More than a mere accessory, perfume is a statement of personality, a portal to memory. To some extent, we can all relate to the experience of finding an old bottle of perfume tucked away in a closet and being whisked away to the days we wore it. My signature scent in high school was TOCCA’s Colette. Fancying myself an artistic and authorial type, I was seduced by the brand’s description of the fragrance as being inspired by both “Colette, the great French female novelist” and “the natural scent a woman leaves behind on a pillow.” To this day, I can’t smell Colette’s sweet, lightly spiced blend of cheerful citrus and warm, incensed vanilla without remembering how it would cling to and linger on my uniform sweater vest.
As beautiful as perfume is, it can sometimes be overwhelming. The fragrance you spray on before class at 9AM can bloom into a migraine by lunchtime. Look below for a list of perfumes which, with their simple and elegant notes and their intimate sillage, won’t give you a headache.
Juliette Has a Gun – Not a Perfume
Composed of a single note, cetalox—a synthetic form of ambergris—Not a Perfume is a non-intrusive fragrance that defies description. Though it doesn’t smell like a perfume—as its name may suggest, there is no hint of cloying or artificial fragrance here—it also doesn’t smell like nothing either. Sephora describes the fragrance as “warm and sheer”; I would describe it as like the clear lip gloss (or maybe the tinted lip balm) of perfume.
Glossier – You
Glossier is a master of marketing breezy, effortless beauty products which enhance, rather than conceal, your natural appearance. Their perfume, You, is no exception to this “your-canvas-but-better” branding. Glossier describes, “It’s not one of those perfumes you wear to become someone else. Mostly, it smells like you: warm, soft, familiar.” If it’s not clear what you smell like, You smells like a warm, woodsy musk, which some reviewers describe (affectionately) as pencil shavings, with sweet, powdery, and floral notes of iris. Whether or not that smells like you in specific, Glossier’s You promises to be a light, likable fragrance that suits many occasions, including casual daytime events like class or brunch.
Ellis Brooklyn – SUPER AMBER
Advertising this scent as a “texture,” Ellis Brooklyn diverges from concepts of perfume that posit it as an exclusively olfactory sensory experience: SUPER AMBER is almost tactile in its encompassing warmth, described by the brand as a “cozy…addictive scent that envelops like a cashmere blanket on warm bare skin.” Like Juliette Has a Gun’s Not a Perfume, SUPER AMBER is structured without conventional top, middle, and base notes. (It blends together warm, minimal notes of amber, musk, cedar, and vanilla.) Like Glossier’s You, Ellis Brooklyn claims that SUPER AMBER “blooms” as it interacts with your unique skin chemistry. This layering of other similar perfumes’ marketing reminds me of one of my favourite ways to wear SUPER AMBER—layered with other perfumes to bring another dimension of warmth and complexity to them. It’s also a great, relaxed scent to wear at bedtime.
Jo Malone – Wood Sage & Sea Salt
This fragrance is different from the previous items on the list: with its aromatic notes of sea salt, sage, and ambrette, it seems to suit a place more than a person. Still, before you find yourself missing the notes of musk and amber which characterize “skin” scents, consider the specific type of magical place that Jo Malone’s Wood Sage & Sea Salt evokes: in the company’s words, “the freshness of a windswept shore.” Wood Sage & Sea Salt is refreshing, unique, and beautiful—I never tire of it.
CLEAN RESERVE – Skin
Featuring notes of fresh musk and salted praline, Skin by CLEAN RESERVE is my favourite fragrance at the moment. (Potentially of all time). To me, it smells like warm, clean skin after a steamy shower with your favourite products. There’s the mouthwatering sweetness of the praline, but just a hint—like how the delicious smell of the Sol de Janeiro shower cream lingers in subtle but inviting ways even after you’ve rinsed it off. There’s a surprising brightness to the musk: though it’s not a sharp citrus, it’s still light and fresh. And somewhere in that blend is a note that almost feels humid: like applying lotion to shower-damp skin, trapped in the moist heat of a bathroom with a fogged-up mirror.
While there is a place for the bombshell fragrances of the world—loud, glamorous scents with complicated, intoxicating, and heavy combinations of notes—there’s also a place for the often under-appreciated minimal fragrances. Maybe that place is on your shelf!