Asking this may be beyond the scope of or inappropriate to this sub, in which case I apologize; I expect it to be a fairly obscure topic, but as today is Valentine's Day, it seems a good time to explore the history of arbitrarily gendered cruft. It's an idle curiosity with a more serious interest underneath. I apologize for how general a question this is.
This probably doesn't need to be explained, but it isn't something one sees much discussion on beyond marketing critiques. Scented hygiene and beauty products (perfume, cologne, razor blades, deodorant, etc.) are typically marketed by gender despite minimal differences between products themselves. Often these are identical products with different packaging and scents. It'd be interesting to ask the same question regarding color and aesthetics, but what interests me more is why and how different smells came to be associated with either gender.
Poor attempt at mapping the dichotomy: "Feminine" scents and products tend to have flowery, "airy," "fruity," "organic" smells, while "masculine" scents tend to be smell more like spices, alcohols, drinks and soaps. I apologize for how vague and general this is, but although it's difficult to describe, it's obvious our culture regards certain smells as "feminine" and others as "masculine."
What I wonder is how on earth this came about. There isn't anything inherently gendered about scents like this--so why and how did we decide to gender code certain ranges of smells? Have those ranges been opposite (i.e. contemporary "masculine" scents being considered "feminine") in the past? Have other cultures had completely different sets of gendered scents? Somehow this fascinates me, but I have no clue where to even begin researching a topic like this.
To clarify, I am not asking for contemporary perspectives on scents, but for some starting points on how exactly cultures arrive at associating smells with genders. Histories outside Europe/North America are absolutely appreciated, and though I'm specifically interested in the history of gender-coding scents, more general histories of perfumery are very much welcome! Thanks!
I can only speak to the modern (19th century+) Western European/American perfume tradition. I’m not sure how much of this is applicable elsewhere in the world.
Fragrance fashions are like other types of fashion. They change over time, sometimes dramatically. The modern idea of what constitutes a masculine or a feminine fragrance is only loosely similar to the idea of what constituted a masculine or a feminine fragrance 80 or 180 years ago. Many of the specific smells that are considered the modern hallmarks of masculine and feminine fragrances weren’t even created until the mid 20th century (things like dihydromyrcenol and Lyral and Iso E Super).
Looking back 100 years, men’s fragrances looked very different than they do today. Most men who wore a scent would be wearing a traditional Eau de Cologne, which refers both to the style of fragrance and to the concentration of the fragrance base in alcohol, not to the gender of the fragrance. Many women wore Eau de Colognes as well. Famously, the Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, commissioned Eau de Cologne Imperiale from Guerlain in 1850 (which is still made today in a modified form).
Eau de Colognes were refreshing but short lived fragrances with fresh citrus and herbal scents. They were often used as brief refreshment and to scent handkerchiefs. Men and women both used them, a habit that started when the miasma theory of disease transmission was still prevalent.
There were a few other masculine fragrances around 100 years ago as well, but many would be considered fairly dandy-esque by today’s standards. Guerlain’s Mouchior de Monsieur (which means gentleman’s handkerchief) smells strongly of lavender, vanilla and civet, and is a far cry from today’s masculine standard. The beginnings of the “barbershop” fragrances were there as well, largely based on the fougere accord (there is some argument as to whether Mouchoir de Monsieur was a fougere or not). The fougere accord, traditionally a blend of lavender, coumarin (tonka bean) and oakmoss, generally supplemented with bergamot and geranium, was the basis of most of the non-eau de cologne early modern men’s fragrances. It was introduced originally with Houbigant Fougere Royal in the early 1880s and many other famous mens fragrances since have been at least nominally fougeres as well, including Dana Canoe (1930s), Faberge Brut (1960s) and Drakkar Noir (1980s). Spicy, woody, boozy men’s fragrances are a relatively recent (last 50 years) innovation.
Many (though certainly not all) women’s fragrances from 80-100+ years ago would pass as being unisex fragrances today. Leather and animalic smells were very popular, for example, as were chypres (traditionally a blend of oakmoss, labdanum and bergamot). Fragrances like Chanel Cuir de Russie, Guerlain Jicky and Guerlain Mitsouko have commonly been worn by both men and women for much of their existence. Others, such as Jean Pateau Joy and Dior Diorissimo, with their rich florals, have been pretty consistently considered feminine.
As a note, the “fruity” fragrance thing for women is a fairly recent development as well. Most of those non-citrus fruity smells are from synthetics as it’s surprisingly difficult and expensive to extract the natural scents of many fruits (and flowers as well, but that’s another story).
If you want to smell them, many fragrances from 100 years ago are still being made today, though they have all been reformulated to some extent.
Some other ideas of smell and gender in fine fragrance have been inherited from other products. Calkin and Jellenik note in Perfumery, Practice and Principle that perfumers need to be conscious of the fact that common baby products in the US and Europe have different smells (or did in the 90s when the book was written) and so some fragrances will smell particularly feminine to Americans but not Europeans and vice versa. They name Johnson’s baby powder (introduced in 1893) specifically.
To circle back to your original question though, our conceptions of masculine and feminine fragrances change constantly. There are some notes that have been considered mostly feminine and some that have been considered mostly masculine since the beginning of modern perfumery in the 19th Century, but many others have been fluid. Floris 89, a men’s scent from the 1940s, famously worn by Ian Fleming, smells quite a lot like rose baby powder. Chanel Cuir de Russie, a woman’s scent from the 1920s, smells strongly of leather, birch and tobacco.
For further reading, take a look at Perfumery, Practice and Principle by Calkin and Jellenik and Perfumes: The A-Z Guide by Turin and Sanchez.