The 10 Most Delicious Gourmand Perfumes, According to Editors

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(Image credit: @_jessicaskye)

What better compliment is there than smelling good enough to eat? Perfumes are highly subjective, but the experts say the best perfumes are those that evoke joyous memories of people, places and things and conjure up a wave of happy emotions. Dopamine hits don't get stronger than when you combine evocative scents with the most delicious gourmand base notes.

Gourmand perfumes, also known as "edible” perfumes are blended with dessert-like notes, including praline, toffee, honey, caramel and vanilla—all very well-matched to the autumn months ahead and ideal for party season too. While summer calls for fresher, more citrus-led fragrances, you can be much more indulgent when the weather starts to turn. 

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(Image credit: @Emmahoareau)

Now, as alluring as gourmand fragrances might sound on paper, they do tend to get a bad rep for being overly sweet to the point where the word sickly is easily thrown around. As such, perfume snobs easily disregard them as a scent for the unsophisticated nose. The launch of the popular gourmand scent Angel by Mugler in the early '90s put the category on the map, and it has remained divisive ever since—some people love to douse themselves in it; others can't stand it. However, since then, the category has evolved into a much broader spectrum with options that are less extreme and more refined. Gourmand fragrances can now be interesting and complex and developed with influences from the opposite end of the spectrum, including woody, spicy and darker notes. We put together an editor-approved list of the best (and most elegant) gourmand perfumes that are worth considering for your fragrance collection.

1. Byredo Vanille Antique Extrait de Parfum

2. Vilhelm Parfumerie Poets of Berlin Eau de Parfum 

3. Diptyque Philosykos Eau de Toilette

4. Ariana Grande Thank U Next 2.0

5. Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62 Perfume Mist 

6. Van Cleef Arpels Bois d'Amande Eau de Parfum

7. Kilian Angels' Share Eau de Parfum

8. Bon Parfumeur 402 Vanilla Toffee Sandalwood Eau de Parfum

9. Acqua di Parma Arancia di Capri Eau de Toilette

10. Loewe Paula's Ibiza Electric Eau de Toilette

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Freelance Beauty Journalist

Zeynab Mohamed is a London-based freelance beauty journalist, covering beauty, wellness, lifestyle and identity-related content. Her background in psychology and her identity as a Black woman has influenced a lot of her writing and has become a driving force to create engaging content that touches on a perspective that is often neglected and speaks to other Black women who love beauty as much as she does. She is inspired by how individuals engage with beauty and how beauty can make you feel but also how beauty holds the power to connect individuals across the globe to form communities. She began her career in beauty journalism with the British Vogue team, where she discovered that beauty isn’t just frivolous but can be a tool to empower individuals and give them a voice which they were not afforded.

Zeynab is currently a beauty contributor toBest Knockoff Luxury Clothing . She has also written for Stylist, Elle, Refinery29 and Byrdie, building on her freelance portfolio and expanding on the type of content she creates in the hope of reaching diverse communities. When Zeynab is not writing and hunting down her next story, you can find her travelling the globe and tucked away with a good book.