1. L'Air du Desert Marocain (2005) by Tauer Perfumes
Air of the Moroccan Desert
Fragrance Family: Spicy Amber
Perfumer: Andy Tauer
A list of cult classics wouldn't be complete without Andy Tauer's L'Air du Désert Marocain, and is the perfect scent to start this selection.
L'Air is an absolutely mesmerising fragrance with a lavish yet sensible balance of spice, woods, and resins. Tauer achieves a luminous and shimmering quality to his work, like smelling a fragrance from a distance and just out of reach. Coriander seed is essential. It has body without weight, and as it works through the woody and amber body of this scent, its makes soft and transparent of even the most fortifying notes, which includes Texan cedarwood, ambergris, labdanum, and cumin. It dances and leaps of the skin, leaving a warm and spicy glow.
Praised by fragrance bloggers and even the renowned 'perfume pope', Luca Turin, the unique scent still today proves its timelessness, deserving its title as a cult classic.
Learn more about L'Air du Desert Marocain by Tauer Perfumes
2. Eight and Bob The Original (2012) by Eight and Bob
Fragrance Family: Woods
Perfumer: Albert Fouquet
In Eight and Bob, a familiar combination of woody notes soften at the touch with vanilla and gentle florals, injected with a salty aquatic counterpoint. For many, Eight and Bob's interest goes beyond its scent and into its narrative: a summertime tale of French aristocracy and American congeniality, of the Cote d'Azur and Hollywood in collocation. This irrevocably influences the experience of the fragrance - its handsome profile twisting a medley of crisp citrus fruits spiced up, along a generous body of cedar, guaiac, sandalwood, labdanum, and patchouli.
Learn more about Eight and Bob The Original by Eight and Bob
3. Jubilation XXV (2007) by Amouage
Fragrance Family: Woody Amber
Perfumer: Bertrand Duchaufour
Jubilation is the result of two excellent things: intersecting cultures, where the opulence of the Middle East meets classical French sensibilities; and an absolutely unlimited budget towards fragrant materials.
Opulent but not gluttonous, Jubilation XXV is richly ambery, loaded with generous lashings of balsamic resins and spices, balanced with silver frankincense (the best you can get), then cut effortlessly with a counterpoint of tart blackberry and sweet honey, resting on a base of firm woods. Rumoured that bottles of this scent are gifted by the Sultan of Oman, Jubilation XXV is quite literally fit for a king, or at least those that are kings at heart.
Learn more about Jubilation XXV by Amouage
4. Megamare (2019) by Orto Parisi
Fragrance Family: Water
Perfumer: Alessandro Gualtieri
Power is what Megamare declares, which manages to concentrate the magnitude of a sublime thunderstorm in its bottle, decorated with corroded hardware and glass. Marine notes are central to Megamare, as we'd expect, which explodes with an overdose of calone, hedione, and ambroxan molecules. The result is a fragrance of tremendous power, which is unafraid to fold into its composition an authentic scent of the deep sea - the metallic tangle of seaweed, weathered woods, a line of saltiness ... Megamare alternates its tides. Stillness moves into massiveness, a huge wave of amber and musk molecules crash and crush in its massive engulf.
Learn more about Megarmare by Orto Parisi
5. Black Afgano (2009) by Nasomatto
Fragrance Family: Woody Amber
Perfumer: Alessandro Gualtieri
A fragrance of intense gravity, Nasomatto's perfumer Alessandro Gualtieri undertakes a heavy-handed maximalist approach in his quest to capture the narcotic effects of hashish.
Gualtieri achieves a style of organised chaos, captured through large brush strokes to enhance the mesmerising idea of hashish through additions of coffee, tobacco, and precious oud wood. Yet, at the very centre of this fragrance lies a moment of calm and mellow serenity—an assurance of classical, well-groomed masculinity.
Black Afgano is notorious for pushing convention to the edge, favouring raw and brutish rather than cerebral. Truly, Nasomatto plays no games and is a favourite amongst men with a daring streak.
Learn more about Black Afgano by Nasomatto
6. Bois Imperial (2020) by Essential Parfums
Imperial Wood
Fragrance Family: Woods
Perfumer: Quentin Bisch
It's no secret that Bois Imperial has captivated us from the first breath, with its astonishing and proficient handling of woody materials, working with absence as much as presence, light and shadow - this is mixed-media perfumery, which evokes analogies to ink calligraphy, glasswork, sculpture, painting all at once. Quentin Bisch has produced a fragrance of dense and dark glass, sculpted upwards like the sturdy downwards lines achieved in a stroke of ink. Chief odorants of vetiver, cedar, and patchouli are lightened and elongated at the molecular level, paired with spicy herbs and herbal spices - including Thai basil and Timut pepper. Bois Imperial is an addiction.
Learn more about Bois Imperial by Essential Parfums
7. 1740 Marquis de Sade (2000) by Histoires de Parfums
Fragrance Family: Dry Woods (Leather)
Perfumer: Sylvie Jourdet
1740 brings intensity into harmony and balance, where the intense coarseness of immortelle flower, pine needles, and bitter leather are positioned against a spicy amber base rich with cistus labdanum. Its topic is the Marquis de Sade, the infamous author who penned libertine subjects concerned with the extraction of the utmost pleasure - by any means necessary. A Sadean perfume is one that refuses to see its ingredients in an obvious light. This is a perfume that prefers to linger within the indeterminacy of mysterious shadows, multiplying ecstasies to infinity. This is not a representational scene: it is a pure pleasurable feeling with a little sting and astringency. As his saying goes: in order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice.
1740 has captured the imagination and appetites of many, especially for its exemplary leather qualities - the tang of which rests on a plush resinous cushion of labdanum, amber, and coumarin.
Learn more about 1740 by Histoires de Parfums
8. Aventus (2010) by Creed
Fragrance Family: Dry Woods
Perfumer: Jean-Christophe Hérault
It is nearly impossible to traverse the world of men’s niche perfumery without crossing paths with Creed’s Aventus, a decidedly modern and powerful fragrance that takes the best features of the aromatic and woody families and blends them together seamlessly. A trailblazer, there is little denying the impact Aventus has had, becoming the frequently imitated – but never bettered – icon of a unique style. This is a fragrance of many charms and qualities, one of which is its ability to render a traditional masculine form with contemporary ingredients. The result is a resounding feeling of newness and quality, but also contrast: citrus notes are set against leather tones, whilst wood notes are soaked in a melange of fruits and spices.
The instant appeal of Aventus is due to its many enlivening layers of freshness, where apple, blackcurrant, bergamot, lemon, and pineapple reach out and arrest one’s attention. This striking feature finds its resolution in a generous heart of jasmine, lending softness to the composition. Deep underpinnings of patchouli, birch, ambergris, and musk provide a familiar robustness, reminding the wearer that a gallant virility marks the potent core of this fragrance. Watch as the generous hesperidic top notes soar and sparkle, succumbing to the birch note in the base, lending its signature smoky and leathery facets, then washed in the warm salty brine of ambergris.
Learn more about Aventus by Creed
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