations' objective for cologne, but it seems now it's all about getting compliments and impressing others (women) rather than an inward "this is what I want to smell like...this is what a man smells like....this is ME".
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post #55 of 56
4/8/12 at 10:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cameron View Post

Gourmands have taken over. Younger men dont wear cologne to smell like a man, their primary objective is "impressing chicks". I can't speak to the older generations' objective for cologne, but it seems now it's all about getting compliments and impressing others (women) rather than an inward "this is what I want to smell like...this is what a man smells like....this is ME".

LOL! What an interesting observation. I guess young women usually like those candy fruity gourmand scent, and then the men are copying them. (In pyschology, this is called "mirroring.")

I guess that points to the likes of Dior Homme and Spicebomb. I like them both!
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post #56 of 56
5/6/12 at 6:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cartierfan View Post

I don't think BO can be described as clever marketing. If you read on the history of deodorant, one of the first references was to made to an underarm deodorant being used in the 9th century by Abdul I-Hasan (I think I got the spelling right). He also invented a toothpaste of sorts. So someone clearly didn't like the smell of BO before 20th century marketing got ahold of it.

Granted, marketing probably blew the whole concept out of proportion. Not to be crude, but look at feminine hygiene product marketing from the 50s. The female vagina when it's healthy shouldn't smell "fishy", however it most certainly also shouldn't smell like roses as douche ads would lead us to believe.

All this talk of clean and fresh has me filled with desire to wear Kouros, however I am meeting my girlfriend's family tonight so I am not going to run with that idea.

The invention of BO is a classic marketing case study that you read in business school. It really only relates to the mid-20th-century United States. At the time, women used deodorants that came in little jars like cold cream. Part of the gender switch was to package deodorants in more manly things like roll-ons and sticks. Aerosols came later. Just read "Emperor of Scent" which makes the point, in passing, that the French, who produce the world's greatest perfumes, are much more into "bad" smells than Americans are. Think of the cheeses.
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