It is true that first impressions are the most lasting impressions and how a man smells is something that can mean a lot. Women have known this fact for thousands of years and it is only in the past couple of hundred years that men have been taking notice and using fragrances to their benefit. However; over the course of the past decade the science of mens fragrances has advanced by leaps and bounds and now more than ever a man has so much more to chose from in the way of colognes.

The Differences Between Mens and Womans Fragrances

The first mens colognes were developed in Europe, hundreds of years ago. In fact, the actual name, “cologne”, was given to distinguish mens fragrances from womens, which were then and still are referred to as perfumes. Also, French made mens fragrances are commonly referred to as Eau de Toilette and in general they tend to be stronger and more longer lasting then colognes.

New Fragrances Being Developed

The people who develop mens fragrances are continually at work to develop new products that will entice people to buy them. How they go about this process is completely unscientific in the end it is the test of the nose that determines which products finally make it to market. Men all know what they like to smell like and this can vary from man to man. However; there are colognes that have been developed over the years that have proven to be very popular with men in general.

Sex Pharmones and Mens Fragrances

One new and intriguing area of research in the mens fragrance is in the science of sex pharamones and how they can be used in mens fragrances. Imagine, if you will for a moment, if there was a mens cologne that contained a substance that worked on a females baser senses to make her sexually attracted to a man. Who ever comes up with this as of yet unsynthesized substance will be recognized as a hero to all men.

When buying men's fragrance, it is a good idea to start with a basic understanding of perfume. That will help make the buying decision so much easier. There are many top brands in the market that a man can choose from. They include Dolce & Gabbana, Dunhill, Gucci, Lacoste, Givenchy, Jean Paul Gaultier, and many others. It's easy to get confused over the right brand to buy if you lack understanding. Here are some perfume buying tips.

Understanding your own needs.

Perfume buying is all about buying the right fragrances for the right occasions. So you need to take stock of your own activities. Do you work out a lot? Are you in a business suit most of the time? Do you go out for drinks with friends after work? Your own needs will help you narrow down the scope to the type of fragrances that are most suitable for you. Remember, there are various types of fragrances you can choose from. Besides perfumes, there is aftershave, cologne, and scented body creams and lotions. Most men just go for perfumes or cologne.

Understanding the difference between perfume and cologne.

Believe it or not, many men still don't know how to tell the difference between perfume and cologne. When wearing perfume, it's easy to observe that perfume fragrances last a lot longer than cologne. Some cologne last just a few hours. Of course, the pricing for perfume and cologne is worlds apart.

Perfumes can last for a whole day because they are layered fragrances. For example, the first layer may give a hint of freshness, and may last for the first two to three hours. The first layer wears off to give way to the second layer fragrance, which may be slightly different from the first layer. As you can imagine, perfumes are ideal for busy professionals who don't have the time to keep spraying different fragrances at different times of the day. In fact, the idea sounds absurd!

Cologne doesn't last as long, but it has its place in the market. It is usually much more affordable compared to designer perfume, and the fragrances, being single scented, last only for a few hours. This is useful when you need to smell good only for a short period of time. For example, you may have the habit of going for a gym work out every evening. And after the workout, you smell of sweat. Cologne works well to make the wearer smell good for a few short hours (e.g. when you travel from gym back home till the time you go to bed). That way, the fragrance is not wasted while you are sleeping.

However, if you are heading straight for a date after work, be sure to bring your perfume along just in case the day perfume wears out!

Men's fragrance is always difficult to choose as there are so many selections available for them. Some people may think that men's stuff are rare and difficult to find the most suitable one, especially for perfume or fragrance which seem to belongs to women favourite. Can anybody clarify what the "fragrance" means? This generally includes any type of perfume or liquid substance which will be used to improve body scent. These are, for example, aftershave, cologne, perfume etc.

Due to the variety of fragrance selections, it is often seen that looking for an ideal one for you may not be an easy job. Once you learn more about the characteristics of each type of fragrance and able to understand your characteristics and needs, then you can start looking for your favourite fragrance.

However, the most important thing may be to get to know more about each type of fragrance. You have to identify about which type you will use. The usage may be on daily basis or occasionally. One of the most popular and well known men's fragrances is cologne. This type is very much similar to perfume, which normally used by women. The obvious difference may be that men's fragrance is much more strong and pricy than women's. We consider that cologne may not have long lasting effect as perfume and is normally has mild degree in scent. Cologne is preferably designed for men and used in more quantity. The cologne can be applied to some parts of skin to make it attractive but perfume has much stronger scent so we just use few drops.

These two types of fragrances can be used as substitution of each other but women mostly use perfume rather than these two. As today, there are many types of perfume for men, but many of them have turned out to be interested in using perfume. Also, the trend of using cologne still widely exists. The other type of fragrance for men is an aftershave. It is what can be used when a gentleman finish shaving by applying on the area that has been shaved. Even though aftershave may not be the fragrances that directly design for use as a fragrance, but it is used to maintain moisture and condition of the skin and this is the main purpose of aftershave.

However, aftershave is considered as one of the types of men's fragrance as it provides good and attractive scent and could be very long lasting. Therefore, many of aftershave manufacturers try to make aftershave to be more than what is used for maintaining skin condition, by adding scent into the liquid. So now aftershave is one of the most popular fragrances for men because they do not have to buy additional perfume or cologne but just use quality aftershave. In all, no matter which type of men's fragrance that you are using or planning to have one. It is necessary to know the difference of each type of them in order to choose the type that most fit to you.

It isn't everyday you meet a man who brags about wearing Chanel No. 5. Neil Morris is a Boston perfume-maker who delights in getting noticed for his own scents but who is a big fan of the classics. "I love it when people compliment me on the scent, and I can tell them it's Chanel No. 5." Like a lot of perfume experts, he understands that the dividing line between men's and women's perfumes is largely fictitious. In his own perfume line (http://www.neilmorrisfragrances.com) he labels his products "shared scents," suitable for both men and women.

While this may sound terribly modern, it is quite the opposite. Back in Europes early perfume heyday (in the 18th century), there was no notion at all that any scent might be reserved or more appropriate for one gender rather than another. The most powerful men wore perfume back then, including kings, dukes, and generals. These were mostly heterosexuals and they wore perfume at some of their most solemn official occasions.

The dividing line for perfume back then was based more on social class and economic buying power: the rich and famous smelled better than the poor and downtrodden. Among those who could afford perfume, there were no masculine versus feminine fragrances.

You can still see that in the worlds oldest cologne, 4711 made in Cologne, Germany. This ancient concoction is still on the market and claims to be the product that gave lighter cologne its name. Its a citrus scent; mild and strangely contemporary despite the fact that its been around for centuries. Although Europeans, in particular Germans, consider 4711 to be a bit old-fashioned, it is a gender-spanning fragrance. Men use it for aftershave, little old ladies dab it behind their ears, and American girls in Europe spray it in their hair.

The notion of fragrances for gender gained traction in the early 20th century as perfume and fashion, in lockstep, ceased being the private reserve of the privileged few and became at least accessible to the middle classes. This is, not coincidentally, around the time that modern advertising started influencing consumer choices. As new fragrances came to market in the 1920s, advertisers identified women as the target demographic rather than men.

Coco Chanel marketed both her fashion line and her signature fragrance to females. This was no different than other (but perhaps less well known) perfumes of the era were doing. Think of Joy by Jean Patou, My Sin by Lanvin, Nuit de Noel by Caron, or even the Emeraude and Muguet de Bois from Coty.

Fragrance was promoted mostly by fashion enterprises and the fashion world targeted female customers. While there is nothing inherently masculine or feminine about products like sunglasses or watches or clothing, Chanel and other big couturiers quickly spun out a line of products exclusively for females. Perfume just went along for the ride.

These fragrances were largely cast in very feminine and elaborate containers, designed to fit well on the dressing table of a chic woman. Chanel used the clean simplistic lines of the No. 5 bottle to pay homage to the classic, un-frilled female (which mirrors her approach to clothing design). So whether the bottle was bejeweled or colored (like the glorious cobalt blue bottle of Evening in Paris) or clean-lined, the bottle was also part of the appeal to the modern woman.

It was no coincidence that right after the great wave of fashion came the grand era of glamorous movie stars. Marilyn Monroe, who dominated the cinema world in the 1950s, became an unpaid spokeswoman for Chanel No. 5 when asked what she wore to bed. (The answer, which is sometimes quoted as Two drops of Chanel No. 5 still ranks high on the famous quotation lists today.) Thus, it did not take long for perfume to be linked to fashion and glamour. (Even today, celebrities like to lend their name to line of fragrance products but perhaps the interest nowadays is more mercantile than image.)

It would be hard for men to reach for that bottle of Chanel No. 5 once Marilyn cooed over it. And yet the idea of fragrances for one gender only was a relatively new concept.

For centuries before that, kings and noblemen wore perfumes (including floral scents). But a couple of years worth of hardcore advertising turned the perfume world into a womens only party.

The emergence of products like after-shave and mens cologne (note its never called mens perfume) were studied attempts to try to capture the attention of modern men who somehow got the notion that fragrances were not for them. These first efforts to win men back to perfume (Old Spice, Burma Shave, Aqua Velva, English Leather) embraced a utilitarian theme. These werent fragrances, they were products related to shaving.

Eventually, mens colognes hit the market and more and more scents appeared on the scene. Yet the dividing line was in place in that certain fragrances were considered suitable for menand they were definitely not florals. Men wore scents that were spicy, leathery, woodsy, light and fresh, or even musky.

Again, that is a modern notion, not some venerable old tradition. The scents that wowed the men of the French court in the 18th century were florals and citrus brews.

Meanwhile, in our own day, the scents that were reserved for men only found some resonance among females. In fact, most perfume manufacturers today recognize that women have an interest in a lot of masculine types of scents and vice versa.

The emergence of the so-called fresh scents may have been an attempt to try to harmonize those worlds. Many fragrance products today are deliberately light and ambiguous, as if trying to woo women who are not thrilled with the sometimes more complex and/or flowery perfumes in the womens section.

A recent landmark in the notion of male-vs.-female fragrance occurred with Calvin Kleins CK One. CK One was created and sold as a single product for use by men or women. It was marketed as the one fragrance for both men and women. Because most of us really do not know very much about perfume, we thought this concept was delightfully revolutionary and modern. (By the way, CK One is a citrus scentlike the original 4711 Cologne, likewise a gender-spanning fragrance, albeit from the 18th century.)

The perfume company Bond No. 9 in Manhattan offers many eau-de-parfum products it labels simply for him or her. One of my favorite of their both-gender scents is Gramercy Park, a peppery fresh fragrance. Most women like the scent but then ask cautiously, Is this for women? Its not a typically girly-girl aroma. Fortunately, for the faint-hearted perfume-wearer, the manufacturer gives permission for men and women to put on this scent.

Of course, maybe what the manufacturer says should not matter so much. After all, perfume products are marketed by people interested in selling them, not by the people who wear them. In other words, marketers are always reaching out to a target, but that target is not necessarily the entire universe of people interested in the product.

Apparently, it makes good marketing sense to keep the genders distinct in the perfume aisle. Right after Calvin Klein offered CK One, he came out with a scent called In2U which exists in two versions: one for each gender. The idea here is that men and women can wear the same fragrance family, but the products, of course, would have to be different.

There is really no traditional or fashion-based reason for doing that, other than the fact that it seems to make some of us feel more confident in our perfume choices.

While urban dwellers, the tragically hip, and unbearable perfumistas may be deemed the most likely to cross gender lines in perfume, the fact is the line we have now is not only moving and blurryit is largely artificial! There is no reason why women cant wear fresh, woodsy, or leathery scents or why men need to shy away from some of the great classic perfumes.

A good deal depends on how well we like the fragrances were wearing and how the fragrance works on our skin. Beyond that, most of the people around us cannot even begin to tell whether the scent weve put on was manufactured and labeled for men or for women. Besides, that label doesnt mean a thing anyway!