The Scent Families

If you're new to fragrances, scent descriptions can sometimes feel like a foreign language. Terms like floral, woody and amber are commonly used to describe perfumes, incense oils and soaps, but their meanings can be confusing.

The simplest way to understand fragrance is through scent families. These are groups of fragrances sharing similar characteristics, providing a starting point for new fragrance choices.

Don't worry about finding the "right" family. Fragrances often overlap and many scents combine several types. For example, a fragrance could be floral and fresh, woody and amber or herbal and fresh.

Fragrances are often divided into four broad families: woody, amber, floral and fresh. However, I prefer a more contemporary six-family description incorporating green and gourmand. These categories make the scent families easier to understand and relate to, helping you recognise them in the scents and memories you already know.

Floral

The Scent of Flowers

Floral fragrances are some of the most familiar and common in our daily lives. From summer parks to supermarket cut flowers and office bathroom hand soaps, they're everywhere. However, floral doesn't always mean sweet and rich. The specific flowers used can create a wide range of scents from fresh and powdery to clean, and sometimes even dark and bitter scents.

Common floral scents

• Rose: Soft, romantic and sometimes slightly honeyed.
• Jasmine: Rich, intensely floral and often sensual.
• Lavender: Floral but also fresh and herbal.

If you naturally enjoy the smell of flowers or just have fond memories of blooming gardens and grassy meadows, the floral family is a great place to begin your adventure.

Woody

The Scent of Wood

This family of scents ranges from soft and creamy to dry, smoky and slightly resinous. Woody notes are particularly popular in perfumery, giving many recognisable scents a depth and warm feeling that lingers softly. While this family is harder to pin down in your day-to-day life, you'll encounter it frequently. Think of the smell of a freshly sharpened pencil, wine corks, sawdust and aged books. All belong to this large woody family.

Common woody scents

• Sandalwood: Creamy, smooth, warm and softly woody.
• Cedarwood: Dry, crisp and reminiscent of freshly cut wood.
• Oud: Deep, rich and complex, often with smoky, earthy or resinous qualities.

If you've always liked scents that smell soft and warm or just have memories of camping in rainy forests or exploring old bookstores, this scent family might be just what you're looking for.

Green

The Scent of Fresh Plants

This family has a slightly unusual name simply because, well, it's just colour, but it's incredibly distinctive and easy to remember. Simply put, it can be described in three words: freshly cut grass. I'm sure reading those words conjured the smell into your mind, but it's much more than that. It also includes strongly herbal scents like sage and sweeter scents like green tea.

Common green scents

• Sage: Herbal, earthy and slightly dry.
• Davana: Herbal, fruity and boozy.
• Matcha: Vegetal, mineral and sweet.

Green scents are invigorating and vegetal, softly biting yet strongly associated with spring. If it sounds like this resonates with you or you simply cherish the memory of gardening and the aroma of fresh tomato stems, then this is the family for you.

Fresh

The Scent of Brightness

The word "fresh" can cover quite a few different smells, from aquatic notes, eucalyptus and clean cotton/linen to the most common of these scents, citrus. You'll commonly encounter these scents in everyday life, from laundry detergents and clean linen to the earth after it rains and the beach.

Common fresh scents

• Lemon: Bright, zesty and sparkling.
• Orange: Juicy, cheerful and slightly sweet.
• Frankincense: Fresh and citrusy, with a tempered resin note.

If you like the scent of a warm coast, lemon trees or love the feeling of freshly washed bedding and your home after a deep clean, this is the scent for you.

Amber

The Scent of Warmth

Amber is a strange term because it's not a single thing but rather a vibe. It usually refers to anything that smells warm, golden and resinous, encompassing many less familiar scents and often even overlaps with the other families. In everyday life, you'll encounter it in a few places like dark maple syrup, freshly cleaned leather and if you've ever walked past an old church during service, well, you've experienced something that falls into the amber family.

Common amber scents

• Amber: Warm, rich, smooth and slightly sweet.
• Maple: Creamy, sweet and comforting.
• Benzoin: Warm, sweet and resinous, sometimes with a vanilla-like quality.

If you enjoy cosy, deep and warm fragrances or simply love the comforting feeling of autumn's golden leaves and resin-soaked trees, then the amber family is definitely worth exploring.

Gourmand

The Scent of a Sweet Treat

If a fragrance makes you have the thought "that smells good enough to eat" like freshly baked cookies, you're likely experiencing a gourmand scent. Gourmand doesn't always mean sweet; it can also be creamy, warm, rich, nutty or simply have a delicious edible quality. You've probably encountered gourmand scents in bakeries and coffee shops, especially fresh vanilla and your favourite brew.

Common gourmand scents

• Coconut: Rich, creamy and sweet.
• Vanilla: Warm, creamy and indulgent.
• Coffee: Rich, roasted and slightly bitter, often with a warm sweetness.

If you have a sweet tooth, love trying different bakeries or coffeeshops or even bake at home, gourmand fragrances are a natural place to start.

Finding Your Fragrance

After reading all of this, I'm sure you're thinking, where do I start, and may even feel slightly overwhelmed by the choice, but don't worry, it's actually really easy to decide.

• Do you love the smell of flowers? Try floral.
• Prefer the smell of wood, forests and traditional incense? Try woody.
• Love fresh herbs and plants? Try green.
• Want something bright and refreshing? Try fresh.
• Prefer warm, rich and cosy scents? Try amber.
• Or perhaps you have a serious sweet tooth? Try gourmand.

But remember, these families aren't rules. They're simply a useful way of understanding fragrance and finding somewhere to start. You may discover that your favourite scents sit somewhere between two or three families, and that's where fragrance can get really interesting.