JOIN USIf you stood in a crowded elevator any time during the 1980s, you may remember it: that overpowering, boozy scent of power perfume. In the fragrance world, the “me” decade manifested itself as potent concoctions designed to surround a woman in a cloud, then trail behind her down the street. A woman’s aromatic aura may have induced a headache in anyone within five feet, but at least people remembered her after she left the room.
The hot fragrances of that decadent time — Opium, Poison, Obsession — are not making a comeback (at least not yet), but the impulse to make a lasting impression with scent has returned in force. A new generation of power perfumes has emerged, and this time it is the fave-crazed millennials who are clamouring for increasingly strong, memorable fragrances that will become as much of a signature for them as their Twitter handle.
But this iteration of power scents is not all about floral, powder or spice notes, as was the trend in the 1980s. Rather, they have bolder, more unisex undertones, like incense, leather and oud. These days, it seems, women don’t necessarily want to be remembered for smelling like a rose garden. They want to showcase their strength, quirkiness and creativity.
Musky tones
Oud — or oudh, depending on where you are in the world — has exploded in popularity, especially among young consumers. (Many attribute the boom to Tom Ford’s Oud Wood, introduced in 2007.) Smoky and musky, it is often cut with floral or sugary notes to create intoxicating combinations. “I love wearing oud,” said Anna Young, an actress and former saleswoman at the Brooklyn fragrance shop Twisted Lily. “For one thing, it’s inherently androgynous. Women are as interested in it as men, which feels very modern for where we are at with gender dynamics. Also, the name sounds like wood, but it also sounds like some faraway Middle Eastern fantasy. It has a mystical, magical allure.”
Because oud is such a rare ingredient, it is often marketed as both luxe and exotic. Raw oud oil, which can cost up to $5,000 a pound, comes from a fungus that grows on agarwood trees, although a lot of the oud on the market now is a synthetic recreation of the actual thing.
Roja Dove, a high-end British perfumer who has a shop in Harrods, is known throughout Europe and the Middle East for his oud fragrances, which use real oud oil and can cost upward of $500 a bottle. This summer, he introduced a Tutti Frutti Aoud line to appeal to younger customers who were drawn to the ingredient, cutting the agarwood with notes like raspberry, strawberry and violet.
In October, the French perfume house Diptyque introduced its first oud scent, Oud Palao. Myriam Badault, the creative director of the house, calls oud “the new patchouli.” “Strong, creative fragrances are back,” she said, “and we really feel that perfume experts are not looking anymore for clean and ‘me too’ products.”
The “clean” fragrance that Myriam alludes to has dominated much of the last decade, with perfume houses pumping out delicate scents that would never offend the nose. (Think Armani’s oceanic Acqua di Gioia or Byredo’s soft, lemon-peppery Gypsy Water.) But even cleaner fragrances are getting funkier and more striking, redolent of rain, dirt and fresh herbs.
“We had this group of 20-something women who came into the store all dressed in chic black who we call the Witches of Bushwick,” Anna said. “And they all ran straight to a fragrance called Coven by the Icelandic indie perfumer Andrea Maack, which kind of smells like rolling around in the forest for a few hours. It’s very pungent. You notice it from feet away.”
Anna attributes the bold, adventurous choices of these women to the Internet (with sites like Fragrantica, Luckyscent and Basenotes, it’s easy to become educated about artisanal fragrances that fall outside of mass-produced designer juices) and to the increased desire to express one’s individuality that has come with the millennial ethos. “People are trying to move out of big-box-store uniformity,” she said. “And they look for that everywhere, even in scents. It is an invisible expression of self.”
Josie Alycia Plumey, the in-house fragrance expert at Osswald in SoHo, also suggests that young people want to make that kind of impact. “It really is like the ‘80s again,” she said. “They want to walk into a room, walk out and be remembered. Maybe it’s the entitlement or selfishness, but I actually think they are just savvy and want what no one else has. They want people to ask them, ‘What are you wearing?'”
The new power perfumes are not about arriving at the party in a haze of an unavoidable bouquet, but rather showing up smelling like no one else, and then leaving people clamouring to know what mysterious and enigmatic fragrance you are wearing. And if that is not a modern-day power move, what is?