You’ve put away your cashmere and pulled out the linen. Is it time to do the same thing with your scents?
With spring fully sprung, winter woes have melted away and the sun stays in the sky longer and longer each day. And as you put away the long johns and heated blankets, you should also shelve any fragrances with cosy leanings—the smoky, leathery, spicy numbers that pair well with cold weather wear. It’s time to rotate in scents with more levity to match the springtime mood.
“Spring always leads me to reach for greener, dewier fragrances that hint of longer days and renewal,” says fragrance and grooming journalist Haydn Williams, who hosts the grooming-centric Man in the Mirror podcast. “Matching a fragrance to the spring season helps to amplify this sense of new beginnings. Spring is the most optimistic season, and I tend to want my scent to echo that feeling, so I keep it citrusy, green, and bright.”
That’s not to say your signature scent needs to be put on leave; ideally, that ol’ reliable cologne is a perennial player. But having a go-to spring scent is one of those “fragrance wardrobe” essentials for anyone looking to build a small portfolio of scents. Think of a spring scent as perfect for year-round weekend wear, or even those days when you need an olfactive pick-me-up.
“The great thing about spring fragrances is that they tend to be fresher and lighter,” adds Williams, noting that they’re also terrific crowd-pleasers in the workplace. But he adds that the nature of these lighter raw materials often lends itself to a lessened longevity. “It might be worth keeping a travel size or a smaller volume bottle in a work bag or gym bag for an additional top-up or spritz through the day,” he says. “These kind of notes don’t hang around forever. However, don’t see this as a bad thing. See it as a chance to re-apply and get the compliments all over again. Life’s too short to be mean with your sprays!”
With that said, our list of picks below (with a few of Williams’s favourites, too) has a range of offerings, from light-wear eau de toilettes to long-lasting extraits.
The best spring colognes for men
L’Objet Delphes
L’Objet specialises in distinctive ways to elevate your everyday life—its whimsical sculptures and offbeat ceramics feel, well, special. And the latest of the brand’s personal scents is equally compelling: perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena crafted a fresh-but-spicy, earthy-but-breezy recipe, the first to use Olive Grignon Absolute (olive wood) in this sun-soaked nod to Greece. This one will coast right into summer, and even pepper winter’s gloomier days with a dash of sun.
Creed Wild Vetiver
Creed’s latest rollout is, by design, overgrown and untamed. It’s redolent of the tall grass around the beaten path that winds away from the noble gardens. Its top notes are beautifully pronounced: a squeeze of bergamot over pink pepper and timur berry, which moves into a rosy heart. But that woody dry down is the best part of the wear: It has the soothing, carefree hum of a two-drink buzz during an endless late-spring sunset.
Andrea Maack Neon Veil
As memorable as the name “Neon Veil” is, I always associate this with a descriptor that Maack gives her ethereal skin scent: “electric optimism.” Inside this framework of spring scents, think of Neon Veil as “how Iceland does spring.” Its blend of musk, wood, and iris smells not only electric but also geothermal, solar, spicy, bold. But this is one scent that’s decidedly intimate: people will have to get close to you to understand exactly what’s going on.
Montblanc Neroli Letters
Loewe Aire Sutileza Elixir
This extension of Loewe’s pear-powered Sutileza reimagines the classic scent with the label’s signature Spanish Rockrose (which is at the heart of all of its new elixirs). A crisp opening combines that pear with citrus juices and redcurrant, and then it evolves into a cloud of florals and musks. If anything on this list feels built specifically for spring, it is this near-drinkable elixir.
Amouage Sequence
Amouage is on a roll with its Essences line—those products with 30-percent pure perfumes, then aged in oak barrels and sandalwood chips for six months. And Sequence is a sweet addition to the Essences roster, part of a new trio called The Essences: Act II. This one has a leathery, oudy, tonka build, but is punctuated and projected by lychee and raspberry.
Solférino No. 05 Un Samedi à Paris
A cozy April Saturday in Paris… that’s the brief. In fact, Solférino’s entire assortment imagines different corners or events around the City of Lights. And this one, Un Samedi à Paris, is the greatest of the lineup. A rousing woody core (vetiver, sandalwood, cedarwood) gives it structure, while peppery and vanillic notes punctuate the entry and dry down. Overall, I’ll be giving this one “shoulder season” wear, as things transition to and from colder weather, a light layer that compensates for the sun’s middling attempts to break through the clouds.
Le Labo Violette 30
Le Labo recently introduced its latest pillar scent, centred on the complexity and intrigue of white violet. Violette 30 layers the powdery, shade-loving floral with white teas, greens, and stirring woods. On paper, this might read as a feminine expression, but on anyone’s skin (and to the passerby) it projects nuance, introspection, and sophistication.
Diptyque Orpheon
Orphéon EDT is a sequel: First came the beloved, powdery, juniper-cedar EDP in 2021. Its skintimate, smoky elements made it a bestseller. This new EDT keeps that DNA but also feels better suited to the masculine wearer. It is less powdery and disarmingly charming thanks to a delicious yuzu-mandarin entry and a spicy dash of ginger and pink pepper. You’ll love wearing it year-round, for the literal spring that it puts in your step.
Dior Homme Parfum
Much as we hate to start with a contradiction, many of the season’s best scents zig where others zag, leaning into heavier, more complex, longer-lasting formulas. The best example is Dior Homme Parfum, created by Francis Kurkdjian. It’s a real celebration of iris—the perfumer told Robb Report, “Basically, we cleaned up the market,” buying all of the available flowers to have the right quantity. “It took us two years to create the stock that we needed.” He paired the bloom with amber, patchouli, and cut hay for a balanced take on woody, masculine scents.
Arquiste A Grove by the Sea
Inspired by the Croatian island of Lopud, A Grove by the Sea conjures the smell of Adriatic salt air blowing over a fig grove near the coast. The evocative blend is rounded out with rosemary, olive oil, pine needles, and a hint of red clay. It’s agrarian yet elegant, and refreshing on days when the air is warm and humid.
Les Eaux Primordiales Cedre Superfluide
Les Eaux Primordiales quickly became one of lifestyle director Justin Fenner’s favorite fragrance brands after it launched in the United States earlier this spring. While many of its fragrances are available stateside, thanks to Nordstrom, one of the best is Cedre Superfluide. It’s a sophisticated take on the oft-combined cedar and rose notes, and has what can only be described as a creamy presentation and non-stop longevity.
Eauso Vert Dos Mil Años
Inspired by a real living legend—a cypress tree in Oaxaca that is estimated to be over 2,000 years old—this scent from Eauso Vert is green, woody, fresh, and intensely grounding. It opens with cypress, grapefruit, and pepper before drying down into vetiver and labdanum. It makes you want to hug a tree, in the best way.
Terre d’Hermès Eau de Parfum Intense
The brainchild of Hermès’ charming in-house perfumer, Christine Nagel, the newest version of Terre d’Hermès ups the ante on longevity without overloading your nostrils. In Eau de Parfum Intense, she used a natural licorice wood accord, which had never been used in perfumery before this bottle. To warm up the flagship scent’s signature flinty nature, she devised a lava rock note that gives the scent its structure. The result is a warm, woody scent with remarkable longevity and an intimate wearing experience. In other words, people have to get close to you before they catch its fragrance.
Costa Brazil Aroma
Fashion designer Francisco Costa has been applying his creativity to his eponymous grooming line since 2018 and launched his first fragrance, Aroma, in 2022. It quickly became a favourite among fragrance cognoscenti for its imaginative take on Breu, a resin that grows in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. It smells of citrus, myrrh, cedar, and amber, and its wooden bottle is a stylish homage to its natural source of inspiration.
Infiniment Coty Paris Aristo Chypre
Perfumer Francois Coty invented chypre, the fragrance classification referring to scents with floral top notes that give way to a woody base, when he devised a cologne of the same name in 1917. (Chypre is a variation on the French word for Cyprus.) Over a century later, the house that bears his name has honored his original masterpiece by releasing Aristo Chypre, one of 14 fragrances that launched with the new brand Infiniment Coty Paris. It uses a chypre accord along with roses and patchouli for a uniquely noble scent, evoking the aura of a confident, self-made man.
Dries Van Noten Mystic Moss
If you’re an aesthete who calls it “consuming cannabis” and not “smoking weed,” this fresh, spicy, and citrusy scent may be the one for you. Its vibrant formula opens with a welcoming burst of lime, orange, and clary sage; settles into geranium and algae; and brings up oakmoss, vetiver, and patchouli on the earthy drydown. It’s an elegant eau de toilette, so you may have to reapply it before cocktail hour, when it’s sure to get compliments.
Acqua di Parma Colonia Essenza Eau de Cologne
This light cologne is one of the first scents Williams rotates in each spring. “It’s a mood-boosting citrus and super-classy,” he says of the bergamot-, neroli-, and grapefruit-tinged cocktail, which also has herbaceous, mossy, and floral notes. “To me, it’s like pulling on a crisp white shirt and a pair of jeans. Suitable for most occasions, timeless and extremely well put together.”
Philip Noir Moonrise Eau de Parfum
The days might be getting longer, but the moon still rises in spring. And if you’re tethered to a signature scent by day, this makes a great alternative for nighttime. Moonrise makes a doubly crisp, refreshing first impression with bergamot and green apple, then takes a turn for the sultry with an orange blossom heart and a spicy base.
Art de Parfum Excentrique Moi Extrait de Parfum
With Excentrique Moi, Art de Parfum is showing some serious artistic chops: This extrait manages to be sweet but spicy, floral but woody, sophisticated but carefree, everything as contrasting and contradictory as you’d expect with a name like this. Excentrique is comforting above all else, perfectly paired with a book as you spend a not-so-eccentric Sunday with your favourite person in the world—yourself.
Parfums de Marly Perseus Eau de Parfum
Here’s one of my favourite 2024 launches to date, a supremely fresh and crisp citrus squeeze that hovers on a dry-woody base. Its cleanliness borders on soapy, in the best way possible; I genuinely feel fresher when I wear Perseus, and that carries over into my general disposition.
Perfumer H Rhubarb Eau de Parfum
Rhubarb, as a note in perfumery, is one of William’s favourite unsung heroes, especially in springtime. And Rhubarb, as in this delicious EDP from Perfumer H, is one of his favourite expressions of the tart veggie, in this case paired with red fruits, rose water, and cedar. “You get juicy freshness, but with a complexity and depth from the rhubarb,” he explains. “It’s great for spring, when you want to try something other than the regular citrus notes.”
Tumi 19 Degree Extrait de Parfum
Here’s one leather you needn’t pack away with the spring cleaning: Tumi’s 19 Degree feels perfectly cozy for those 19-degree Fahrenheit winters, but also buoyant enough for those 19-degree Celsius spring days. The marriage of leather, suede, raspberry, and saffron gives it some serious dimension, and the extrait concentration gives it some powerful all-day leathery-musk projection.
Maya Njie Voyeur Verde Eau de Parfum
Williams loves Voyeur Verde as much for its backstory as for its aromatic-woody radius: “The idea for Voyeur Verde came from a photo [founder] Maya Nije took of a faded vintage Mercedes which had been abandoned in thick undergrowth. The juice itself is herbaceous and green with a bright citrus opening and then it evolves into something deeper, more resinous and leathery—as though the car and its wood-and-leather interior are becoming one with the foliage and the elements. Voyeur Verde is a unique take on a spring scent that has all of that green, juicy lushness, but then takes a sharp left turn, crashes the car and lets nature run its course.”
Memo Paris Madurai Eau de Parfum
Colorful Madurai reads like a tag-teaming of two cartoon heroines—Jasmine and Peach. This scent reminds me of how beautifully interpretive perfumery can be, because this floral-sweet essence reads feminine on paper, yet it stays in unisex territory thanks to suede and sandalwood underpinnings. Madurai might turn a head or two, in a good sense, if only because it steers from the predictable script.
Nishane Wulóng Chá Extrait de Parfum
Tea-tippled fragrances are among my favourites to prescribe as signature scents, especially for anyone who wants to cast a sophisticated air. But Wulóng Chá is mentally medicinal, too: I love to wear this one any day when I need a sense of calm and centeredness. Its oolong heart beats strong, long after its citrus top notes evaporate, and its plum and musk base notes are extremely centering. Perfect pairing for a season focused on rebirth and replenishment.
Coach Pure Platinum Parfum
Aromatic, rum-soaked, and mossy, Pure Platinum will clean up as a signature scent. It has that familiar freshness of a barbershop fougere, but its recipe is far from: Those ambroxan, lavender, and orange blossom notes give it a different kind of refreshedness—one akin to a Highball, as opposed to a high-and-tight.
This story was first published on Robb Report USA. Featured photo by Chandler Bondurant
