“You smell good"

When everything else feels off on a particular day - hair, wardrobe, energy - scent can be the saving grace, lifting your mood and everyone else’s around you. By smelling good, you can also rest assured that you’re leaving a trace, whether that’s in a room, on clothing or in people’s Proustian memories.

So, we asked the Because team: what are the fragrances that actually get noticed? The ones that turn heads and spark conversations. From Dulcie’s rose-tinted Dreamland to Frédéric Malle’s blackcurrant-laced Synthetic Nature, these are the scents we wear when we want to be remembered.

Eve Bailey

My accidental breakthrough came via Glossier You. The first time I tried it was at the brand's London pop-up many years ago, under harsh lighting and mild scepticism, I was unmoved. Fast forward two years and I’m in a Chinese restaurant bathroom (as all great beauty revelations happen), trailing a girl who smelt addictive: feminine, cool, understated, a scent I couldn’t quite place. She said “Glossier” and I nearly apologised to the brand on the spot. She generously sprayed me, and suddenly I was that person, mentally accepting an imaginary award for “Best-Smelling Person in the Room.” Even in the Uber home, my driver fully turned around at a red light to ask what I was wearing so he could buy it for his girlfriend, arguably the highest form of public endorsement. It wears close: warm, slightly peppery, with that skin-scent quality that shifts on everyone. I became insufferable overnight. Ordered it the next day, obviously. And now, anytime I need a little extra attention (which is often), I reach for Glossier You.

Then there’s The Cut by Penhaligon’s, which feels more like a personality I’m testing out. It’s described as a bold reinterpretation of the classic fougère, sharp, precise, very Savile Row, which suggests someone far more composed than I typically am before noon. Tailoring, structure, discipline… all things I admire, occasionally borrow, but rarely sustain. The first time I wore it properly, I over-sprayed before an event, fully expecting it to vanish by lunchtime along with my energy levels. But it didn’t. It held. Through crowds, travel, and the general unravelling of the day, it stayed crisp and clean. By the time I got home, my flatmate stopped mid-conversation to ask what I was wearing. Not something I would have instinctively chosen for myself, which feels telling. Sometimes you think you know what suits you, and then something sharper, more structured comes along and proves you wrong. Now, somehow, this is the one people say smells like me. Maybe this is my Savile Row savant era, or at least the fragrance equivalent of briefly having my life together.

Amelia McGarvey

I bought Dreamland by Dulcie in 2024 on a particularly sentimental trip to the British seaside. It was my first tryst with the brand (which at that time was called Haeckels), and I was drawn to this very Victorian idea that seaweed, sea air and a beachside sauna could be magically life-resolving. All of this is to say: I love this perfume and so does everyone else. The rose is jammier than it is powdery, but resists being gourmand with the vetiver and wood. It is unconventional despite being quite plainly gorgeous. It also lasts forever which is very important to me! I like the idea that it is uniquely mine. 

Jicky by Guerlain gets me for the opposite reason: it was created in 1889 and is cited as the first modern perfume, which charms me to no end. Although I’m sure it was much more pungent 130 years ago (why are perfumers so scared of filling a room?) I get a certain satisfaction knowing that when I wear it I enter a tradition of fabulous men and women who also want to reek of lavender, rosemary and bergamot. I was very flattered when a friend said I smell like a posh Swiss spa for old ladies – I’m sure some people would find that repulsive.

Matteo Pini

Green, green and more green: Synthetic Nature by Frederic Malle might be the zingiest, most verdant fragrance I’ve ever encountered. Picture a forest on a summer’s morning, sun rays poking through the tops of trees, warming the foliage below and you’ll get the picture. Yet there’s no vegetal bitterness here: it’s rounded out by juicy blackcurrant and heavenly white floral notes. In the Because office, whenever I whip out the bottle, wrists and necks present themselves to me, waiting to be sprayed with its beautiful juice. It’s eye-fluttering bliss in a bottle, and manages to be simultaneously avant-garde and easy to wear.

When I say Ganymede by Marc Antoine Barrois is a compliment-getter, it’s not in the sense that people are flocking to me like a Lynx advert; consider Ganymede more of a slow-burning obsession. You might not even like it at first, but it has a way of embedding itself in your memory for days, weeks — or in my case, years. Based on a fascinating, seemingly incompatible series of notes – saffron, violet leaf, akigalawood and a big hit of mineral notes – the experience is totally otherworldly, like a fragrance we’ll be wearing in the year 3000.  It’s the kind of wonderfully weird, intriguing fragrance that, over 6 years after smelling it, I have never forgotten.

Yazzi Gockmen 

Dark Amber and Ginger Lily by Jo Malone is a scent I stole from my sister. As a child, I remember my mother owning a Jo Malone perfume, which led me to associate the perfumers with women of a certain age, and thus I steered clear of them. That was until one day, my older sister (aged 18 at the time) returned home from a shopping trip smelling like what in hindsight I would call hugging trees on mushrooms. Rich and woody, sweet and spicy, a tiny bit smoky, the fragrance left a trail around the whole house, its warmth genuinely seeming to radiate heat. I was practically hyperventilating as I approached to get a closer whiff. Where on earth did you get this divine perfume?! Oh, Jo. For a number of years, I helped myself to my sister’s precious bottle, the moment I could afford to purchase my own, was the moment I felt like a sophisticated adult. 

Currently, I am the one paying the compliments to people who wear Guidance 46 by Amouage. I have lost count of how many women I have nose-ogled at and then approached over this perfume. It was only the other week, on the umpteenth time of asking someone what fragrance they were wearing, that I actually wrote the name down and was able to google search it. Amouage Guidance 46 Exceptional Extrait de Parfum, retails for £425. Yikes. Not enough to put me off, however. This perfume is hands down the best thing that has ever penetrated my nostrils. I would happily sit alone in a dark room for 12 hours if the air was pumped with Guidance 46. It is tricky to describe the smell (the “notes” list is one of the most extensive I’ve seen), but let’s just say it transports you to a garden in the Middle East where the creme-de-la-creme of nuts, flowers, spices and sandalwood are cultivated. I dream of the day I may purchase my own Amouage Guidance and, hopefully, have the compliments returned.

Catherine Little

My first encounter with Libre by Yves Saint Laurent  feels stitched into my memory for life. It was the late summer of 2023 and I was on my very first trip to Paris with my best friend. She had just been gifted a new perfume for her birthday, and within moments, our tiny Airbnb became saturated with the most intoxicating scent I had ever known. It announced itself boldly, sharp, luminous, and impossible to ignore - yet beneath that brilliance lay something soft and quietly familiar. For me, that familiarity blooms from the lavender, the unmistakable top note and heart of the fragrance. It carries me instantly back to my childhood home, where a sprawling lavender bush framed the front door, perfuming every arrival and departure. In Libre, that same lavender is lifted and made radiant by orange blossom, then comes the slow burn: saffron and honey weaving warmth and depth through the air, turning something familiar into something almost incendiary - comforting and encompassing all at once.

What I love most is its devotion. This is not a fleeting whisper of a scent, but one that lingers - sprayed once onto a coat, it clings faithfully, wrapping itself around you each time you slip it on again. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the fragrance that gathers the most admiration. I say this without hesitation: whenever I wear it, someone always asks.