What Makes a Fragrance Unisex?

Fragrance has never truly belonged to one gender. Despite decades of marketing that suggested otherwise, scent—at its core—is about memory, chemistry, and mood. Not labels.

Unisex fragrances aren’t a new idea. Ancient rituals, Renaissance courts, even the clean minimalism of the '90s—these moments in time all embraced scent without borders. But what makes a fragrance feel genuinely unisex today?

It comes down to balance, intention, and skin.

Fragrance families—floral, woody, amber, citrus—have no inherent gender. Orange blossom doesn’t belong to one identity more than another. Neither does sandalwood. What matters is how the notes are constructed.

Unisex compositions typically avoid extremes. Instead of leaning into saccharine florals or sharp spices, they orbit around calm dualities: bergamot paired with musk, green violet softened by tonka, hinoki warmed by skin. The result isn’t neutral; instead, it’s layered.

And then there’s the skin. The same scent never smells the same way twice. Temperature, pH, and even time of day play an active role in the fragrance’s final form. What reads clean and bright on one person might bloom into something woody and warm on another. That’s not a flaw. That’s the design.

At The Blueprint, we develop scent from a place of emotional clarity. We aren’t interested in binaries. We’re interested in how a perfume makes you feel, and with our architectural roots and themes, where it transports you to. We want each scent to have a signature, not a stereotype.

The future of fragrance is unmarked. And all the more personal because of it.