The Fougères (the French word for ‘fern’) are one of the iconic families in modern perfumery, named after Houbigant’s 1882 fragrance Fougère Royale. Although ferns do not have a specific scent, these perfumes evoke the scent of an imaginary, damp forest. A fougère traditionally contains notes of lavender, bergamot, oakmoss and coumarin (an ingredient that smells of hay, derived from the tonka bean). The fougère became the prototype of the ‘men’s fragrance’, often associated with the scent of a ‘barbershop’, but nowadays artistic perfume houses such as those we offer have long since moved beyond that convention.
