According to Fragrance Experts, These Fresh Perfume Trends Are Defining 2024

If you've landed on this story, I'm taking a guess that you love fragrance as much as I do. Each year, we see a number of different perfume trends take off. Last year, we saw the rise of expensive-smelling perfumes, and TikTok has only accelerated the beauty trend cycle, having helped perfume lovers discover the most complimented perfumes on the Internet, as well as discover their signature scent. In tandem with this, we're seeing perfume houses become more and more innovative with their ingredients that promise a longer-wearing perfumes. Meanwhile, societal shifts mean we're welcoming in sweeter scents that we wore in Y2K and turning to wellbeing perfumes that not only smell great, but help boost our mood and wellbeing with every spritz.

So, what does 2024 have in store for fragrance? To find out, I spoke to perfume experts, perfumers and fellow fragrance lovers to share the perfume trends that they think have shaped and will continue to shape 2024. Scroll ahead for the best perfumes you'll want to try next and spolier alert—you're about to smell really, really good with their recommendations.

See the Biggest Perfume Trends of 2024:

1. Citrus 2.0

Citrus perfumes can be fleeting. Thankfully, 2024's citrus launches have some serious longevity. "A trend I'm seeing is the rise of long-lasting citrus perfumes at an elite level," says fragrance journalist and presenter, Alice du Parq. "In the past, citrus scents have suffered from what I call the 'butterfly effect': pretty for a few moments, then they flutter away. It's really hard to get staying-power and punchy presence from citrus fruit extracts (for instance orange, clementine, grapefruit, pomelo, bergamot, yuzu and mandarin), as they're naturally volatile and their molecular structure is small, and so they diffuse off the skin faster than heavier base notes," she says. "Today, luxury fragrance houses are investing in a higher percentage of these oils to add more longevity on the skin, and using clever blending tricks with biotec synthetics to elongate their brightness and freshness for hours."

Want in? Some beautiful citrus-inspired scents have just landed. "Some great examples are L'Objet Kerylos (by perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena), which has a really sharp and addictive bitter bite," says du Parq. "Molton Brown Sunlit Clementine & Vetiver (by perfumer Julie Masse) features an intense, warm and luminous blend of citrus notes to create a conceptual idea of clementine, and the scent is anchored to skin with a massive dose of fresh vetiver to stretch it out." Our skin pH balance is another factor that can alter how fragrance (particularly natural ingredients like citrus) smells on skin, which is what Parfums de Marly has taken into account with it's new fragrance, Perseus. The woody grapefruit scent was created to last on all skin types and is still detectable hours later on the skin.

"Perfume lovers are prepared to pay for artistic creativity and quality, but they also want value for money with perfumes that last; so if you're putting a high price-tag on a scent that won't last beyond a few hours on your skin, you're going to lose customer loyalty," says du Parq. "And you can bet I'm going to call you out on it too!"

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2. Greenhouse Scents

According to 2024's perfume launches, we're heading into the greenhouse, the garden and the allotment for some green-fingered scented inspiration. A WGSN report tipped the trend last year, and we've since seen vegetal and aromatic scents follow. "It's part of a wider movement that sees perfumers seeking gender-free and more inclusive compositions. As fragrance moves away from its traditionally gender-based storytelling, it needs new scent profile inspiration," the report says. "Vegetable botanicals and culinary foods are becoming a strong influence, inspired partly by consumers' renewed interest in growing their own vegetables."

Take Jo Malone London's Emerald Thyme cologne, which conjures a wonder through a herb garden, with freshly picked basil, thyme and rosemary with a twist of lemon and moss. If you're looking to bring the outdoors in, it doesn't get chicer than Loewe's take on mushroom within its room spray. Inspired by portobello mushroom, it has an earthy quality with wood and patchouli that creates a grounding atmosphere wherever you mist it. And Miller Harris La Feuille is an ode to the tomato leaf entwined with green ivy and fig that transports to a sun-dappled greenhouse. This year, we're spraying our way to our five a day.

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3. Milking It

With #milkperfume racking up 21 million views and counting on TikTok, the creamy gourmand note is proving to remain a popular perfume trend in 2024. "Milk perfumes are having a moment and I can totally see why," says Who What Wear UK junior beauty editor Grace Lindsay. "These warm, comforting scents are all over TikTok as they offer a new, sophisticated way to wear gourmand fragrances without being overly sweet. The creamy base also works really well for layering with other scents allowing you to create your own unique perfume," she says.

Commodity's Milk scent comes in three different intensities (Personal, Expressive and Bold) depending on how far you like your scent to project from the skin. The Personal scent stays close like a second skin with a comforting milky note that's subtlety sweet yet musky, while Expressive and Bold increase in their potency with the same addictive lactonic note with tonka bean and amber. Into your alternative milks? Serge Lutens Dent De Lait combines creamy almond milk and coconut with a clean smelling musk, while Ellis Brooklyn's Vanilla Milk is a sweeter take on milk with glowing amber and sweet vanilla. And with the arrival of Dedcool's Milk Layering + Enhancer this year, we're not seeing milky scents going anywhere.

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4. Mood Boosters

The line between perfumery and aromatherapy is increasingly becoming more blurred, with fragrance houses creating fragrances that smell great and cater to the stresses of modern life simultaneously. And these fragrances can become rituals to restore and soothe us, explains Emma Vincent, Lush perfumer. "Finding the right fragrances to wake you up or soothe you to sleep can be a wonderful way to weave scent into your every day," she says. "Every habit starts with a cue. We can use fragrance to recall these everyday memories and how we felt at the time, making scent a powerful tool in building routines that support our natural cycle of sleepiness and wakefulness."

Take Edeniste, a fragrance house that built its line of fragrances—which include Relax, Happiness and Wellbeing to name a handful—on the foundations of neuroscience and scents that are proven to lift our spirits as we spritz. Meanwhile, Vyrao fuses together perfumery with energetic healing (you'll spot a charged Herkimer diamond housed in every bottle), with feel-good notes that smell incredible—they are good vibes, bottled. Then there is Marks & Spencer's best-selling Apothecary range, which has two new additions, Reassure and Restful, which are guaranteed to bring a moment of calm whenever you need it.

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5. Vintage Florals

"Every year sees a retro revival (some are more short-lived than others) and 2024's will revolve around 'vintage' smelling florals. Think: cherry blossom, iris, freesia, heliotrope, sweet pea and violet," says Dariush Alavi, fragrance expert and author. This time around, it's not a whole bouquet, rather a few stems of flowers that will shape floral fragrances, says Alavi. "They'll be presented in a clean, streamlined form, in order to make them feel contemporary," he says.

Right on cue, Cartier's latest launch Pur Lilas (£225) is an ode to lilac flower. "For me, lilacs symbolise the first brighter, longer and sunny days of spring," says Cartier's in-house perfumer, Mathilde Laurent. "My intention was to present a very young, fresh and radiant lilac. I opted for a white lilac with a subtle pink hue to reflect the lightness of nature," she says.

Bibbi Iris Wallpaper—inspired by a whole room covered from floor to ceiling in the flower—gives a nostalgic, powdery and papery violet mood. Serge Lutens' latest scent, La Fille Tour De Fer, combines Bulgarian rose and iris in a modern Parisian way and Bastille's Un Deux Trois Soleil captures the sweet almond notes of the heliotrope flower. In 2024, we're on the cusp of a retro floral revival.

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6. Quiet Luxury

After a long stint of 'beast mode' perfumes with powerful silage and bold notes, fragrance experts are tipping the trend of quiet luxury perfumes to stay put in 2024. "Scents themselves will be growing quieter. Whereas a few years ago, 'super loud' was seen as cutting edge, it now comes across as crass and boorish," says Alavi. "The quiet luxury trend has finally reached the perfume world and it's manifesting itself in the form of compositions where the volume control has been turned down by several notches," he says.

Want your perfume to whisper? Get acquanited with musk. Matiere Premiere Parisian Musc is a chic take on musk that stays close, while BDK Parfums 312 Saint-Honouré has a 'your skin but better' quality to it with musk and airy florals. Then you have Replica's Lazy Sunday Morning, which smells just like freshly laundered bed linen. Want something stronger that remains luxurious? Hermes' Hermessence Oud Alezan (£283) is a chic take on fresh rose and subtle oud.

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7. Sweet Escape

In contrast, we've also seen a return to sweet, sugary scents that feel fun, familiar and nostalgic. A report from Accupac dives into this trend, stating: "Millennials are a nostalgia fuelled generation because they came of age during so much turmoil. Nostalgia romanticises simpler times and gives our lives a feeling of meaning and continuity when so much about the future is unknown. We will see the resurgence of vintage products, fragrances that remind us of our stress-free summer holiday and throw backs that leverage our favourite bands and celebs." So that explains why we're all infatuated with body mists all over again.

And perfumers are tapping into this sweet escape too. "We’ve definitely noticed a rise in the popularity of sweet and gourmand scents—they feel familiar, comforting and universally appealing but also intriguing at the same time," says Phlur founder and creative director, Chrishelle Lim. "With our ‘sweeter’ fragrances, we adopt a more subtle approach with an added complexity. The scents are sweet but with so many added layers, a creamy olfactory response that brings a subtle maturity to the edible notes. A good example of this is Mood Ring, which has top notes of both pitaya pulp and sweet orange and also the nostalgic sweetness of fruit gummies making it the perfect bold, sweetly addictive fragrance," she says.

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