The fall season is always sure to usher in a brigade of warm and cozy amber fragrances to cozy up to, but the industry brought a variety of different spritzes to the table for Q3, from subconscious-inspired scents and witchcraft-inspired florals to ’90s hip-hop-inspired spritzes and pine-infused memento vitaes.
Acqua di Parma: Zafferano is a fragrance centered around saffron, accented with notes of orange blossom, jasmin, geranium, and tonka bean. The brand describes the composition as “the olfactory translation of the Venetian terrazzo composition technique,” thanks to an emphasis on precious raw materials formed into “objets d’art” at the hands of a skilled craftsman.
Ann Demeulemeester: The Belgian fashion house has released its first fragrance, a genderless fragrance called A. The house describes the scent as “animalistic” and “rooted in nature,” the end result being a leather woody scent, which begins with some refreshing citrus (Sicilian lemon) and warm spices (cinnamon, clove, cumin) before seguing into a birch-oiled leather, May rose, and jasmine heart that then gives way to a base of rosewood, vetiver, sandalwood, and patchouli. Nose Nicola Bianchi helped create the fragrance that comes in a sleek, black flacon for the ultimate embodiment of the brand’s romantic dark luxury aesthetic.
Dolce & Gabbana: Velvet Blue Musk is the latest edition to the brand’s Velvet Collection. This iteration, crafted by Mathilde Bijaoui, takes inspiration from the nature landscape of Sicily, be it the ocean breeze or local plant life. Notes include saffron, Damask rose, musk, cedar, cypriol, tonka, and sandalwood.
Ferragamo: The Italian fashion house has expanded its Storie di Seta collection that pays homage to the textile heritage of the brand (the range name translates to “Silk Stories”). Foreste di Seta makes an olfactory nod to the complex aromatic landscape of forests with clary sage, walnut, and vetiver. Cieli di Seta interprets the sky with a fruity musky bend of black pepper, blueberry, and musk. Both bottles are decorated with theme-appropriate illustrations: foliage and berries for Foreste di Seta and parrots, plants, and butterflies for Cieli di Seta.
Givenchy: L'Interdit Eau de Parfum Rouge Ultime is the latest flanker of the company’s L’Interdit series. Created by Fanny Bal, Dominique Ropion, and Anne Flipo, the floral woody scent contains notes of orange blossom, tuberose and jasmine, accented with a spicy red accord containing pimento leaf, ginger, and blood orange notes, as well as notes of cocoa. The fragrance dries down to a smooth base of sandalwood, patchouli, and Balkan tobacco absolute.
Guerlain: Tobacco Honey is a deep and decadent concoction of the golden nectar and an ambery tobacco accord, drenched in vanilla, tonka bean, sesame, and oud. The nose behind the creation is Delphine Jelk, who describes the fragrance as follows, “If it were a masterpiece, a patchwork of tobacco leaves like an Arte Povera land art.”
Guess: Guess Originals is a trio of unisex fragrances—Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3—celebrating the spirit of youth, the beauty of individuality, and defying conventional norms. Type 1, an aromatic citrus, focuses on bergamot and vetiver, freshened with basil and mandarin, deepened with orris and cardamom, and grounded in musk and patchouli. Type 2, an ambery white floral, is centered around red currant and balsam, with jasmine, orange blossom, and oakmoss facets. Type 3, a tobacco scent, incorporates the ingredient (presented in the form of tobacco blossom and tobacco leaf) into a warm composition with tonka bean, saffron rose, and vanilla.
Jean Paul Gaultier: Gaultier Divine, presented in a gilded version of the brand’s famous corseted female body bottle, is described as “a true symbol of modern-day goddesshood.” Perfumer Quentin Bisch married floral, gourmand, and marine notes for the creation, blending salty notes, white lily, and meringue.
Kenzo: Flower Ikebana, ikebana being the Japanese word for “living flowers,” is the latest release from the fashion brand, described as “when the art of flowers meets the art of perfume.” Alexandra Monet is the nose behind the creation, which pays tribute to the sakura flower. Aside from this botanical specimen, which builds the heart of the fragrance alongside Jasmine absolute and Indian tuberose, the perfume also contains sobacha tea and Australian sandalwood.
Maison Martin Margiela: Under the Stars joins the Replica range. Oud, leather, and labdanum recreate a night by the campfire in Namibia in 2022, boosted in warmth thanks to black pepper and amber.
Tom Ford: Myrrhe Mystère is the latest addition to the Private Blend collection. The ambery woody fragrance gives the gum resin a smoky vanilla character, provided by Myrrhessence and Myrrh resinoid Orpur, Sandalwood Album, Australia Orpur, and an Ultra Vanille accord.
Aesop: Ouranon is the latest edition to the Othertopias collection, “inspired by the enduring stature of a monolith.” The spicy woody scent blends herbaceous notes of hay, lavender flower, and chamomile with resins like frankincense and myrrh, grounded in earthly patchouli. Longtime collaborator Barnabé Fillion is the nose behind the fragrance.
Ellis Brooklyn: Apple Love is a love declaration to New York City. Described as an amber gourmand, the fragrance contains the classic red apple, paired with fruits like peach and mandarin. As the fragrance develops, florals like plum blossom, muguet, and osmanthus make an appearance before melting into a sweet base of vanilla and praline.
Juliette Has a Gun: Ode to Dullness is a subtle floral musk with comforting notes of cashmere flower, sandalwood, and tonka bean, warmed up with star anise. “This fragrance was created with a poetic goal in mind: to be a calming and centering scent,” the brand states, explaining the fragrance “highlights the too often forgotten poetry of dullness.”
Kayali: The Oudgasm Collection is a range of four Eaux de Parfum Intense incorporating oud into modern creations. Oudgasm Vanilla Oud gives it a gourmand spin with pear, praline, vanilla sugar, and cashmere wood. Oudgasm Tobacco Oud adds in honeyed tobacco, saffron, plum, and clove for a warm and spicy mix. Oudgasm Rose Oud pairs the ingredient opposite Bulgarian rose and peony for a rich floral. Oudgasm Café Oud adds in a splash of cappuccino, with a refreshing dose of bergamot and mandarin.
L’Occitane: The French brand has debuted three new fragrances under the Forgotten Flowers collection: Noble Epine, Barbotine, and Meillot. Each fragrance is inspired by a “forgotten” perfumery note. Noble Epine, centered around the hawthorn or May flower, enhances its floral focus with magnolia, peony, blond wood, and ambroxan. Barbotine, built around the inspiration of the golden button flower that according to legend was employed in life-prolonging rituals, contains notes of ambergris, mint, chamomile, lily of the valley, and cedar. Meillot, featuring sweet clover extract, is a more vegetal creation, with notes of carrot seed, frozen pear accord, hay, brand, and hazel tree leaf accord.
Byredo: Animalique is described as tapping into the primal instincts and authentic essences that unify humanity. In practice, that translates into an amber floral scent that opens with lemon and bergamot, developing into a mimosa and violet heart, which settles into a base of amber, tobacco leaf, and suede.
Creed: Carmina is the brand’s floral woody musk fragrance featuring top notes of pink pepper, saffron, and black cherry; heart notes of peony, violet, cashmere wood, and May rose; and base notes of myrrh, frankincense, Ambroxan, and musk. The scent was inspired by illustrations of women in fashion sketchbooks from the Creed archive.
Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle: Jean-Claude Ellena has produced his latest fragrance for the French perfume house, following successes such as L’eau d’Hiver and Angeliques Sous La Pluie. Heaven Can Wait is described as a “private heaven” and emotional, passionate romance. Designed to be transparent and skin-like, the fragrance contains notes of vanilla, iris, musk,ambrette, and clove.
Kilian: Smoking Hot is the latest addition to the brand’s Smokes Collection. Inspired by Kilian Hennessy’s travels to the Middle East, the fragrance is a sweet and smoky medley. Perfumer Mathieu Nardin blended apple and cinnamon with tobacco absolute, bourbon vanilla, and orcanox for a caramelized creation with edge.
LBTY: The renowned department store Liberty London has debuted a fragrance line under its LBTY label, all five perfumes naturally clad in its trademark botanical prints.
Le Labo: Lavande 31 aims to create a more floral and aromatic take on lavender, adding in bergamot, neroli, amber, musk, and tonka. “Its foundation is pure Le Labo: ambery, dirty, and musky notes, blended with notes of tonka to give this perfume a regressive classic style that is both clean and dirty, recognizable yet truly unique,” the brand proclaims.
Louis Vuitton: Presented as a beautiful rose colored juice, Myriad, created by Louis Vuitton’s in-house perfumer Jacques Cavallier Belletrud, is the latest Les Extrait fragrance by the French fashion house. Belletrud was inspired by the airborne scents around his laboratory at Les Fontaines Parfumées in Grasse. The perfume uses Bangladeshi Assam Oud essential oil exclusive to Louis Vuitton, paired with Bulgarian and Centifolia rose, as well as notes of saffron, cocoa, and white musk for a deep and complex floral. Frank Gehry designed the sculptural floral bottle which houses the precious essence.
Mind Games: The brand founded by The Fragrance Group—responsible for the licensing of brands such as Christian Siriano and Banana Republic, as well as the distribution of brands like Nishane and Tiziana Terenzi—has expanded its line with the release of a unisex fragrance collection called Soulmate. The brand describes itself as linking “the complex artistry best embodied by the strategy and brilliance of chess, with the innovative and hypnotic effects of perfumery.” Each of the ten new scents, developed with Symrise, comes in a silver, pawn chess piece-style fragrance bottle. Alex Shalbaf, founder and CEO of The Fragrance Group, and his wife Marian, worked together with an esteemed team of perfumers on the creations: Alexandra Carlin, Annick Menardo, Christelle Laprade, David Apel, Emilie Copperman, Nathalie Benareau, and Carlos Viñals. Creations include Sissa, a gourmand amber woody scent with ambrette seed, milk accord, roasted tonka bean, jasmine and vanilla; Sans Voir, a floral woody concoction with salt and grapefruit top notes, rose and incense heart notes, and a palo santo, guaiac wood, and musk base; and Ruy Lopez, an aromatic woody scent with black tea, cherry, rose, dark rum, and oakwood facets.
Altaia: Amank'ay, a yellow lily which grows in Patagonia and is also known as the flower of love, is the inspiration and namesake for this new release. The floral notes are paired with pink peppercorn, pear blossoms, lotus flower, and sandalwood.
BIBBI: The brainchild of creative designer Stina Bibbi Seger and her husband, Jan Vilhelm Ahlgren (also known as the founder of Vilhelm Parfumerie), BIBBI is described as “a subconscious journey in blue,” with all scents inspired by visions that Seger witnesses as part of her meditation practice. The blue in question is a striking Yves Klein-blue, which runs across the brand’s packaging and campaigns.The brand is launching with six fragrances in Liberty London: Ghost of Tom (a black tea and bergamot-containing citrus amber scent), Pistachio Game (a woody aromatic fragrance with vetiver, eucalyptus, and apple blossom), Santal Beauty (a violet, magnolia, and sandalwood-infused woody floral), Radio Child (a fruity musk with oakmoss and fig), Iris Wallpaper (a floral fruity fragrance which enhances the raw material’s earthy undertones), and The Other Room (a carnation, patchouli, saffron, and vetiver concoction). The fragrances were created together with nose Jérôme Epinette.
Euphorium Brooklyn: The Brooklyn-based perfume house has released Bay Rum, named after the early 19th century aftershave lotion. The product is part of the company’s perfumery program in the Caribbean, created in partnership with The Tower Estate. Brand founder Stephen Dirkes spent two years developing the fragrance in partnership with local artisans, farmers, and educators in Grenada, known as “Spice Island.” The end result is a spicy concoction of West Indiean bay leaf, allspice, rum, ylang ylang, tonka, West Indian amyris, and vanilla.
Heretic: Just in time for the Halloween season, the natural fragrance brand has released Voodoo Lily, which marries lily accord, Moroccan rose, and blackcurrant with frankincense, oud, and styrax for a dark and mysterious floral. Cactus Abduction is another new addition to the house’s range, focused on the night-blooming cactus flower, cereus. The spicy green scent contains notes of grapefruit, cedar, green pepper, geranium, prickly pear, and aloewood.
Josh Rosebrook: Renowned for its skin and hair care products, the brand is now releasing the unisex fragrance Ethereus—a sophmore debut to its 2016 release, Ethereal Eau de Parfum—described by the brand as an innovator of the clean fragrance category. A warm, woody creation, Ethereus contains notes of amber, sandalwood, amyris, labdanum, and patchouli. The fragrance base is made with organic grape alcohol, while its aromatic components are organic essential oils, “safe” synthetics, and natural resins.
Parfums Quartana: Described as “a pine-infused 'memento vitae,'” Forest of the Golden Dream is the first of three fragrances in Parfums Quartana’s Les Potions D'Entéléchie. Whereas the brand’s debut collection, Les Potions Fatales, was about poisonous flowers, this range will focus on healing and celebrating life. Celine Barel created the fragrance under creative direction of Joseph Quartana, and the end result is an aromatic green concoction bursting with the fragrant life of Siberian pine, Canadian fir balsam, eucalyptus, cypress, and moss. A majority of the ingredients are high purity essential oils to help boost mood and the immune system, as well as reduce inflammation, to offer benefits to the wearer that go beyond mere artistic pleasure.
Pierre Guillaume Paris: The perfume house has debuted Tigre d'Eau 22.1, a fougère fragrance with a sweet and salty twist. The white water tiger, the animal of the Chinese calendar from February 2022 to January 2023, served as the scent’s inspiration, with the brand describing it as “the olfactory allegory of a white tiger lying in fresh grass.” Notes include coconut water, chlorophyll, salted caramel, and tonka bean.
Régime des Fleurs: Tóor Tóor is a unisex take on tuberose, crafted by IFF master perfumer Dominique Ropion. The eau de parfum amplifies the earthy, green, and spicy facets of natural tuberose extract through freesia, violet leaf, grapefruit rind, and violet leaf, with initial inspiration points including brutalist architecture. Ropion describes the scent as a “mysterious and distorted tuberose.”
SUN.DAY: Afar, described as "a journey into delicate, distant horizons," is the brand's first foray into personal fragrance. The resulting extrait de parfum is a grounding herbaceous concoction. Citrus yuzu and warm cardamom dance with floral facets of linden, jasmine tea, and Turkish rose. These lighter aspects are offset by the smokey incense qualities of palo santo and frankincense, as well as woody notes of cedar, sandalwood, and agarwood. A final touch of ambergris and vanilla creates a smooth, skin-like finish. To top it all off, each bottle design features a 3D-printed cap made from 70% recycled post-industrial materials.
Thameen: Bravi is the third perfume release of The Britologne Collection. Under artistic direction of Christopher Chong, perfumer Bruno Jovanovic created an olfactory interpretation of the diva, as inspired by a shared evening of opera with friends post-pandemic. The resulting fragrance celebrates the appropriately named Queen of the Night flower, or tuberose, in a citrus gourmand composition with notes of bitter orange, ginger, walnut milk accord, honey, and tobacco.
The Merchant of Venice: Gold Regatta is inspired by the Regata Storica, an annual celebration of the region’s rowing tradition. Perfumer Véronique Nyberg sought to encapsulate a day spent walking alongside the canals of Venice, evident in the salty, marine, and ambery woody notes of the fragrance. Other aromatic components include red seaweed, fig, immortelle, and vanilla. The glass flacon echoes Venetian fabrics with a gold and sapphire blue print.
Tuberosa Louca: Transfusão, the Portuguese term for “transfusion,” is not for the faint of heart. Perfumer Alexandre Gutvilen created an amber spicy fragrance with chestnut, cannabis, tuberose, opium, tuberose, patchouli, anise, and cedar. Like blood, it’s dark and may startle some, but also highly invigorating.
Urania’s Children and the Heavenly Garden: Given its emphasis on gender neutral high perfumery, the brand’s latest release, Fluid Nature, is a perfect addition to its debut line-up. The aquatic scent opens with a fluid elixir accord and fruity facets of peach and lychee, before arriving at a green floral heart of water lily, raspberry leaf, vetiver, and Indian jasmine. The base notes of white musk, amber, leather, and tobacco leaves add a sensual and dark edge.
Zernell Gillie: The Chicago-based fragrance house was founded by Gillie, who also works as an international DJ. Naturally, each fragrance is dedicated to a different musical genre. The newest release Hip Hop pays homage to the genre’s ’90s era with boozy notes of cognac, decadent dark chocolate and cacao, and velvety Ambroxan.
