Question:
1. The most "masculine" scent you're comfortable wearing in public
2. The most "feminine" scent you're comfortable wearing in public
3. A scent you'd like to wear but it's too butch for comfort
4. A scent you'd like to wear but it's too femme for comfort

Answer:
I wear what I want.

Answer:
LOL, I'm sure we all do

Answer:
1. The most "masculine" scent you're comfortable wearing in public:
Iris Silver Mist, Biche dans l 'Absinthe, Santal de Mysore
2. The most "feminine" scent you're comfortable wearing in public:
Chanel N°5, Joy
3. A scent you'd like to wear but it's too butch for comfort:
Gris Clair, Encens et Lavande, Chêne, Un Bois Sépia, Derby, Habit Rouge,
Jules, Egoïste, Terre d 'Hermes
4. A scent you'd like to wear but it's too femme for comfort:
none

Answer:
So far everything I own is within the male gender boundary. I'm thinking of buying some male/female/gender non-specific cologne. I wonder what would be a good first choice. Needless to say, I don't own any "female" scents. I'll look forward to other responses.

Answer:
Quote: Originally Posted by PaulSC LOL, I'm sure we all do I had more reservations about it when I was younger. I wouldn't wear Habit Rouge (too sweet and powdery then) with consistency at fifteen or even twenty five. Today I'll wear anything as long as I genuinely like it. Chanel 19 is an amazing fragrance and when I wear it women always think it's a men's fragrance. Many masculines smell incredible on women. I just posted a list of them on the women's side. Regarding No.19, my girlfriend perceives it (on me anyway) as being more masculine than something like Vintage Tabarome (she thinks it's "powdery") which is often considered intensely masculine around here.
"Keep in mind that within the perfume industry, everyone wears whatever they want. There really is no such thing as a "feminine" or "masculine" fragrance. Only dolts swallow the gendered-perfume gimmick and obey some marketing guru's, "This is for boys, this is for girls." Real adults wear whatever they want."

Answer:
The categories "public" and "would like to wear, but not comfortable with" are not relevant to me. If I would like to wear it I'll wear it. However, there are some perfumes I would not wear to work, e.g. Creed Angelique Encens. And there are others which to me just smell so overwhelmingly feminine in a certain way that I do not want to wear them. i.e. I'm gender conditioned by my olfactory biography. I do not want to smell of thick, powdery, sweet plus floral perfumes with no spicy, leathery etc. component to them - e.g. can't stand Ambre Canelle, which I can only see someone like Montserrat Caballé wearing anyway, while I love Royal Delight. So perhaps it is not so much even a gender thing, but that I do not like a certain style of perfume which happens to be exclusively marketed for women.

Answer:
Quote: Originally Posted by PaulSC 1. The most "masculine" scent you're comfortable wearing in public Any, really. Mind you I find Dior's Jules and Rochas' Macassar to be particularly manly and I only rarely wear them (also I think you need a really special occasion to wear them so...)
Quote: Originally Posted by PaulSC 2. The most "feminine" scent you're comfortable wearing in public. Daim Blond by Serge Lutens.
Quote: Originally Posted by PaulSC 3. A scent you'd like to wear but it's too butch for comfort. See 1.
Quote: Originally Posted by PaulSC 4. A scent you'd like to wear but it's too femme for comfort. Indeed Chanel N°19 : I'd love to wear that one, but can't. Same with Mitsouko, 1000, Coco, Petite Chérie. And yet I try...

Answer:
Quote: Originally Posted by PaulSC 1. The most "masculine" scent you're comfortable wearing in public
2. The most "feminine" scent you're comfortable wearing in public
3. A scent you'd like to wear but it's too butch for comfort
4. A scent you'd like to wear but it's too femme for comfort 1. I tend to prefer the fragrances which are more towards the masculine end of the spectrum like Givenchy Gentleman, Yatagan, Santos and Bel Ami.
2. Not really into feminine scents. Not insecure, they just don't do anything for me. I've got some unisex scents like Mugler Cologne so I guess that is the closest.
3. Not met a scent too butch for me.
4. I tend to avoid excessively sweet and floral mens fragrances.

Answer:
I guess what got me started with the idea for this thread is the realization that I should probably let go of my bottle of L'Ombre dans L'Eau (Diptyque) -- I find the scent beautiful, but it's so fresh and floral on me I just don't feel I can pull it off. (I guess if I subscribe to "wear what I like" I'd have to say, it wears so feminine on me that I stop liking it.)
Since I started with category 4, I'll do the rest in reverse order:
3. Scents with lots of leather and animal notes are sometimes just too "cowboy" for me -- Chaps, Quorum, Yatagan. Apart from that, I'm more likely to have trouble with a fragrance being too formal, rather than too masculine. I'd probably wear Santos, for instance, except I'd feel underdressed on all but the most formal occasion.
There's not that much range in the scents I actually own, but I guess...
2. the more feminine ones would be "unisex" scents like Bois d'Iris and ck Be (on me, there's nothing particularly feminine about either of these)
1. the most masculine might be BdP, Dunhill Edition and Guerlain's Vetiver.