Nothing chemical, honestly — “unisex” is a marketing and positioning choice rather than a property of the scent itself, since no fragrance ingredient is inherently masculine or feminine; those associations come from decades of marketing convention, not the molecules themselves.

Gender Labels Are a Marketing Layer

Certain fragrance families became coded as masculine or feminine largely through how they were advertised and packaged over the twentieth century — heavy woods, leather and oud were marketed toward men, while soft florals and powdery notes were marketed toward women, even though there is nothing about a rose or a cedar note that makes it belong to one gender.

What “Unisex” Really Signals

A perfume marketed as unisex is usually built or framed around notes that sit comfortably across both traditional categories — clean musks, citrus, certain woods — and packaged and advertised without gendered language or imagery. It is entirely a positioning decision, and plenty of “men’s” or “women’s” fragrances would smell just as good, and are increasingly worn, regardless of who the marketing was originally aimed at. Our unisex fragrance guide goes into this properly, part of the complete guide to perfume. Our unisex range is built entirely around this idea.