The taste and the scent: consumption practices and regional differences in Brazil

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to understand the Brazilians’ taste for perfume. Brazil is the second largest consumer of perfumes in the world. The most consumed products are the national and mass-produced ones. The largest consumers are people of Classes C, D and E from the north and northeast regions in the country, who according to IBGE (2010), spend more on perfumes monthly than on food or education. The starting point is the debate about the supposed superfluous character of perfumes, in the light of the socio-historical peculiarity of Brazil. From this point, we seek to understand this taste in relation to what was considered by the researcher Aschcar as the scent of Brazil in the twentieth century - lavender - from one of its outstanding products in the national history of perfumery: the Seiva de Alfazema, created by Phebo.