Gender Categorization of Perfumes: The Difference between Odour Perception and Commercial Classification

Abstract

The odour perception of perfumes is claimed to be associated with gender. Although a gender-sensitive research approach is desirable when the gender variable is in focus, a deeper analysis of this association is uncommon. In this study, 18 participants (aged 20–30 years) gender categorized 12 perfumes. A gender-sensitive approach was applied to the analysis of the gender associations when sniffing perfumes, in order to examine how the participants' gender categorizations correspond to the commercial classifications of the 12 perfumes. The results demonstrate that the participants' gender associations of the perfumes constitute a scale reflecting the perfumes' odour qualities, where only the perfumes perceived as extremely feminine or masculine were categorized in the same way as the commercial classifications. It is therefore argued that the gender dichotomy of femininity and masculinity does not correspond to the perceived gender associations of perfumes in the present study.