The stereotype of the hapless man bumbling through the perfume and jewelry section of a department store during the holiday season need not be true in the modern age. Fragrance is for everybody—men and women, all ages and all creeds. And picking out a fragrance for a friend, partner, or family member is one of the most intimate gifts you can buy. It forces you to really think about the person’s individual characteristics. While shopping for a scent for my partner, I once had a Chanel representative tell me that while she could give me some advice about general qualities, I should pick the fragrance myself and trust my own intuition, because first, I’d be smelling it a lot, and second, the gift should come from my sense of the person, not the lady at the perfume desk’s idea of him.
With that said, if you’re new to the world of fragrance or intimidated by the prospect of buying a scent, we’ve compiled some recommendations from trusted sources. Fragrances last a long time and are one of the most thoughtful gifts you can give. Make the special people in your life feel special.
Some Perfume Tips to Guide Your Gifting
Often, you’ll hear perfumers talk about top notes, middle notes, and base notes of the scent, or the “heart” of the scent. These terms describe what in the industry is called the olfactory pyramid. Because the notes of a fragrance vary in origin and proportion, every fragrance is different. One floral scent can be rich and full-bodied, while another can be light and playful. Citrus elements like neroli and grassy ones like vetiver can add different qualities to a fragrance depending on where they fall in its olfactory pyramid. The same with amber, oud, sandalwood, cedar, iris, and all manner of natural rose and jasmine derivatives. As you develop your own taste for what you like, you’ll be able to identify which ingredients in a fragrance are what you enjoy. Sites like Fragrantica and Luckyscent can help.
You might see some scents labeled as Eau de Parfum or Eau de Toilette. Eau de Parfum is 12-20% perfume oil and typically lasts around 8 hours. Eau de Toilette is 5-15% perfume oil and will generally last around 5 hours. But this doesn’t mean Eau de Toilette is less strong, only that it lasts for a shorter time.
Every person smells different, and what’s good on each person’s body varies vastly. Don’t be afraid to try samples to see what you like, and remember to try it on your skin, as well as on the tester. It’s also smart to smell wrist your 20, 40 and 60 minutes after you apply a spritz of scent. The dry-down reveals a great deal about how a scent reacts to the heat of your body and your own individual chemistry. Often, a scent will come across as sexier and more appealing after it’s had a chance to cure on your skin for a while.
13 Top Perfumes to Gift Someone Special
Frankincense Eau De Parfum by Enfleurage
Enfleurage is an all-natural perfumery and aromatics shop in New York known for their rich, smoky frankincense perfume, created from the resin of trees grown in the heart of Oman. This natural resource has been treated for millennia! Frankincense Eau de Perfume can work on men or women, as it’s sensual, bold, and classic all at once. Think of an oaked red wine or smoky bourbon, with a scent that transports you to windswept nights in the Arabian desert. It also comes in a candle form if you prefer to try out the scent in your home in addition to wearing it.
Citrus Cheer Roll-On by Enfleurage
This was Enfleurage’s first blend, and consistently their best-selling one, in the form of a roll-on stick rather than a bottle of eau de parfum. “It’s a mouth-watering mix of citrus peels with jasmine and orange blossom. It’s especially relevant in the winter season after a tense fall, when people might need some cheering up,” Thomas Carson of Enfleurage told TABLE. “All of our roll-on blends are good, though. And they’re not as subjective as a perfume (where matching the scent to an individual is a complex and intimate process).” Each roll-on has a specific intention, like giving cheer, so give this to someone who might need a little pick me up.
Santal 33 by Le Labo
If anyone reading this list is looking to get me a gift, consider this a nudge. Santal 33 is Le Labo’s signature scent, and one of the most sensual bottles out there. Le Labo is a perfumer with a creative, irreverent vision and a clear aesthetic, complete with a perfume manifesto. As you walk into any of their storefronts, you know you’re in for some serious fragrance business. Le Labo begins describing Santal 33 with a visualization. “Imagine sitting in solitude on the rugged, wide plains of the American West, firelight on your face, indigo-blue night skies above. There is nothing around save for the soft, desert wind. You. Are. Free.” Don’t you want it now, too? It’s a mixture of cardamom with notes of iris and violet, and then gets its spicy, leathery crackle from from Australian sandalwood and cedarwood.
Le Parfum I Want Choo by Jimmy Choo
This Jimmy Choo perfume has top notes of pear, golden gardenia, blackberry, jasmine, patchouli, and ambrette. Then, indulge the senses with a base of moss amber, sandalwood, praline accord. India Harris, a fragrance representative at Nordstrom, pointed to this as a top seller this year. Jimmy Choo describes it as “sumptuous and playful,” meant “to capture the powerful and celebratory spirit at the heart of Jimmy Choo’s DNA.” The sparkly gold bottle almost feels like you’re buying champagne in perfume form.
Good Girl Blush Eau de Parfum by Carolina Herrera
The high heel-shaped perfume bottle is a little bit of a gimmick, okay, but it’s a gimmick that I have fallen for in many a department store or Duty-Free airport kiosk. And we couldn’t leave out the flowery scents. This one is meant to “reveal the multifaceted nature of modern womanhood with a double dose of vanilla and the pastel romanticism of peony evoked with two forms of ylang-ylang and rosewater.” Harris noted that this is one of the top sellers and a consistent gift recommendation she gives for shoppers.
Joy by Jean Patou
The likes of Vivien Leigh, Jackie Kennedy, and Pearl Bailey wore this scent. Anyone wearing it is in good, classy company. Joy is a perfume for big dreamers and achievers, as Patou doubled the amount of ingredients ordinarily found in a perfume in an effort to create the most sublime scent. 10,600 jasmine flowers and 28 dozen roses make up Joy. Even the bottle of Joy follows the Ancient Greek principles of divine proportions to achieve a perfect shape. The fragrance has a base of musk and sandalwood, a heart of costly jasmine and rose, and top notes of intriguing ylang-ylang and sensuous tuberose.
Chanel No. 5
This fragrance almost needs no introduction. If you know one perfume, it’s probably this one. Everyone from Catherine Deneuve to Brad Pitt has worn it. Coco Chanel famously said that a woman should smell like a woman, not a rose. Her No. 5 fragrance says class, sensuality, and beauty through its bright citrus top notes, floral Jasmine and May rose middle, and a touch of bourbon vanilla on the finish. It’s a fragrance hard to pin down, and makes its wearer feel as iconic as the bottle. Though it’s sold as a women’s fragrance, guys, if you really want to impress a woman, a spritz of Chanel No. 5 is swoon-inducing.
Cloud by Ariana Grande
Another gimmicky bottle, but this scent is popular on PerfumeTok, the subset of TikTok where Gen Z influencers opine on it. It would be easy to deride this fragrance as a fad, but with top notes of lavender blossom, juicy pear, bergamot, and middle notes of vanilla, créme de coconut, and praline, and a base of sensual musk and woodsiness, it’s a playful and uplifting fragrance that’s a steal at $70 a bottle. This would make a great first perfume for a teen or twenty-something you’re struggling to find an appropriate gift for.
White Suede by Tom Ford
Though marketed to women, Tom Ford’s White Suede is an elegant, velvety scent that all can enjoy. White Suede is a very musk-forward fragrance. So, think of the person in your life that likes a smoky bourbon neat or a puff of a fine cigar. White Suede then adds a more supple, bodily element to that scent profile. Tom Ford is indisputably classy and will have you turning heads whatever room you walk into. For a more traditionally masculine take on notes of fig and leather, try super-sexy Tom Ford Extreme. It works on men and women.
Pegasus Exclusif by Parfums de Marly
Continuing with the velvety, leathery notes, Pegasus Exclusif is typically for men, but can make a statement as a fragrance on a woman. It boasts an impressive olfactory pyramid of top notes of bergamot, pink pepper, cardamom, heliotrope, a heart of jasmine, bitter almond, lavender, and geranium, and base notes of vanilla, amber, sandalwood, gaiac wood, and natural oud. Oud is the somewhat smoky and woody essence of aquilaria tree sap, often harvested in the Middle East. It’s one of the most exclusive and prized possessions in fragrances, part of what makes this scent so exclusif.
I Don’t Know What by D.S. & Durga
The French say that some things have a certain “je ne sais quoi.” That saying inspired D.S. & Durga for this popular bottle of unisex fragrance enhancer. While I Don’t Know What can be worn on its own, it adds a refreshing touch to oils like oud, patchouli, or sandalwood. Bergamot sets a fresh tone. Vetiver Acetate adds a thin layer of amber, and firsantol a lingering sandalwood. And so on. D.S. & Durga describes the process of its formulation as “…like a building with only structure—no interior. You can fill in the interior with an oil, a scent you like, even an old scent that has lost its way.” A small bottle of this is a nice stocking-stuffer for someone you already know loves perfume.
Bois Farine by L’Artisan Parfumeur
This is a staff pick from TABLE Editor-in-Chief Keith Recker, another fragrance aficionado. “The company uses all-natural fragrance components to build memorable scents inspired by real life sensory experiences. Bois Farine was the first scent created by the founder, Jean-Claude Ellena, in his series of travel and ingredient stories. The ‘flour wood’ involved here comes from the forests of Reunion Island (a French territory off the coast of Africa). The tree is said to be enchanted and its red blossoms smell like flour. The fragrance has rich floral notes like iris, as well as lovely, grounding woody notes, with hints of spice and amber. I like it best in the cooler seasons, because it is warming and nourishing and reassuring.”
Latte e Mandorla by Profumo di Firenze
For another staff pick, this is one of my favorite scents. At beats with a heart of rose and anise, mixed with notes of milk and almond. The results are a dreamy, romantic fragrance with both a sense of joie de vivre and a certain maturity. It brings to mind the sweeping, deep-hearted love stories of classic films or ancient tales, pure romance without the fluff. Though I often gravitate towards smokier scents (Enfleurage’s frankincense is another staple of my fragrance collection), Latte e Mandorla was one of the first fragrances I fell in love with. It’s warm and rosy without being overwhelmingly sweet, and the anise heart reminds me of the herbal liqueurs of Italy.
Eau de Parfum 602 by Bon Parfumeur
This comes from Bon Parfumeur, as recommended by François Duquesne of Maison Duquesne. #602 is a fragrance that balances wood and spice with freshness and softness. Its heart of neroli brings the softness. A base of patchouli and vetiver grounds the scent in a forested terroir. Perfumer Nathalie Koobus stated that Bon Parfumeur founder Ludovic Bonneton had in mind the Queen of the Night aria for this fragrance. “My walks in the rain in Auvergne, the addictive scents that follow the rain, and an overdose of pepper came back to me,” Bonneton said of #602.
Story by Emma Riva / Photo courtesy of Bon Parfumeur
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