Perfumes date back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, where they symbolized status rather than gender. While fragrances became more gender-specific during the 20th century, the launch of CK One in the 1990s challenged these norms with its gender-neutral marketing and achieved great success. Over recent years, unisex fragrances have gained traction due to consumer demand and investments by major brands like Gucci, Dior, and Tom Ford. Notably, CK One remains on the market still today.
What Makes a Fragrance Masculine, Feminine, or Unisex?
Daphne Geveke, a Doctoral student in Marketing and Organisation at LUSEM, focuses in her research on gender in the fashion industry with extension into the beauty sector. She explains that over the last hundred years perfumes were a luxury product targeted specifically to men or women in order to meet different preferences which were influenced by gender stereotypes. This is something she can relate to research in her own PhD where stereotypical masculine and feminine characteristics influence a variety of different feminist interpretations of fashion.
“For women this meant that stereotypical scents are floral and sweet with examples of vanilla and cherry blossom that are in line with our expectations of the feminine. Typical male scents tend to hold more earthy notes, such as sandalwood or tobacco in line with our expectations of the masculine,” says Daphne Geveke.
The growing unisex trend aligns with evolving attitudes toward gender expression, with younger generations particularly drawn to inclusive, non-gendered products. Still Daphne sees the move rather in the direction of a general acceptance of masculine characteristics by women, rather than gender neutrality.
“Interestingly, we see how women have adapted the more masculine scents but the feminine scents appear to still be mainly targeted towards women alone,” she says.
But is there a future for gender neutral scents where both floral and earthy, the feminine and masculine scents, are brought to the market? Daphne thinks there is a space for this as we see the increased interest in essential oils which have been much more popular outside of the west. She explains that in places like Japan, where scents traditionally are not in high demand because it is associated with bad personal hygiene, essential oils have been much more popular and are gender neutral. The focus there is on the benefits of the different scents, such as the calming effects of eucalyptus or the energizing effects of blood orange instead of separating the scents in gendered stereotypes, in order to maintain a separation between market segments.