Wake Up & Smell The Coffee Perfumes

Watch enough rom-coms, and you might be convinced to delete your dating apps and start hanging around your local coffee shop. After all, how many fictional love stories have begun over a cup of joe being sipped, spilled, or simply used as an excuse to see someone again? (Looking at you, Notting Hill.)

While coffee perfumes can’t guarantee a meet-cute, they can bottle up what makes a coffee shop so alluring in the first place: the smell. “It’s cozy, but a little sexy at the same time,” says Georgia Allen, perfumer and co-founder of 828 Aroma. “Coffee gives perfumes warmth and a little bit of edge.”

Rich and roasted, it checks all the boxes for the ultimate fall fragrance. And with a fresh batch of perfumes dropping this season, you can take yours however you like it — sweet, strong, or somewhere in between. Coffee connoisseur or not, you just might find yourself craving an olfactory buzz.

Ahead, everything to know about the coffee perfume trend — and the best ones to add to your fall fragrance rotation.

More Than A Caffeine Fix?

A few years ago, the idea of smelling like your morning brew might have sounded strange. But in the golden age of gourmands, anything goes. Croissants, buttercream frosting, pistachio gelato — everyone wants to smell good enough to eat. The catch? Not everyone wants to smell like a spoonful of sugar. That’s where coffee comes in.

“On its own, sweet can get sugary fast, but coffee’s roasted bitterness pulls it back and makes it feel more grown-up,” says Allen. “It's a good place to start if you've always thought gourmands weren't for you.”

That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of dessert-adjacent coffee perfumes out there, with indulgent notes like caramel, chocolate, and biscotti. (Basically, anything you’d find on a Starbucks Frappucino menu.) But it can be much more versatile than you might think.

“Coffee smells familiar, but it also completely changes depending on what you pair it with,” Allen says. Vanilla brings out its softer, creamier side — but “put it with woods and it gets darker and moodier.” If you want something fresher and brighter, on the other hand, fruity and floral notes play well with coffee’s earthy aroma.

Even more, the same coffee notes can make a completely different impression based on where they actually show up in a fragrance. As a top note, for instance, it announces itself right away — like the smell of a fresh pot brewing in the morning. In the heart or base, however, it grounds the rest of the fragrance (pun intended), adding warmth and depth instead of a high-energy jolt.

Coffee Perfumes To Try

1. Creamy & Cozy

Not quite sold on smelling like a shot of espresso? These perfumes might ease you into the idea. Instead of dialing up coffee’s bitterness, they soften it with creamy, comforting notes like tonka and cedarwood. “Think a vanilla latte,” as Allen puts it.

Sol de Janeiro’s Leite Café is pretty much just that — a coconut milk latte in perfume form — while Nest’s Cardamom Latte adds an extra dash of spice on top. Kayali’s Freedom Musk Latte wraps you up in a warm blanket of pink pepper and cinnamon, while Diptyque’s Bois Corsé keeps things close to the skin with sandalwood and tonka.

2. Fresh & Fun

Wake up and smell the roses — or in this case, the rose-and-coffee perfume. It might sound like an odd combination, but according to Allen, floral and fruity notes make your standard coffee scent feel “a bit more unexpected and flirty.”

Take Jo Malone’s Taif Rose, for instance, where coffee takes a backseat to a big bouquet of roses. Fugazzi’s Workaholic plays with the same combination, but the addition of white musk makes it feel a little more casual. YSL’s Black Opium Pink Glaze trades a floral opening for juicy strawberry. And if you want an extra pick-me-up, Akro’s take on an Espresso Romano — complete with a healthy splash of lemon — is the most realistic coffee scent of the bunch.

3. Sweet & Indulgent

Black coffee drinkers like to say that if you need to add anything, you don’t really like coffee to begin with. But sugar makes everything better — perfumes included.

Kylie Jenner’s Velvet Brew smells like a hazelnut mocha with an extra helping of plum syrup, while DedCool’s Mocha Magic mixes in tonka bean for a creamier take. Meanwhile, Brown Girl Jane’s Casino leaves the coffee shop altogether and goes into full dessert territory, with espresso affogato and rum cake. Similarly, Montale’s Sensual Instinct pairs tiramisu and praline for something sweet with just a hint of coffee.

4. Dark & Seductive

If creamy coffee scents are made for curling up on the couch, these perfumes are for dinner reservations that turn into drinks — preferably espresso martinis.

Kilian’s Midnight Espresso pairs coffee and rum with bourbon vanilla — basically, the perfect excuse to match your perfume to your cocktail. Bond No. 9’s Super Oud is for the life of the party, with a heady blend of saffron, oud, and suede, while Penhaligon’s Bewitched Yasmine takes a more mysterious turn with incense. Pigmentarium’s Brutal, meanwhile, channels the moment you get home from the club with the smell of cigarette smoke still on your clothes.