BEAUTY; THE FASHION FOR FRAGRANCE (Published 1986) (2024)

FRAGRANCES CAN HAVE FAR-REACH-ing effects - a woman's scent arrives in a room before she enters, and it stays behind after she's gone. Their consequences are also wide-ranging in other ways.

Scents are so much a part of women's fashion consciousness that the fragrance business is having powerful economic repercussions in today's world, where fashion and fragrance are coming closer together. Fragrance, in the 1980's, has become a multibillion-dollar industry. According to the Fragrance Foundation, an industry-supported group in New York, Americans spent $2.7 billion on women's scents in the United States last year, more than four times the $660 million they spent in 1976. And profits gleaned from the marketing of designer fragrances help keep the fashion business afloat. For example, there is not one French couture house that makes more money selling its dresses than its fragrance.

The perfume business has reached such a level that at least $10 million, say experts in the field, is needed to launch a new product. Minnetonka Inc., which owns the Calvin Klein Cosmetics Corporation, used $17 million in getting Obsession off the ground last year. The investment led to sales for 1985 of $30 million.

According to the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, a group of 21 haute couture designers, there are only an estimated 3,000 women in the world who can afford to invest in an entire couture-label wardrobe, but there are literally millions who can buy couture-label perfume and perfumed products. And the status appeal of a bottle of, for example, Yves St. Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Oscar de la Renta, Ralph Lauren or Giorgio Armani perfume on a dressing table, bathroom shelf or in a handbag is an undeniable part of being well-outfitted in 1986.

In fact, today, a recognizable scent is as basic as a good pair of shoes, or earrings. In other words, fragrances are no longer special or occasionally used items. Instead, they have become integral parts of fashion. Looking good and smelling good are intricately linked up.

''Today, clothes are more and more alike,'' says the fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, ''and a woman is most in search of an identity. Perfume reacts on a woman's skin in different manners, and so the fragrance makes a very individual statement for each one.''

''We dress not only for the eyes, but for the other senses as well,'' adds Karl Lagerfeld, a French designer who has successfully jumped into the fragrance game.

The word ''fragrance'' has come to mean a combination of natural and synthetic odors usually blended in an alcohol solution. There are now many thousands of different essences that make up the bases of perfumes, and several prime ''families'' of fragrance types. Some of their names are: green, aldehydic (or modern), chypre, Orien-tal, floral and single floral, woodsy and fruity. What distinguishes them are, first, the ''top note'' of the perfume, that is, the immediate impression, or impact, of the fragrance, and, second, the more complex fragrance that develops during ''dry down,'' when the perfume, after a period of time, mixes with a woman's own individual body scent.

ENERALLY SPEAK-ing, the green family has an outdoorsy aroma, like the smell of grass or herbs.

Of course, its character changes if it is mixed with floral oils, or Orientals.

The single floral has the fragrance of, for instance, a rose, or a lilac, or a carnation, while the floral has the scent of a bouquet, of a garden right after a rainfall. The florals still are, and long have been, consumer favorites.

The Oriental family has an intense scent, with top notes of heavy floral ingredients, like jasmin. Here, animal notes usually are important. The woodsy family has a very earthy aroma, such as the smell of sandlewood or rosewood or fern, while the fruity fragrances have a fresh smell of lemon, or peaches, or oranges. The chypre family has a ''dramatic'' flair to it, with a top note that usually contains oakmoss or sage. Aldehydic fragrances have a sparkling quality and are less definable because they do not recall any specific scent, but represent a ''fantasy'' of the perfume maker's imagination.

As for synthetics, there are about 5,000 chemicals used to echo the above elements or create new ones, including worn leather and bon bons.

For its perfume Beautiful, Estee Lauder reports that it used a blend of some 2,000 flowers, with six pages needed to list all the perfume's ingredients. Giorgio is said to have 200 elements.

Tastes in fragrances always have varied from nation to nation. In Japan, for instance, perfume experts say women prefer delicate, subtle, unobtrusive scents. The French seem to like powerful florals and powdery Oriental-type fragrances that help them make grand entrances. American taste leans toward a strong scent, something that does not wear off before the evening does. It seems that, regardless of nationality, shy, introverted types throughout the world are always steered toward unobtrusive, flowery, lavender-type products. A more assertive, unconventional woman is said to have a taste for scents based on green plants and chypre by day, and spicy Oriental fragrances by night.

Yet, a good deal of this does not makes any sense today. The idea of linking up certain types of women with certain scents holds as much water as suggesting particular handbags, belts, stockings and wedding bands for particular personalities. How intriguing is the idea of a wallflower in a white-linen dress wearing dramatic musky pepper scent. Or a sexy starlet in a tight-knit suit smelling of faded iris petals. Or a middle-aged executive directing a conference while perfumed with coriander, bergamot and civet.

Wearing perfume in 1986 is like wearing anything else -and the criteria should be the same. Does the scent suit the wearer? Is it original? Is it flattering? Is it for a specific time of day or place? Will it clash with anything or anyone? In the end, perhaps, in this day of independent women, the most important question to be asked about a scent is: Does the wearer like it?