Fragrance, the scent that makes your skin smell good, can be as powerful and personal as a signature haircut or handbag. But the fragrance category isn’t all unbridled creativity and perfumers are constrained by a lot of factors, especially the need to make something that will sell. That’s particularly true in America, where a scent has to be evocative enough to be interesting but not so strange that it turns people off or sends them running for Febreze spray.
The word “fragrance” describes a mix of any of the more than 3,500 chemical ingredients that give personal care and cleaning products their unique scents. The FDA doesn’t regulate the chemicals in fragrance mixtures, which are known as olfactory chemicals, but exposure to some can lead to a range of health harms. Manufacturers aren’t required to list fragrance ingredients on their product labels and most perfumes contain a cocktail of tens to hundreds of them.
Fragrances can be derived from natural sources like plants, flowers or food, but many are now made with synthetic fragrance chemicals like calone and indole, which can provide smells not found naturally, such as the fresh ozonous aroma of seawater or the smooth sandalwood-like scent of the skin. Advances in perfume technology mean that the essence of a flower can be recreated without harming or over-harvesting it.
In addition to a wide array of new releases from cult fragrance brands such as Future Society, Hermes and By Kilian, this year’s best new perfumes include everything from luscious florals to modern takes on classic oud. We asked perfumers for their top picks in each of the major fragrance families.