The smell of Asia

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Swarms of Asiatic tourists are a common sight in the world's great shopping cities. In Paris, they line the Louis Vuitton stores, queue at Ladurée outlets, and recoup their VAT once they have the shopping bags with all of the right brand names on them. They are also big perfume buyers, with the Paris Look store on the Boulevard Haussmann proving just as popular as its more famous neighbours, the Galeries Lafayette and the Printemps.

However, just as those from China and Japan follow the latest European trends, we in Europe are jumping steadily onto the Asian bandwagon. In addition to European brands like The Body Shop scenting their products with Japanese cherry blossoms, silk, citrus, peony, red flower and green tea, Japanese perfume designs and designers also enjoy popularity with European consumers.

Kenzo is among the best-known Japanese brands, with its distinctive red flower curving through many a shop window. Their other perfumes, though, are very much in the background, and perhaps overly so: it is almost a surprise to look at Kenzo's website and find that they sell other equally lovely perfumes, which I have never heard of due to the arguable over-publicising of Flower By Kenzo.

Shiseido, however, seems to under-publicise their scents, preferring instead to emphasise their makeup and anti-ageing lines. This is a shame, as their cutting-edge, cubic packaging is almost like a mecca to the perfume universe as light reflects through the packaging of Zen and Zen White Heat. Even though the body cream packaging bearing the same scent is not nearly so innovative, Shiseido would do well to push this aspect of their line forward to enhance the range of Japanese perfumes available to European consumers.

As previously mentioned, among the genuinely Japanese brands adorning department store shelves are others which are not Japanese but which take on the country's spirit, such as the Harajuku Lovers, invented by Westerner Gwen Stefani. Possibly the cutest perfume design on the market, the four Japanese girl figures are inspired by the singer's backup dancers, and add vibrancy and colour to the sometimes serious perfume departments. Also covering apparel, stationery and fashion accessories, they bring the friendly, sweet and kooky aspects of Japanese culture to a more mainstream audience.

On the more glamorous side are sideline brands such as the beautiful Hanae Mori, with its poetically-named products such as Butterfly and Magical Moon. It seems faintly tragic that while Hanae Mori is one of the most prominent and respected designers in Japan, her work has been marginalised in Europe.

Mainstream but still marginalised is the range of Issey Miyake perfume, whose tall conical bottles perhaps add something different to the perfume market in general, whether in the cool serene form of L'Eau d'Issey or in the traffic-light Summer version. Whatever your taste, it would appear that there is something out there for everyone when it comes to adding a little Oriental fragrance to your life.

A Fresh Start

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In previous months I've worked around the fragrance wheel, showing you how to recognise oriental, woody, and floral fragrances. There are just two areas still left to cover: fresh and fruity fragrances and fougère fragrances.

The 'fresh' category of the fragrance wheel (used to categorise all fragrances) incorporates water, green, and citrus-style smells. Not as commonly found as the other categories on the wheel, this does not mean that they are any less appealing. Hermès goes out on a limb with its unisex, fruity and fresh scents, such as Jardin Après Le Mousson, and another brand to make use of the fruitier side of life is Ralph Lauren, with perfumes such as Safari. While it also incorporates spices and woody notes, it uses lemon and juniper to create a unique citrus fragrance. And if it doesn't quite go far enough for you, you could also turn to other Ralph Lauren perfumes such as Ralph Rocks. The bright orange bottle is undoubtedly lurid, but it packs a positively tropical punch with its blend of kiwi, passion fruit and citrus fruits. 

For a fresher option, Issey Miyake's perfume for women presents L'Eau D'Issey, which promises to "bring together the benefits of earth and water". It uses cyclamen, which although it is a flower, is grown from tubers, which also produce potatoes and truffles. 

 Plenty of other ladies' perfumes allow outdoor girls to pick the fragrance that's just right for them. Examples of fruity fragrances can be found at DKNY (Be Delicious), Yves St Laurent (Champagne), Moschino (Cheap and Chic), Calvin Klein (CK One Summer), and Cartier (Eau de Cartier). For fresh or green perfumes, you can plump for Bond No 9, Charlie by Revlon, Versace Metal Jeans Women, or Diorissimo by Christian Dior. By looking beyond the obvious floral or oriental scents, you should be able to find a perfume that's right for you - a task often easier said than done, I grant you.

But what do you do when all of the areas on the fragrance wheel appeal to you, and you want something that mixes them all?

This is where the fougère fragrances come in. They sit in the middle of the fragrance wheel, and their name is French for fern, which might imply that they belong more to the fresh and fruity family, but in fact they contain elements from all four of the main categories: "the freshness of from the Citrus family, floral notes of lavender, the spicy-sweetness of a Floral Oriental, the ambery depth of an Oriental and the Mossy Woods warmth of sandalwood and oakmoss." (Thanks, Wikipedia!) Another notable feature of the fougère family is its unisex quality: while often worn by men, there's nothing to stop women from wearing them too. Davidoff's Cool Water is a famous example for men, while Guerlain's Jicky is an example that is mostly worn by women. Often containing elements such as lavender and oakmoss, they offer that touch of je ne sais quoi on your skin. 

Finding fougère perfumes for women can be tricky; even in this age of equality, and in spite of the fact that the fougère family does incorporate aspects of all four fragrance families, the fougère scents are more often than not associated with men. But it's not impossible:  Eau d'Elide (Diptyque), English Fern (Penhaligon's), and De Bachmakov (The Different Company) are touted as unisex fougère options. Ben Sherman's 2Tone can be worn by women, as can Luciano Soprani's 2, O Boticario's Acqua de Colonia, and Yardley's English Lavender. But these just scratch the surface; Fragrantica offers a full and detailed list of fougères on offer. But ultimately when perfume shopping the important thing is to find a fragrance that you like - not one that necessarily conforms to the label - man or woman, fougère or non - that someone else has given it.