Fragrance Families
The classic French families, Michael Edwards' Fragrance Wheel groups, and the modern micro-families that sit between them — every scent in the catalog is tagged into one or more of these.
Amber is a fragrance family built on warm resinous materials like labdanum, giving compositions a sweet, golden-toned depth.
Heavy, skin-like, musky notes historically drawn from ambergris and civet, now built almost entirely from synthetic musks — warm, raw, and close to skin rather than floral or fresh.
Aquatic is a fragrance family built on synthetic marine and ozonic materials engineered in the 1990s to evoke the smell of sea air and clean water.
Chypre is a fragrance family built on a bergamot-top, oakmoss-base backbone, giving it a cool, mossy, earthy depth beneath bright citrus.
Citrus is a fragrance family built on bright, zesty top notes like bergamot, lemon, and grapefruit, traditionally the opening act of a composition rather than its core.
Floral is a fragrance family built directly on flower-derived or flower-like materials, ranging from single-note soliflores to complex aldehydic bouquets.
Sweet, intoxicating florals layered with warm resins or spices — the bridge point where the Floral and Amber groups of the Fragrance Wheel meet.
Fougere is a fragrance family built on a lavender-coumarin-oakmoss accord, an abstract fresh-green scent with no real floral counterpart.
Edible, non-citrus fruit notes — peach, apple, berries, rhubarb — a Fresh-group category on the Fragrance Wheel, common in modern mainstream releases.
Gourmand is a fragrance family built on edible, dessert-like materials such as vanilla and tonka bean, designed to evoke sweetness rather than flowers or wood.
Cut grass, crushed leaves, tea, or galbanum — a sharp, vegetal character within the Fresh group of the Fragrance Wheel, distinct from citrus or aquatic freshness.
Smoky, dry notes built to evoke tanned hide, birch tar, tobacco, and suede — one of the seven classic French families, and the driest, most austere corner of fragrance.
A newer niche category built on synthetic notes evoking concrete, metal, rain-on-asphalt (petrichor), ink, or paper — scent divorced from anything botanical or animal.
Subtle, warm spice with soft incense and amber resin, lighter in weight than a full Amber composition — part of the Amber (formerly Oriental) group on the Fragrance Wheel.
Powdery, soft floral compositions built on iris-like notes, aldehydes, and light musks — a subtler counterpart to bright, freshly-cut floral scents, per Michael Edwards' Fragrance Wheel.
Woody is a fragrance family built on dry, warm materials like sandalwood, cedarwood, and vetiver, forming the structural base of countless modern compositions.
Earthy, spicy amber blended with deep patchouli or sandalwood — the point where the Amber and Woody groups of the Fragrance Wheel overlap.