Scent of a woman may not be trending anymore these days. As fragrances become more gender neutral, you may start to hear them described as animalic – they were originally sourced from living creatures, like civet cats and sperm whales, by the way. The aroma that we know as musk, for example, first came from the gland of a male musk deer. Today, we discuss musk-based perfumes as warm or leathery or spicy. It’s an interesting distinction given that other bottles are labeled according to their scents’ origins: Flower-based perfumes are referred to as floral for example, and amber colognes as woodsy. But we wouldn’t normally throw around animalic.
Come to think of it, less and less do we hear the words perfume or cologne at all. Increasingly, a scented spray is simply a fragrance- for both him and her. And at the crossroads of modern beauty sits the new gender-neutral fragrance from Eris Parfums. “I love fragrances and don’t gender them,” says the line’s founder and creative director, the perfume historian Barbara Herman, “but I think there’s no escaping that there are conventionally feminine and masculine perfume notes.” To create her new bottle of Mx. pronounced mix– she set out to capture something animalic- and universal. The result is not for everyone: Some men think it’s too feminine- some women, that it’s too masculine. But with peppery ginger top notes, a sweet hit of saffron, and a smooth base of patchouli and sandalwood, it may be just right. Goldielocks and those three bears would agree. erisparfums.com
Tags: Barbara Herman, Beauty, Eris Parfums, Fashion, Fragrances, Mx., Shopping
