Floral, Woody, Fresh... What does this mean when referring to perfume?

I recently stopped at the fragrance counter to smell the latest perfume from Faith Hill that I encountered while perusing through the November Redbook. During my visit, I was asked "What type of perfume I usually wear? Was it something floral, woody, fresh?" I was not sure so I said "fruity?" and told them the name of the perfume. I was wrong and realized that I needed to read up on perfume lingo so I could describe what I was looking for.

When I was looking for my signature fragrance (see recent post) on RealBeauty.com I also stumbled across the lingo I was looking for in a fragrance overview. I began reading and learned why I was incorrect in my perfume language that I had been using.

Fragrances can be described in 3 different terms: family, tone and notes.

A family is the main descriptor of a fragrance. There are 14 different families that are are used and can range from floral, oriental, fresh and woody. They are then divided into smaller or sub-categories that are in between each family. Example would be florals become soft florals when vanilla is added or if something spicy is added it will be described as a floral oriental.

Next is the tone. The tone refers to the strength or intensity of the fragrance. I was surprised to hear that a fragrance can only have one tone and I was in fact using it incorrectly.

Last is the note of a fragrance. A note can be what you are smelling or separating out from the scent. For instance, it you smell cinnamon, apple or vanilla you are smelling a note in the fragrance.

Think about your signature fragrance, can you describe the family, tone and notes? I will need to get back to you on that one for me...


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