These Fragrances Will Earn You Endless Compliments (We Tried Them)

Scent is the most difficult category for our panel to judge as it’s the most personal — every aroma unlocks something different in everyone, be it an emotion or memory from our past. But despite how a fragrance makes us feel, one thing our judges could agree on was how wow-worthy a perfume was upon first, second, and the many sniffs that followed. Some scents we kept returning to, over and over again. Many fragrances had people on the street stopping us to ask what it was we were wearing and pleading with us not to gatekeep (we wouldn’t dream of it). Fragrance has a way of transporting us to a time or a place in our lives that are special to us — when we smell something amazing, it stirs something deep within us and can bring up memories of days or people that are dear to us. It can also forge connections, urging us to interact with someone wearing a scent that appeals to our senses through a compliment or an inquiry into the perfume they are wearing. This year’s winners all created a feeling of connection for our judges, either to a place or a memory that they treasured. Keep reading for the best fragrances of 2024.

Best Woody Fragrance

A woody aroma with innate sensuality, this alluring aroma from The Maker is like a warm embrace. Featuring notes of sandalwood, fig, vetiver, jasmine sambac, narcissus, and oud, it envelops you with its sensual and intoxicating scent. “I've never gotten more compliments on a fragrance — one day I wore this on set and every single person from the makeup artist to the photographer stopped to ask what I was wearing,” says Faith Xue, BDG’s executive beauty director. “What I love about this scent is that it's subtle and not overpowering — it's sandalwood with a creamy, sweet tinge, and one spritz really does feel like you're hugging your lover.”

Best Spicy Fragrance

Leave it to Gucci to spice things up with a heady take on their beloved Gucci Guilty. This potent Elixir Pour Femme starts off strong with floral notes of violet, wisteria, and rose, but adds in the brightness of bergamot and the complexity of vanilla, osmanthus, vanilla, tonka beans, and patchouli. The overall effect is a sensual and intense ambery floral scent that turns heads and commands attention in every room.

Best Musk Fragrance

Musk fragrances can be an acquired taste for many — they lack the mainstream appeal of fruity florals and their sophisticated scent profiles can be intimidating to some fragrance newbies. But, when you come across a gem like this one from 5 SENS, you realize why their allure is so enduring. Intimate and arousing in a more subdued way, Burn For You blends cashmere musk with atlas sandalwood, amber, clove leaf, and Madagascar vanilla for a warm and sexy scent that lingers on the skin as it invites others to linger with you.

Best Fruity Fragrance

If the term “body mist” gives you bad Y2K flashbacks to the sickly sweet “spritz and it’s gone” candy-colored confections of your youth, then it’s time you were acquainted with the new iterations of fragrance mists. Ellis Brooklyn has taken the category from pre-teen dreams into modern adulthood and this joyous, fruity concoction is a prime example of just how far they’ve come in the last two decades. Made with Italian mandarin, sweet clementine, lemon sfuma, orange flower water, williams pear blossom, vanilla, cedarwood, upcycled musk, and ambrox super, it’s a summery scent that disperses on skin and has serious staying power. “Every time I applied this fragrance, I was immediately transported to the beach,” says BDG staffer Jillian Giandurco. “Maybe it's because the scent kind of reminded me of sunscreen, but not in a bad way. The body mist also really attaches to you, which I appreciated — I can't stand a fragrance that fades as soon as I enter the subway.”

Best Citrus Fragrance

PerfumeTok’s favorite perfumer has done it again with this vibrant twist on citrus. Not content to pull from the existing library of citrus notes, Francis Kurkdjian went ahead and created a whole new accord for this olfactive masterpiece — one that’s meant to evoke the facets of green verbena leaves. Paired with essence of sweet fennel, bergamot, musk, and hedione, the overall effect of this scent is a fresh, sparkling, luminous, watery, and green citrus that is equal parts sophisticated and light-hearted.

Best Floral Fragrance

For those that prefer their floral perfumes on the lighter side, Chanel’s most recent take of its iconic early aughts Chance perfume presents a zestier take on the traditional floral scent. The Chance Eau Fraîche eau de parfum features notes of citron, jasmine, and teak wood for an elegant, woodsy floral with an energizing opening that is an elegant update on the original fragrance. “I love a floral scent, and this one in particular is crisp and preppy with a bit of a masculine flair,” says BDG staffer Abby Lebet. “It’s exactly what was missing from my fragrance rotation — and I’ll definitely be finishing the bottle.”

Best Gourmand Fragrance

Think you know vanilla fragrances? Think again — Boy Smells takes the gourmand staple and subverts it with unexpected notes like white tulip, black pepper, saffron, black amber, and coffee absolute. The result is a stunning gourmand that’s earthy and animalistic instead of syrupy sweet and baked goods. “Love that instead of a fake, cloyingly sweet vanilla scent, this fragrance smells fresh and lush,” says Xue.

Best Perfume Oil

Strawberry girl makeup, meet strawberry girl perfume. The undisputed fruit of 2023 also happens to be the star of our judges’ favorite perfume oil of 2024. Malin + Goetz managed to bottle what we think smells like pure happiness by combining mara strawberry (the most fragrant iteration of the berry) with bergamot, pink pepper, warm musks, jasmine petals, and soft orris root. The result is a soft, fresh, intimate scent that you’ll want to carry with you everywhere. Fortunately for you, it comes in a handy, pocket-sized rollerball, so you’ll be able to do just that.

Best Home Scent

Lighting this candle from Maison Margiela Paris is the fragrance equivalent of transporting yourself to a leaf-peeping hike in the woods in the fall while wearing your favorite flannel and carrying a thermos of mulled cider while a friendly Labrador trots alongside you. It’s peak autumn in the best way possible, with notes of cedarwood, moss, red berries, and cardamom that blend together to create a woody freshness in the comfort of your living room. Our judges might have been stuck in a concrete jungle while testing it, but every time they lit this candle, they felt like they had escaped to the forest.