We are always having a look at the latest fragrances on the market, whether that is a new washing powder, or a new shampoo or a new designer perfume launch. It helps us to know that we are keeping up to date with all the latest market trends. There is however, something that we have noticed over the past few months – there seems to be a merging of the sexes.

Many of the newer fragrances that are aimed at men seem to have become the new favourites of our female office staff, with many of us naming one of them as our spritz of choice at the minute, in particular Carolina Herrera’s 212 VIP for men and Viktor & Rolfs Spicebomb.

I decided to ask around family and friends and came up with the same results….it seems that spritzing a sneaky squirt of your boyfriend/husbands aftershave is as widespread as borrowing his razor!

Back in the early perfume heyday of the 18th century there was no dividing line between male and female fragrances – in fact the dividing line was one of class and social standing instead. The most powerful men drenched their lapels and handkerchiefs with fragrance – usually a heavy floral blend, whilst the downtrodden masses blended into the background with the unforgettable stench of ‘Eau de Filth’.

The notion of gender in perfumery only came around in the early 20th century, coinciding with the influences of modern advertising methods. Fragrance became intertwined with fashion and so the flapper girls of the 1920′s became the new target demographic. Ms Monroe heaped glamour onto fragrance by the bucket load in the 50′s with her now infamous quote of wearing only Chanel No.5 to bed - it would have had to have been a brave man to wear a floral scent after that revelation!

The first efforts to woo the male back onboard were heavily advertised as a shaving routine add-on. And so the humble aftershave was born and the whole world seemed to smell of either Old Spice, English Leather or Burma Shave.

Eventually more and more colognes (note – NOT perfumes!!) became available embracing notes that were considered to be a masculine domain – spicy, leathery, woodsy and musky.

Fresh and lighter citrus notes have been an attempt to close the gap – think CK1 – and even more recently the addition of woody and musk notes being added to many female targeted scents have closed it even further.

Ancient men and women knew the power of aromatics, smearing them all over their bodies without any regard for whether spikenard or myrrh were considered to be feminine or masculine. Its a matter of what works well on your skin – so the next time you are looking for a new bottle of perfume – why not check out some of the newly launched male intentions – i’m off to top up my spicebomb!!

We have a large range of fragrance submissions here at Carvansons that are designed to be the creme de la creme of the current trending scents – if you have any new products that need a fragrance then please contact either myself or Helen, and we will be more than happy to send some samples for you to have a look at – all of which comply with current IFRA regulations.

Quick flight to Surabaya, only 40 mins but I gain an hour on UK time, so am now only 6 hours behind. So thats a whole day knocked off the jetlag recovery time when I get home – apparently it takes a full day for every hour of time difference to get your body clock back to normal.

Then its find a taxi, check it has seatbelts, get in, pay the fare and then as we set off we realise too late that the seatbelts are for show only and don’t actually work! So its a free white knuckle ride to the hotel, zipping from lane to lane, squeezing into impossibly tiny gaps with frequent braking participating in a couple of very close incidents along the way!

We arrive at the hotel at 9pm, so its a quick bite to eat in the hotel cafe and up to my room for 10pm. Oh good, free wifi – oh no – no signal at all!!!! Cant even get a strong enough mobile signal to ring home and check all is well….the joys of travelling.

Anyway its just a 1 night thing….I’m awake at 5.40am so I might as well get up as we are checking out at half 7…I feel like a proper business traveller!  No re-packing required….I only opened the suitcase lid!!

The mud flow is still going strong some 5 years after I last came to this area. It stems from an underground volcano that erupted in May 2006, and at its peak it was spewing mud out at a rate of 180,000 m³ of mud per day! The mud has a rotten egg aroma caused by the release of hydrogen sulphide, and as it continues to flow it is creating an unstable surrounding area as it begins to collapse in on itself. Geologists have predicted that Lusi as it is known in Indonesia, will probably flow for 25-30 years yet.

It has blocked one of the 2 main routes linking Surabaya and Malang (tonights destination), so the longer route will take almost 2 hours instead of an hour as it used to do (and in fact the journey was nearer 3 hours in the end!). The government keep building the retaining wall higher and higher to contain the liquid mudflow and the locals are very worried that the higher the wall, the weaker it gets and that at some point  the dam will burst free and swallow up more of the surrounding areas – villages and road links.

Our meetings in Surabaya included meeting up with an old friend and customer Mr Ah Lung….a lovely man and his wife who always lend us their driver and car when we are in town..he had recently visited the UK for the first time last month and so we spent an hour at lunch going through his photographs….many of them in my nearest city of Manchester, that I haven’t even visited myself!

Throughout Indonesia, there are many differing preferences for fragrances in general. Jasmine is always a safe bet, but some areas prefer it to be heavy and some prefer it to be a background note instead. Sweet candy like fragrances always go down well here  and light florals such as rose too. Grapefruit and sharp lime notes are deemed too sour, and cherry is too medicinal. Fresh, clean citrusy aromas tend to be found in most products.

As we make our way back to Jakarta for my last night in Indonesia, I am looking forward to a hot bath and a mojito before the long flight back to the UK. I hope you enjoyed my adventures here as much as I did