Gourmand Perfumes That Are Good Enough To Eat

Gourmand perfumes are getting their time in the spotlight right now. Think sweet scents, with notes of chocolate, vanilla, berries or caramel that are likely to remind you of decadent desserts.

And they’re getting more sophisticated too. Brands like Byredo and Maison Francis Kurkdjian are now mixing it up with ingredients such as spices, herbs and even exotic fruits.

Co-founder and master perfumer Olivier Cresp of Akro Fragrances, a London-based perfumery, recalls how the gourmand trend in perfumes started in the early 1990s, when he created Angel for Mugler, a unique scent loaded with praline, honey and cocoa powder.

“Gourmand perfumes are so popular because they are inspired by the rituals of life,” he explains. “Everyday when we wake up, we take pleasure in having a coffee or drinking tea or eating a sugar cookie. Our life is surrounded by gourmand pleasures which are closely linked to our memories. These memories bring us back to our childhood.”

Oliver mentions vanilla, rum, coffee and cocoa powder as among his favourite ingredients. He describes his style as figurative, so that when you smell his fragrances, they link back to your personal memories.

“You only need a few facets,” he elaborates. “And, most importantly, you need to work with the best ingredients. Like our Akro fragrance, Bake, for example, it’s only composed of a few key ingredients, namely vanilla, rum and whipped cream.

Here are four gorgeous gourmand perfumes to get you started on your scent journey.

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Anna Sui’s first fragrance collection is the cherry on top of your beauty shelf. Pick the personality you identify with the most – girly (Pretty Pink), chill (Mellow Yellow) or trendy (Violet Vibe) – or experiment with all three to suit your mood.

Pretty Pink is citrus fruity, with notes such as pink pomelo, mandarin and plum blossom; Mellow Yellow has a watery floral theme featuring sugared lemon, passionfruit pulp and vanilla; and Violet Vibe is fruity amber, featuring red apple blossom, jasmine petals and strawberry cream.

The oh-so-cute packaging, which comes in an eye-catching ice cream pint complete with a spray-through cherry pump, serves as the bottle’s main touchpoint.

This new scent from Cartier’s luxury Les Heures Voyageuses Collection might make you crave for a delicious dessert. Mathilde Laurent, the brand’s in-house perfumer, concocted Oud Vanille as her own interpretation of vanilla.

The scent is a combination of two ingredients that are similar and complement each other well. Oud is an intensely-fragrant oil extracted from agar trees that smells woody, and it’s matched with vanillin, which is powdery and sweet.

This unisex fragrance is a sophisticated follow-up to her 2015 perfume, l’Heure Perdue, a sweet scent based on vanillin (a synthetic raw material that’s a sweeter vanilla note) that was inspired by childhood. The scent was reportedly “inspired by Proust’s childhood memory of eating madeleines”.

This is the third and latest addition to the Gucci Flora collection, with each scent representing a specific flower. After Magnolia takes centrestage in this one – the perfume is created with the free-spirited woman in mind. Fruity-floral ingredients such as dewberries accord and patchouli essence give a juicy and earthy aroma to the sweetness of magnolia essence. Other aromatic scents include coconut accord and jasmine sambac absolute.

Angel Elixir comes 30 years after the original Angel scent, and it’ll overwhelm your senses – in a good way. Its predecessor had a sweeter scent, while this version boasts a more floral bouquet. Deep, addictive woody notes are wrapped in vanilla infusion, and the spiced floral milky notes are also obvious as soon as you breathe in this scent. The perfume is housed in Mugler’s iconic star-shaped bottle, in a deep blue that’s as intense as the woman who wears it.

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