Scents Of The Season

Most people change up their fragrance with the seasons, opting for lighter scents in the summer and warmer ones in the winter.

And, while our winters don’t resemble those up north, it would be a shame to miss out on the host of upcoming scents, sure to add some spice to the remainder of your year. (As if it weren’t spicy enough already.) We spoke to Maurice Locke, co-founder of niche perfume boutique Osme in Miami, about what fragrance trends to expect this season for men, women and home.

Fragrance For All

More and more high-end customers are gravitating toward niche perfumers, including Creed, Le Labo, Jo Malone and Frédéric Malle. These luxury artisanal scents are different than designer fragrances because they’re produced on a smaller scale and designed to be unisex. “If a woman put it on her skin, it’s going to smell feminine,” Locke says. “If I put the same thing on my skin, it will smell masculine.” Thus, couples with similar preferences can share the same fragrance while experiencing slightly different results.

Warming Trend

For the rest of the year, he predicts fragrances filled with spices like nutty cardamom and peppery coriander and a continuing trend toward oud, an expensive resin from the agarwood tree. The musky fragrance is not unlike unsweetened dark chocolate, Locke says, and perfumers normally add some sweetness to it. Additional warm scents on his radar include amber and labdanum (another resin-based scent with hints of leather, pepper, coffee and tar). “Darker scents last longer on the skin than something light like citrus. The ambers, the ouds, the heavier scents generally work better in a colder time.”

Essence Of Home

In terms of home fragrance, don’t expect anything too earth-shattering, he says. “During fall and winter, the customer always comes in to get something that reminds them of Christmas.” That means warm scents like tobacco, cinnamon, chocolate, amber and oud. “Trends for the home don’t change as much as perfumes for the skin,” Locke says. “When Christmas comes around, there’s friends and family coming together. There’s baking. Every year, it’s the same style people are going for.” O