Fragrances That Should Exist
I have been meaning to write something for Substack for a while, but finding the inspiration to write something serious has proven difficult. My first post doesn’t need to be a masterpiece though. This isn’t for anyone except me really (feel free to stick around if you’re not me though.) This isn’t life or death, it’s Substack and Substack is not that serious. Anyway, here are some fragrances that I think should exist.
I was partially inspired to make this list because I knew I needed to write something, but I was also inspired by more abstract fragrances that have been coming out recently. Auntie Anne’s announced their debut fragrance Knead in mid-August. Cirque du Soleil has their own fragrance now too. Inspiration for fragrance is truly everywhere and hopefully some perfumer out there is inspired by my list as well.
Cough Drops
I currently work at a doctor’s office and for whatever reason, in each exam room, smells stick around like crazy. If a patient comes into an exam room smelling like beautiful expensive perfume, the exam room will smell like beautiful expensive perfume well after they leave. If a patient comes into an exam room smelling like garbage and bad breath and cigarettes, you can only guess how the smell will linger. I don’t know what it is with these rooms, but all smells are amplified. That being said though, I have gotten more compliments on smelling good from eating cough drops than I have on my perfume, which is honestly hurtful.
Besides other people complimenting me on my cough drop smell, I honestly do love the smell of a cough drop myself. The combination of medicinal menthol and artificial fruit is honestly so unique and recognizable. There’s nothing like it. I am a big cough drop fan and will eat them even when I’m not sick. I have faced judgment for this, but I’m no longer afraid. I refuse to live in silence! I’m a cough drop eater and I’m proud! Anyway, if I could have my wish and have cough drop perfume, I would either want it to smell like a Halls cherry cough drop or a classic Ricola.
The Blue Razz Ice Elf Bar BC5000
I hate that I just typed the government name of this product. I also hate that it smells good and when someone uses it around me I end up complimenting them on it, potentially enabling their addiction, but it’s fine. Vaping is weird and I hate that The Nicotine Addiction™️ is back in style. Also, if someone comments that no one uses Elf Bars anymore and they’ve moved onto a Whateverthefuck bar, I don’t want to hear it. It’s not my battle, I’m just an observer. That being said, this product that I’m not going to repeat the name of, smells really incredible.
White Horse Vapor states that it smells like “tart blueberries and sweet raspberries with a refreshing icy twist.” (Use this link as a SOURCE or POINT OF REFERENCE. DO NOT buy a vape!) I would agree with that description for the smell as well. I do think it’s very blueberry heavy and the mint notes are very soft, like a Freshmint Tic Tac that has some vanilla-marshmallow to it. To be fair, I think the mint is meant to be tasted and not smelled. The smell of this product is mostly candied and the slight raspberry adds a little tartness. It’s quite complex for being literally just a vape.
I have never smelled any fragrance that is similar to this product, especially since blueberry isn’t a super popular fragrance note. I have considered buying this vape, extracting the juice, and putting it in an atomizer to spray on myself, but it turns out if I do that, I would be absorbing nicotine through my skin, which I don’t want to do. This product honestly would do good as a fragrance though and there would have to be little changes done to the bottle. It can be like a Burberry Her Elixir bottle situation.
Mildly on this subject, do you remember when TikTok Shop was supposedly selling reed diffusers that smelled like your favorite vape products? I have no screenshots of this because it was short lived, but I wondered if they were actually selling reed diffusers or if it was just a vape in disguise. If anyone else has any recollection of this, or knows what TikTok Shop was actually selling, please comment below.
An Old Italian Bakery
Old school Italian bakeries are sacred places to me. A sprinkle cookie will always improve my day, no matter what horrors I’ve endured. Encountering a rainbow cookie when least expected gives off the same joy as finding $20 on the ground. Besides the cookies, aesthetically, I love the display cases, the newspaper clippings and religious art on the wall. I love how none of them have ever been updated except for maybe a new cash register. Italian bakeries make me feel like I have stepped back in time. Besides all of that, the smell is like nothing else.
There are two distinct smells that come together to form the classic Italian bakery smell: the yeasty, more savory smell of bread baking and the sweeter stronger almond-y smell of baking cookies. These two things together are so warm, fresh, comforting and delicious. When you smell an old Italian bakery, you can understand how many have stood the test of time, besides obviously the baked goods being delicious.
There have been two scented products that come pretty close in smell. Dolce and Gabbana Devotion is pretty similar. It was designed to smell like a panettone, which I don’t think it does (unless I’ve been eating and smelling some funky panettones), but I think it smells like marzipan or a Jordan almond. Weirdly, almond is not a listed fragrance note, but I know it’s in there. You need to believe me.
The other thing that smells strikingly similar to an Italian bakery, more so than Devotion, is a discontinued body lotion from Lush in 2019 called Snowflake. Lush Cosmetics does something sinister where they keep this scent in their repertoire and put it in products inconsistently. They had it as a shower gel in 2020 called Almond Blossom that was a Mother’s Day exclusive. I have not seen any mention of it since. Anyway, Snowflake body lotion had a beautiful warm almond smell that smelled just like the sweeter part of an Italian bakery. I actually used to work at a Lush retail location when this product was released, and my selling point for it was that it smelled like an Italian bakery. I also live and work somewhere with a lot of Italians, so this was a great selling point. I miss this lotion dearly and fear I am the only one who does. It needs to be brought back as a whole product line. That would fix all of my problems.
Sprayaway Glass Cleaner
I use this glass cleaner both in my home and at work and it smells so good that it makes me excited to clean. It also made me realize how overrated Windex is. Like how did that become the default glass cleaner? Sprayaway is better in every way. Besides the product itself, though, let’s talk about the smell. Sprayaway Glass Cleaner has a fresh and clean smell, which is to be expected, but also vaguely smells like artificial grape. Think like a grape soda or hand sanitizer. I know that that description may make it seem cheap smelling, but I promise you it is anything but. The artificial grape is subtle.
Sprayaway Glass Cleaner is refreshing and would be the perfect summer scent. I have never smelled anything similar, but it has the same vibe as Glossier You. They’re both effortless and clean scents. If Sprayaway Glass Cleaner existed as a perfume, it would exist on the line that Glossier You sits on, right between a natural and unnatural fragrance, meaning they’re not fragrances you would necessarily encounter in nature, but they don’t smell out of place on a human. Plus, similarly to the aforementioned Elf Bar, making a fragrance bottle based off of the actual product wouldn’t be hard.
Unlit Cigarette
I know I claimed to be a nicotine hater, and I am! However, big tobacco has some pretty good smelling things that they understandably don’t want you to know about. They should really start making perfume instead of cigarettes and vapes.
I don’t smoke, but I do cosplay, and in May of 2023 I went to an anime convention dressed as Quanxi from Chainsaw Man. I was in fact pretending to be into Chainsaw Man more than I actually am in order to impress a man, which is funny since it goes totally against Quanxi’s character, a lesbian. Another thing you should know about Chainsaw Man is that all the characters are smoking all the time for no reason. Maybe they think it’s cool, but it’s not! However, everyone smoking is a reality I have to accept, and to be a good cosplayer, I do unfortunately need to give in and ignore my own clearly flimsy beliefs.
Anyway, unlit cigarettes. When I was cosplaying as Quanxi, I encountered another Quanxi cosplayer and we took a picture together. I joked that I wish I had a cigarette as a prop (Did I mention that Quanxi smokes because she is in Chainsaw Man?) and she very kindly gave me a real life cigarette. I’ve never held one in my hands before and I didn’t know what to do with it. It did unfortunately feel a little like a rite of passage, like oh, you think I’m cool enough to have this? You think I’m one of you? Am I in the club? Should I contact charli xcx?
I was in a Chainsaw Man cosplay photoshoot later that day and I did pretend to smoke for the picture, however I used a prop cigarette provided by another cosplayer. When I got home though, I observed my newfound real cigarette. I knew I wasn’t going to smoke it, but I kept it as a souvenir. I also smelled it, only learning then at 24 years old that cigarettes smell nice. For the uninitiated, unlit cigarettes are woody in smell, vaguely herbal, and surprisingly sweet like maple syrup (at least the one I had. It was a Marlboro something or other.)
Tobacco fragrances that exist, usually smell more like pipe tobacco. Usually there’s some vanilla involved too (or leather.) Tobacco and vanilla is a classic fragrance combination, and don’t get me wrong, it’s classic for a reason, but I’m surprised with how popular that is, there are no popular specific unlit cigarette fragrances. I feel like tobacco + vanilla lovers and unlit cigarette smell lovers have to have some overlap. It can’t just be me.
The closest things I have smelled to unlit cigarette smell are Clue Perfumery’s Warm Bulb (which is a crazy fragrance. Crazy in a good way) and Dossier’s Powdery Tobacco. Yes, I said Dossier! What about it! I have the Dossier version for a fucked up reason I’m not going to get into. On top of that though, I’m broke and I prefer the softness of Powdery Tobacco over the heaviness of the original Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille. The lightness of it makes it smell more like an unlit cigarette.
Honorable Mentions
Yellow Cake
I don’t have much to say about this one, but yellow cake is so nostalgic, fluffy, and delicious, especially with some canned chocolate frosting. This is an honorable mention because Maison Margiela Replica’s Afternoon Delight seems to be somewhat satisfying this need. It’s supposed to smell like a madeleine, which I know is very different from yellow cake, but it lives a town over. Disclaimer: I have not had a chance to smell Afternoon Delight, so what I’m saying is just based on reading the notes. I am well aware that the reviews are very mixed.
2000s Artificial Strawberry Smell
Fun fact! All strawberry fragrances are artificial since strawberries don’t produce oils and oils make perfume smell. So maybe I shouldn’t specify “artificial strawberry,” like how chai tea is tea tea. Anyway, this is an honorable mention because growing up I had two distinct memories of strawberry fragrances. The American Girl Bath and Body Works collab Berries and Cream body splash, and the Webkinz body spritz in strawberry. (I had a Strawberry Shortcake doll too, but I can’t remember how she smelled. I do accept her as a part of this collection though based off others’ memories.) Both of these fragrance products are fairly easy to buy secondhand online. I am partially fixated on these because of nostalgia, and partially because I feel like a lot of current strawberry fragrances are either not strawberry enough or they have some lactonic elements that turn sour.
I do have some good news for anyone who missed this smell though! Le Monde Gourmand’s Fraise Fouettée is a beautiful and affordable strawberry milk fragrance that perfectly encapsulates the 2000s strawberry scent. It is incredibly similar to the aforementioned American Girl Doll fragrance. I’m so happy it was recommended to me on Parfumo, so I no longer have to scour Ebay and frantically buy a bunch of discontinued products just to keep myself happy.
I do hope my little post entertained you. If you think I was missing anything on this list or if you know a fragrance that smells like anything I was hoping there’s a fragrance of, let’s talk about it in the comments below!
Akro Smoke smells exactly like a freshly opened unsmoked pack of cigs to me. Def check it out.
Such brilliance. I would add gasoline, personally <3