I Know a Lot More About Perfume Now

For better or worse, feat. the most over- and underrated fragrance houses in the niche world, plus the next Great perfume house and the one scent that will make me hate you.

For the past month, I’ve not only done freelance writing for and about perfume houses, I’ve started work as a salesperson at the oldest perfume shop (specifically a niche fragrance boutique) in my current city. I knew I was going to learn a lot, but in the span of four weeks, I’ve become intimate with the price points, notes, idiosyncrasies, and target demographics of hundreds out of the nearly 2k perfumes we stock. Rather than just finding what I like, I’ve had to learn to understand what other people like in fragrance, often starting from absolutely nothing and helping people learn about their proclivities through questioning, challenging, and trial and error. It’s as rewarding as a sales job could be, and I feel very lucky to have it. I still have a bajillion things to learn, but I am proud of what I’ve picked up so far.

Of course, I’ve also continued sniffing away at fragrances in an “extracurricular” capacity—the majority of what the shop sells is more on the old-school side of contemporary niche perfume (though we have recently begun getting newer labels in in earnest) and I tend toward more avant-garde, hyperniche labels that wouldn’t necessarily make sense to sell. I have, however, been learning to appreciate our more classic stuff, partly through hours and hours of sniffing, partly through the essays on

FUMES

that provide invigorating entry points through which I can romanticize and fetishize even the most powdery, sweaty, indolic, or grandmotherish fragrances from the last century (thank you

Miccaeli

!).

Below are superlatives of sorts for fragrances and perfume houses that have overwhelmed me, disappointed me, turned me on, grossed me out, and made me glad to be alive in turn. I still love nearly all of the fragrances and houses referenced in last year’s post (Clue remains my undefeated favorite with Warm Bulb!), but much of what’s below is new to Esque. Let me know if you have any questions before you pull the trigger on a disco set, I’m happy to elaborate on or amend my recs!

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Most underrated house: Zoologist

When we got this full collection at the shop two days before my birthday, I was expecting to be disappointed—those of us working there had been hyping it up for weeks, likely out of glee at the sheer novelty of the animal-inspired perfumes we were sure would sell like the dickens. I was extremely impressed with the full line. Zoologist does a great job of riding the hype waves and ingratiating itself to the teen boy TikTokers who seem to rule the market these days, but its artistry is legit. Almost every perfume is bizarre, and almost all are wearable. I was inducted into the love of mint in fragrance by a few of the scents listed below, and Snowy Owl cemented that with its dry, spacious, cold herbiness cut with coconut that reads not at all tropical but adds a creaminess that evokes snow so strongly you might forget that the white stuff doesn’t have a smell.

My other favorite scent from them is King Cobra, with a glorious base of sweet soil that recalls the Andrea Maack tour de force Coven but coated in sensual amber and lit up with sacred-smelling incense that would make Coven cower. My least favorite scent is T-rex, largely because teens like to come in and ask to smell it on a dare, and also because it chokes all the air in a five-foot radius with its unforgiving, resinous roar. It’s the perfect fragrance for what it is, but I would rather not have to spray it often.

Most overrated house: Maya Njie

This is definitely my most controversial fragrance opinion, but I bought the discovery set, excited to smell the lauded perfumer’s work, and was so bored I had to force myself to smell through it again a few more times to give it a fair shake. Nothing. The fragrances are well-made and blended, absolutely, but even with the heavy-handed pathos employed in the disco set packaging (the fragrance comes with postcards bearing missives from the perfumer’s life), not a single fragrance stuck out to me or made me feel some type of way. smelling them felt like walking through a Le Labo: dissociative, and not in an artistically meaningful way. I think Njie is a very talented perfumer and I hope either my nose changes in a way conducive to liking her fragrances more or she releases something that hits me right.

I should have hated but I loved: Or du Sérail - Naomi Goodsir

I was impressed with the entire Naomi Goodsir line (like Andrea Maack, Goodsir is just the banner under which several famed perfumers, none Naomi herself, release their work), but fragrances like Iris Cendré, by the inimitable Julien Rasquinet, felt like pretty on-the-nose fan letters to old Serge Lutens fragrances (in that case, the old Iris Silver Mist). Or du Sérail should make me sick with its syrupy frontloading of rum, berries, and mango, then cement the headache with a trill of tropical coconut, but instead, it’s totally intoxicating. I love the Greek word pharmakon, meaning both/either remedy and poison, and tons of perfumes walk that line and can go either way depending on the day. Right now, to me, the mango is more like magma that drips into your heart through your nostrils, aided by the warmth of a swig of rum and bearing with it an incredibly sophisticated melange of maté, vanilla, and white florals. It smells like cathexis, and it’s either going to be awful or AMAZING to wear when it gets hot outside.

I should have loved but I didn’t: Cuir Pampas - Frassaï

Having lived in Buenos Aires for a few years, I wanted to love this Argentine brand, but much like Maya Njie, nothing from the lineup moved me or even made me take note on my Parfumo account. Vetiver can either completely seduce me or give me a headache, but this fragrance does neither: it has no surface tension, nothing that vibrates or feels like it could pop at any second, no secret, no punch line. These fragrances are perfectly pleasant, but that’s not what entreats me to spend money on a full bottle.

Best fragrance from most annoying brand: You or Someone Like You - État Libre d’Orange

Though the eerie Google AI overview when you search “ELDO racist” declares that the brand’s reputation has been sullied unfairly, I am definitely a little wary of a brand that would name itself after an African colonial endeavor (do your own research and decide your tolerance level for yourself, though). The label is also infamously shock jock-y, with scents named after prostitutes or containing notes of blood, sweat, and semen. I’ve smelled nearly all of them—the only three I care about are the aforementioned powdery, sweaty Putain des Palaces; the nearly peanut-buttery vetiver-vanilla bomb Frustration; and the equivalent of brushing your teeth with mint toothpaste then drinking orange juice, You or Someone Like You. Instead of a bracing, discordant clash of the mint and citrus, though, the fragrance somehow delivers its mellow greenery in a fresh, invigorating way, though it’s not quite as good on skin as the next two mint-containing scents below.

Scent of my winter: Spiritcask - Jorum Studio

I wrote about my love for Spiritcask in the last perfume post, but here’s my official review: “My perfect scent, and that's coming from someone who only *loved* weird, just-south-of-off-putting aquatics and petrichor types until I met Spiritcask. I'm not a boozy enthusiast, nor do I tend to like vanilla, but this is a simply but specifically perfect take on both genres that smells like the lit-from-within joy I have not experienced for more than a few rarefied moments since becoming an adult, much less in an adult winter. I can't imagine a better winter scent to linger in your knits all season—I left a scarf doused in it behind on a date and, though the date went nowhere, the person fell in love with Spiritcask. It's extremely hard to overdo but lasts quite a while, especially on fabric as mentioned—Spiritcask is saving me from wintertime abjection.”

N.B. I also realized I loved how the mint functions in this scent after my manager pointed out to me that I’ve been tending toward the note lately.

Scent of my summer: Capri Forget Me Not - Carthusia

After I started liking You or Someone Like You, my manager also directed me to this fragrance, and eventually gifted me a parfum version (higher concentration than the eau de parfum) that I don’t think is for sale anymore. It’s gloriously good on skin—I’ve noticed that mint + peach = fig on some bizarre level, if anyone else understands that, let me know, and of course there is fig in this fragrance, but I believe it just underscores that perfect peach/mint tightrope that’s already being walked. It’s like waking up at 5AM with the sun already out and walking around NYC, smelling the springtime greenery fighting for its life though the concrete before all the humans wake up and gas it out with their vapes and exhaust pipes and burps for the rest of the day. It’s ecstatic but gentle, warm but crisp… it’s late spring in a bottle, and I cannot wait to wear this as it warms up. The EDP is great too, you just have to use a bit more whereas the parfum is great with one or two spritzes.

Bane of my existence: Oud Maracuja - Maison Crivelli

This scent genuinely offends me. It’s the worst smell in the store, and we sell Secretions Magnifiques. When people ask for this, I visibly cringe. It’s the only fragrance I’ll try to talk people out of testing. It’s like someone playing a trombone as a joke: funny for about two seconds, then irredeemably shameful. Straight gasoline with the apology of overripe, stinking tropical fruit. This scent alone makes me hate Maison Crivelli. It has like two decent scents (Rose Saltifolia is inoffensive and it does a fine Iris) but Oud Maracuja is so tastelessly, cluelessly nouveau riche that it completely sours my impression of the whole series. You know what? I hate Hibiscus Mahajad too. If it’s sprayed even once in my vicinity over the course of the day, I will smell like it for 48 hours. Overpriced, tacky, compensating for something, adolescent idea of what smells “good.” If Maison Crivelli has no haters, I’m dead.

Potential next purchase: Rakugan - J-Scent

We got J-scent in the store a few weeks ago, and though I still adore the scent Ume Amaretto Oath, the quiet sweetness of Rakugan might have won me over last week. The apricot is honeyed without feeling sticky—essentially, this fragrance pays tribute to desserts that might smell and look better than they taste, but that’s okay in this case, because you’re just gonna smell them. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you’re a chronic over-sprayer), this scent, as many J-scent fragrances are, is super-duper light, and I can see myself glugging through a bottle of this in a matter of months.

Game-changer: Gris Clair (pre-2012) - Serge Lutens

The aforementioned Miccaeli’s shockingly good piece on getting robbed (her old bottle of Gris Clair was among the items taken) put a bee in my bonnet re: searching for a bottle of the stuff, a bee that was quickly taken care of thanks to my manager, who gifted me not one, but TWO bottles, one from 2008 which seems pristine in its lovely lavender color and brutish, almost-acrid lavender that dissipates into a warm, musty, lovely ozonic not unlike my beloved Warm Bulb. The other bottle is a little off, a little dark, a little too sharp, but it still settles down nicely after a few minutes. I first smelled the modern iterations of Dent de Lait and Chergui and was unmoved by the line, but Gris Clair (stylized, charmingly and provocatively, as “Gris Clair…” on the bottle) cracked the Lutens shell open for me and now I’m a fan of the majestic, unabashedly self-satisfied (deservingly) scents.

The next Great fragrance house: Amphora Parfum

You honestly have to try these brilliant, seductive but serious, irrevocably queer, dirtyclean scents out to understand what’s so special about them. The branding and packaging is perfect. The notes are calculated but loose. The fragrances have a sense of humor that adds so much to their sensuality. I think my favorites are Virginal and sublimate, two oddly sweet scents that on paper, I would not have been drawn to, but I can’t resist when they’re near my nose. I can’t wait to write more on Amphora and its perfumer, Noah, in the future!

PLEASE let me know what you’re smelling these days and if I should try it!

<3 ESK