Perfume As Performance Art
Perfume is supposed to smell nice, right? Not necessarily. While fragrance, like all art, is subjective, a handful of designers are pushing the fragrance wheel to its limits. Some of these perfumes were released as ad campaigns, others as political statements; regardless, the perfumes are all completely unique.
1. Pizza
Surprisingly, this is not the only pizza-inspired fragrance we came across in our research. Demeter fragrance offers over 200 fragrances inspired by everyday scents you likely never thought to wear. Among them is pizza, a fruity and aromatic scent with notes of creamy mozzarella and fresh oregano.
2. Red +MA
Blood Concept is a high-concept parfumerie which seeks to explore human identity through scent. Often, these scents are simple, yet challenging. Red +MA, inspired by blood and milk smelled in the first few hours of one's life, is no exception.
3. Dzing!
Launched in 1999, Dzing! by L'Artisan Parfumeur is meant to evoke the whimsy and innocence of the circus with sweet notes of tonka bean, cotton candy, and candy apple. Unfortunately, the top notes for most people end up being leather and musk, resulting in a rather stable, fur-like scent perfect for horse girls.
4. New York Yankees
If you've ever wanted to smell like a baseball stadium on the off season, the New York Yankees have you covered. The team launched a cologne meant to mimic the smell of their home turf, sweat included. With notes of coriander, sage, and sandalwood, it's close to Polo Blue.
5. Series 6 Synthetic Garage
In a word of standard perfumes, Comme Des Garçons is perhaps the only boutique brave enough to make anti-perfumes using all-synthetic scents. With traces of kerosene mingling alongside vetiver and cedar, Garage evokes, well...a garage. This is a great choice for those who love the smell but not necessarily the price of gas stations.
6. Inexcusable Evil
David-Lev Jipa-Slivinschi, the mind (and nose) behind Toskovat' was a filmmaker before a perfumer, and it shows. Each of his fragrances are like films in a bottle, but none so much as Inexcusable Evil. Inspired by Jipa-Slivinschi's Russian-Ukrainian upbringing, Inexcusable Evil smells like a military hospital complete with gunpowder, blood, iodine, and, below it all, human skin.
Pascal van de Vendel on Unsplash
7. But Not Today
The scarlet bottle of this Filippo Sorcinelli perfume has nothing on the scent inside. Inspired by Hannibal (the Ridley Scott film rather than the series), But Not Today has top notes of blood, artemesia, and lavender. This perfume starts off violent and sensual before drying down into notes of cumin and licorice.
8. Purpl Pekji
Purpl Pekji is the fourth installment in Ömer İpekçi's conceptual quartet. Described as a vaporwave, Dionysian perfume, Purpl Pekji smells like grapes and vinyl. The result is a bacchanal worthy of the Roman emperor Elagabalus, with grape soda flowing from the ceiling instead of rose petals.
9. Against Nature
TImothy Han Perfumes crafts scents inspired by great works of literature, such as Against Nature. Inspired by a 1884 novel which became a bible for sensualists such as Oscar Wilde and Paul Valéry, Against Nature seeks to bottle an alternative, somewhat disturbing beauty. Notes of blood and metal linger with lush moss and foliage.
10. The Decay Of the Angel
Inspired by Yukio Mishima's posthumous novel of the same name, this scent by Timothy Han takes the wearer through five stages: decay, diaphoresis, dirt, dissatisfaction, and darkness. Like a timelapse of a flower blooming and decaying, this perfume is a love letter to longing. The Decay of the Angel may be one of the more subtle scents on this list, but it is far from simple.
11. Frites
Brought to you by nothing less than the Idaho Potato Commission, Frites smells like everyone's favorite side dish. Released on Valentine's Day 2022, Frites sold out in minutes. Rather, this fake fragrance was a clever marketing ploy, but we'd totally give it a sniff if it were real.
12. Eau De Stilton
Unlike Frites, which was a marketing ploy, Eau De Stilton is terrifyingly real. Launched in an effort to get people to eat more blue cheese, this perfume—with its fecund notes of jasmine and angelica—was a massive flop, even among Stilton fans. We'd love to keep the beautiful bottle on our shelves, provided it's been thoroughly aired out!
13. Funeral Home
Another Demeter fragrance, Funeral Home started as a flower show scent but the vibe was...off. The classic white flowers in this scent include chrysanthemum, lily, and gladiolus, leading to a dry-drown that's more rest and peace than best in show. A great choice for goths!
14. Dark Neandertal
European brand Neandertal repackages the scents of yesterday for modern humans. By yesterday, we mean millions of years ago when the proto-humans the brand takes its name from were roaming the earth. Dark Neandertal images what the world smelled like all those years ago with notes of foliage, incense, and oud, all packaged in unique stoneware bottles.
15. Cannabis Intense
This scent by Fragrance Du Bois is much more complicated than you might guess from the name. The perfume opens with cardamom, pink pepper, and citrus before darkening into cannabis in oud. If you're the sort of person who enjoys this scent in other contexts, it may make a nice winter fragrance. If not, you're likely to get dry grass.
16. The Malignant Dreams Of Cthulhu In Love
Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's most famous character, this perfume dares to ask what would happen if a terrifying cosmic entity fell in love? Unsurprisingly, this perfume features notes of seaweed, salt, and ocean life alongside incense and chocolate. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab specializes in this sort of niche perfume, catering to gothic audiences.
17. Asphalt Rainbow
Charenton Macerations makes concept perfumes for the misfits and misunderstoods. Of the three scents currently on their website, asphalt rainbow is the most intriguing. Featuring strong floral notes mixed with the heady scent of asphalt on a warm summer's day, this perfume smells like a rose blooming out of concrete.
18. Hyde
Of all the leather-themed fragrances on the market, Hyde by Hiram Green might just be the most intense. Opening with bright notes of lemon and bergamot, Hyde quickly darkens into birch tar and oakmoss. This edgy scent evokes campfire smoke even at the height of winter.
19. Mississippi Medicine
MIssissippi Medicine by DS&Durga is one of the most medicinal scents on this list—Inexcusable Evil notwithstanding—it smells like a doctor's office, straight up. This scent uses notes of birch, cedar, and spruce to capture storytelling at its best. Apparently, this scent was inspired by a 12th-century Proto-Mississippian death cult...the more you know!
20. Secretions Magnifiques
The final boss of niche perfumes, Secretions Magnifiques by Etat Libre d’Orange is probably one of the most visceral and unsettling scents on the market. This famously off-putting perfume smells of blood, sweat, spit, and one another fluid that shall not be named on MSN. While many wearers find it distressing, even nauseating, Secretions Magnifiques has a devoted fanbase who are up for the challenge.
