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Finding the perfect scent for your home is fun, especially when you know more about the world of fragrance families to help you out. At Brightfield, we create beautifully crafted candles, reed diffusers, and room sprays. When you shop for our home fragrances online, where you can't smell each scent in-person, understanding fragrance families can help you easily choose scents that match what you love, your mood, and style. Whether you want to unwind, boost your mood, or create a cosy space, let’s explore the main fragrance families to help you find your signature scent.

What Are Fragrance Families?

Fragrance families are groups of scents categorized by how they smell and the main characteristic of the scent. They are a useful guide to describe and understand different scent profiles, making your search for the perfect fragrance simpler and more fun. Ready to find yours? Here’s an overview of our key fragrance families:

Fresh Scents: Invigorate Your Space with Crisp and Clean Scents 

Fresh scents are clean, uplifting, and invigorating. Picture the bright zest of lemons, oranges, or grapefruits, blended with the fresh-cut smell of grass and herbal notes like mint and basil. Oceanic hints like sea salt add a breezy, watery feel. These fragrances are excellent for adding a crisp, energising vibe to entryways, kitchens, bathrooms, or any room that benefits from feel clean and bright. 

  • How Fresh Scents Can Help You: Based on science, clean and fresh scents like citrus and herbal notes stimulate the brain's olfactory system, which directly connects to the limbic system—the brain's emotional center—triggering the release of mood-enhancing neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, resulting in feeling uplifted, increased alertness, and mental clarity that help reduce stress and boost positivity. This makes fresh scents ideal for creating an energising and refreshing ambiance in your home. 

  • Perfect for: Living rooms, bedrooms, entryways and hallways, bathrooms, home offices, and anywhere that could benefit from being freshened up. 

  • Fresh Scents:

Floral Scents: Bring Nature, Romance and Elegance Home

Floral scents are synonymous with beauty, softness, and romance. From classic roses to lush jasmine, peony, lilac, and lilies, these notes range from delicate and powdery to richly aromatic. Floral fragrances impart a sense of nature and elegance to any room, helping your home to feel calming and inviting. 

  • How Floral Scents Can Help You: Floral scents positively affect mood and well-being by stimulating the brain’s olfactory system, which directly connects to the limbic system responsible for emotion and memory, leading to increased relaxation, reduced stress hormones, and improved mood states through activation of sympathetic nervous system and brain areas linked to movement, speech, and memory. 

  • Perfect for: Bedrooms, living rooms, or any space where you want to create a relaxing, sophisticated and romantic feeling

  • Floral Scents: 

Earthy & Woody Scents: Uplifting, Grounding, and Sophisticated

Earthy and woody fragrances connect us to the outdoors with their grounding aromas. Think sandalwood, cedar, pine, patchouli, vetiver, and moss. These scents evoke the calm and comfort of being in a forest, making them ideal for helping you feel calm, rested and grounded at home. 

  • How Earthy and Woody Scents Can Help You: Earthy and Woody Scents help you feel good due to their direct connection to the brain's limbic system, which processes emotion and memory, often evoking feelings of relaxation, stability, and a grounding connection to nature, and potentially reducing stress . These scents can also trigger positive autobiographical memories, helping you feel good and boosting your mood. 

  • Perfect for: Living rooms, bedrooms, home offices, or any space where you want it to feel calm, restorative, and sophisticated. 

  • Earthy & Woody Scents:  

Warm & Spicy Scents: Cosy and Comforting 

Warm and spicy scents are like a comforting hug. For example, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger, and amber fill rooms with inviting, rich aromas that evoke warm and welcoming feelings. These fragrances are perfect for colder months like fall and winter but many warm and spicy scents are perfect for using all year round. 

  • How Warm and Spicy Scents Can Help You: Warm and spicy scents make you feel good because their molecules stimulate the olfactory system, which directly connects to the brain's limbic system—the area responsible for emotion and memory—triggering feelings of comfort, warmth, and even sensuality, and in some cases, influencing the release of mood-enhancing neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. 

  • Perfect for: Bedrooms, dining areas, living rooms, or any place where you want to create a welcoming and cosy space. 

  • Warm and Spicy Scents:

    • Cabin (cranberry, cedar, sandalwood)

    • Legacy (apple, fig, sandalwood)

Sweet Scents: Playful and Comforting 

Sweet scents often take their inspiration from delicious treats — think vanilla, caramel, honey, and sugar. These gourmand fragrances fill a room with warmth and playfulness, making spaces feel homey and inviting. Sweet scented candles can help guests feel welcome when they walk in your home. 

  • How Sweet Scents Can Help You: Sweet scents make you feel good because their molecules stimulate the olfactory receptors that send signals directly to the brain's limbic system—responsible for emotion and memory—resulting in mood enhancement, relaxation, and feelings of comfort by triggering the release of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. Vanilla scents for example can help promote relaxation and calmness, reducing anxiety and stress, potentially lowering heart rate and blood pressure, boosting mood by increasing serotonin and dopamine levels, and even aiding in pain relief and reducing muscle tension. 

  • Perfect for: Kitchens, bedrooms, entryways, or any area where you want to evoke a sense of indulgence and coziness.

  • Sweet Scents: 

Fruity Scents: Bright, Juicy, and Cheerful

Fruity fragrances bring a burst of brightness and cheer with notes like tropical fruits, berries, cherries, apples, pears, and peaches. These scents are crisp, vibrant, and uplifting — ideal for adding energy and joy into any room.

  • How Fruity Scents Can Help You: Fruity scents scientifically promote feelings of upliftment, energy, and joy by stimulating the brain’s olfactory system connected to the limbic area, which helps reduce stress, improve mood, and enhance cognitive performance and alertness, especially with citrus notes like lemon and orange. 

  • Perfect for: Kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, or anywhere you want to energize the atmosphere and elevate your mood.

  • Fruity Scents: 

    • Cabana (pineapple, coconut, pineapple musk)
    • Cherry On Top (cherry, almond, rose, sandalwood)
    • Linen (lilac, lemon, jasmine)

Layering Your Scents: Create Your Signature Home Fragrance

Now that you know more about each fragrance family, you can have fun layering them! You can layer scents from different families to create your own signature scent that is unique to you and your home. Simply add complimentary scents in different ways: A candle burning, a reed diffuser, and a room spray in different scents. Or two different scented candles burning at the same time. Imagine burning a fresh scented candle like Linen and spritzing an earthy, woody room spray like Evergreen. Mix a sweet vanilla scented candle like Saturday with a hint of woody sandalwood with our Legacy Reed Diffuser. Try warming up a floral scent like Countryside with a touch of spice from Cabin. The possibilities are endless — and your home can smell as unique as you are. 

Ready to Find Your Perfect Scent?

Understanding fragrance families is the first step to discovering the scents that spark joy and create the perfect ambiance in your home. At Brightfield, our curated collection of non-toxic scented candles, reed diffusers, and room sprays are thoughtfully designed to help you spark joy in your everyday. Find your favourite scent today. 

Shop by Scent | Shop by Room | Find Your Favourite Scent

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