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Perfume Tip

Perfume has a shelf life. All fragrance products do.

Centuries ago, perfumes were chemically somewhat unstable. That meant that a fine perfume could be mixed and given to a lucky lady, but the perfume would start to degrade almost immediately. Typically, it would separate and some of the volatile chemicals would be lost.

Today, chemical advances have allowed us to create very stable fragrance formulations. Perfume today can last for many years in virtually the same state it was in as the day it was first decanted.

However, a long shelf life is not the same as an infinite shelf life. Perfumes will eventually start to deteroriate. Unlike wine, a few decades of age on a perfume does not improve its character.

That's probably why you don't see old perfumes from the 1920s or so on sale.

Now that isn't to say there aren't vintage perfumes. There are. A vintage perfume on the market today is typically a new production based on an old formulation.

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Fragrance Families

by Joanna McLaughlin

Exclusive to thePerfume-Reporter.com

Depending on who you talk to and who you believe and how you are willing to divide up the glorious world of olfactory stimulation, there are eight or maybe 10 or more fragrance families. It doesn't really matter how many there are, it just matters that you understand sort of what they smell like.

It is rare today for a fragrance to be described by just a single family. Just as modern American families tend to be blended, in the fragrance world, mixing families happens a lot, too.

Let's talk basics and then we'll mix it up.

Citrus

Citrus may not exactly sound exotic, but it remains one of the world's most popular scents. Don't just think orange blossoms, either. The world of citrus encompasses lemon, lime, grapefruit, oranges, and the fruit known as bergamot. (Tea lovers know that bergamot is the "perfume" in Earl Grey tea.) Most citrus use today involves subtle and even intricate blends of various citrus elements.

Citrus scents are often used as topnotes in fragrance, that is, the big "howdy doo!" that a fragrance says the first time you open the bottle.

Citrus is generally perceived as cheerful, outgoing, and may remind you of summertime or a sunny day spent outside.

Floral

By far the most common fragrance family, florals make use of flowers to get their aromas. This is a grand old family, because not only are there hundreds if not thousands of flowers to lend their scent to perfumes but because rarely are flowers uses in isolation. Most florals, even relatively simple ones, are olfactory bouquets of various scents. Florals are everywhere and even scents that would not typically be described as true florals usually have some floral notes.

Green

This family derives its scents from plants (sometimes called "botanicals" in the fragrance world) that might include things like pine, conifers, juniper, and evergreen. Green herbs and even lavender come into play here. Think plants and herbs. But don't necessarily think heavy like a pine cleanser or a tree-scented car deodorizer.

Fruity

While not an entirely new fragrance family, fruity scents are just now gaining some momentum in the market. Think of pineapple, guava, mango, pomegranate, fig, and other unusual but edible items and you've got the basis for these fragrances. I can't think of a single example of a true fruit-only fragrance, but fruit elements are increasingly finding their way into many scents so much so that I think we can call this a family.

Spice

This family is big but easy to identify, because many of these scents come to us from the world of cooking. In actuality, spices were originally used as much in perfumery as they were in cuisine and today we still see them used effectively in fragrance. Spices can include everything you'd think: cinammon, ginger, clove, and cardamon. Like the citrus family, although the individual scents may be familiar to us, perfumists tend to create scents using very complex and subtle blends. A spicy perfume may contain ginger and cinammon but you might not instantly recognize those smells.

Orientals

The Orientals are an appealing but powerful family that include scents derived from wood, oils, and resin. Amber fits in here, as does sandalwood. If you don't know what sandalwood smells like, it's the smell most Americans associate with incense. Vanilla and vanilla-like aromas fit in here.

Chypres

This is perhaps the hardest fragrance family for newbies to grasp. The name comes from the French for cypress (it's pronounced ship-ruhs). These are very strong scents that often lurk in the background of some scents. Musk belongs here, as do patchouli and sage.

Adelhydes

Adelhyde is the name of a specific synthetic fragrance molecule, but the "adelhyde" family consists of other similar synthetic molecules as well. While adelhyde may sound terribly unromantic, it is actually a remarkable scent. The most famous adelhyde fragrance is Chanel No. 5, which Coco Chanel commissioned with the orders that the smell be "completely artificial." Understand that artificial in this sense is not imitation, but rather something that has no counterpart in the natural world. Adelhydes are sometimes described as "sparkly."

While those families describe basic groups, many scents are actually combinations. You might find a "fruity floral" or a "green floral" scent.

When visiting perfume websites or shopping online, you'll find that many perfume sites will describe various fragrances with extremely specific family trees. This helps people who can't smell the scent place what the fragrance is like.

Knowing fragrance families can also help to define what fragrances a person might like versus those that she won't. For instance, most women do well with florals and citrus, but chypres and orientals can be a bit more of an acquired taste.

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New York

New York City is one of the world's great perfume centers. Actually, one of the world's leading perfume and flavoring companies is located in nearby New Jersey, but the heart of the American and a good deal of the world's perfumeries is in New York.

New York City is comprised of five bouroughs, which can be confusing to non-New-Yorkers, since these boroughs have the identity, population and square footage to be independent cities. In fact, many of them could be major U.S. cities in their own right except that they are technicall part of New York City.

The five boroughs are Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island.

Manhattan, an island, gives us most of the iconic images of New York City: the Empire State Building, Wall Street, the skyline, and even Ground Zero. Here's where you find Central Park, China Town, and the Statue of Liberty. Art lovers find the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim here as well as a plethora of galleries.

This is also a great place to shop, from the grand old department stores (this is the Macy's where the Thanksgiving Day is launched each year) to a honeycomb of boutiques, including houses of virtually ever major designers.

New York is home to many of the world's great perfumists. One perfume company, Bond No. 9, not only makes its home here, it also creates a line of scents dedicated to New York City.