Has Perfume become Samey?

What do the stats tell us?

There is a fascinating graphic on Linkedin. It charts the frequency of different notes used in perfume releases. The data, which covers 1980 — 2024, has been culled from the Parfumo database, which is a useful resource for “stats nerds” like Fitz Chao Li, the creator of the graphic, and perfume history nerds like me.

The chart can be divided into three sections. The top section forms the most commonly used or core notes. These make up the bulk of perfumes released at that time. Middle ranking notes tend to be modifiers, which rise and fall as trends come and go. The bottom section is the grace notes and novelties which are occasionally used to ring the changes.