28 August 2026

The seven fragrance families: how to choose a perfume by number

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Olfazeta fragrances come with numbers instead of names, so anyone opening the catalogue for the first time faces a list of a hundred-odd digits. Picking at random is pointless: the odds of landing on your own scent are roughly one in seven.

One in seven is not a figure of speech. All of perfumery divides into seven olfactory families, and it is the one classification perfumers themselves use. Know your family and a hundred numbers shrink to a dozen — after that you choose by notes.

Below are all seven families and the full lists of numbers belonging to each. The lists come from the official Olfazeta catalogue, where every position is marked with its family icon. Nothing here is guesswork.

Two things without which no perfume can be judged

The first thirty seconds tell you nothing. Top notes — citrus, greens, aldehydes — evaporate within minutes. They are what you smell holding the bottle to your nose, and they are the usual reason people reject a perfume they would have loved half an hour later.

Give it fifteen to twenty minutes on skin. The heart notes are the perfume itself; everything is composed around them. Base notes last for hours and stay on clothes. Judging a fragrance on paper and on your own skin are two different exercises with different results.

⚪ Concentration. The Olfazeta line carries 30% perfume essence — true of the whole line, not of selected positions.

How to read the tables

Each table gives the number, the fragrance’s own name, who the catalogue lists it for (her, him, unisex), and its “facets” — qualifiers such as fruity or spicy. The last column shows a second family where the catalogue assigns two at once. That happens often, and it is not an error: mixed fragrances outnumber the pure ones.

Citrus

A refreshing, lively family built on essential oils pressed from citrus peel — bergamot, lemon, lime, mandarin, grapefruit. Neroli and orange blossom, distilled from the flowers of the orange tree, belong here too.

The only family that reliably works in heat: it never turns heavy on skin or collapses into a sweet trail by evening. Equally at home on men and women.

⚪ Its other name is the hesperide family, after the Hesperides who guarded the garden of golden apples — apples that, by legend, were oranges.

Floral

The largest family in perfumery, for the simple reason that flowers give the most notes. At the heart sits one flower or, more often, a bouquet: jasmine, rose, lily of the valley, tuberose, freesia, iris.

Considered feminine, and mostly listed that way in the catalogue. If you are choosing a gift without knowing someone’s taste, this is statistically the safest ground.

Fougère

The name comes from the French fougère, fern, and it is pure convention: fern barely smells of anything. The family is named after a 19th-century perfume that tried to imagine what it might smell like.

Built on lavender, geranium, vetiver and oakmoss. Fresh but never sporty — the backbone of classic men’s perfumery, and where most everyday office fragrances live.

Chypre

Sharp and enveloping: oakmoss, labdanum and patchouli in the base, bergamot over the top. Named after “Chypre”, released in 1917 and built on the motifs of the island of Cyprus.

This is the choice for anyone tired of sweetness. Chypres read as grown-up and severe, with none of the vanilla softness that fills the oriental family.

Woody

Cedar, sandalwood, vetiver, patchouli, pine — deep notes that give a sense of warmth and safety. Such a fragrance usually opens with something citrus or herbal; the wood comes through half an hour later and holds until evening.

Autumn and winter, quiet expense. In this catalogue it is the second largest family after oriental.

Oriental

The largest family in the catalogue: vanilla, amber, incense, myrrh, spices and opulent flowers. Also called the amber family.

Sensual and very long-lasting — resins and precious woods were burned for this effect five thousand years ago. These are evening fragrances, made to be noticed; in a daytime office the trail is often simply too loud.

Leather

Tooled leather, burnt wood, birch tar, tobacco. Traditionally a men’s family, opened to women in recent years.

The least obvious and the rarest of the seven: the Olfazeta catalogue assigns just two positions to it. If you like the smell of a new leather jacket or an old book binding, this is your family — and it is worth seeking out deliberately.

What to do next

Work out your family — from the descriptions above, or simply by recalling perfumes you have liked before. Then take three or four numbers from its table and try them on skin, giving each those fifteen minutes.

A choice made this way outlasts a random one: the family that suits you stays with you for years, and your second bottle will come from inside it.

If you would like help choosing, write to me — I have the full catalogue broken down by family, notes and longevity.

The whole Chogan catalogue

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