The 5 Sexiest Fragrances For Men And Women

There’s no such thing as an objectively sexy perfume, but there are materials that smell like warm skin up close: musks, ambery woods, vanilla, and white flowers with a slightly animal edge. These five use them in very different ways, from salty floral leather to smoky vetiver. Our romantic perfumes list has eight more.

Five Scents to Compare

Fragrance	Exact version	The idea
Rabanne 1 Million	Parfum	Salty tuberose and solar leather
Tom Ford Santal Blush	Eau de Parfum	Sandalwood with cinnamon and ylang-ylang
Yves Saint Laurent Black Opium	Original Eau de Parfum	Vanilla, white flowers and coffee
Chanel Sycomore	Eau de Parfum	Smoky vetiver with cedar and vanilla
Byredo Bal d’Afrique	Eau de Parfum	Bright fruit and flowers over softer woods and musk

1. Rabanne 1 Million Parfum

Rabanne’s Parfum composition centres grapefruit, salty tuberose and solar leather. Tuberose is the creamy, almost buttery white flower, and with a sunny leather accord it smells like skin after a day on the beach. Make sure the label says Parfum: the gold-bottle family also contains other compositions.

One wearer loves its sunscreen-like summer character. It’s dense, so go easy in a small restaurant.

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2. Tom Ford Santal Blush Eau de Parfum

Tom Ford highlights Australian sandalwood, cinnamon bark, carrot seed, ylang-ylang, cedarwood and benzoin. Carrot seed is the strange one: earthy and a little like iris, it makes the sandalwood smell of skin.

Cinnamon and ylang-ylang give it a spiced, slightly savoury warmth, more than the creamy sandalwood the name suggests.

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3. Yves Saint Laurent Black Opium Eau de Parfum

Original Black Opium EDP is the choice here for sweet vanilla and white flowers with coffee. YSL’s description puts all three at the centre of the fragrance.

One wearer explicitly prefers the original EDP for its coffee-and-vanilla character. A second wearer finds it mostly white floral. Coffee’s roasted bitterness is what keeps all that vanilla from going syrupy.

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4. Chanel Sycomore Eau de Parfum

Chanel’s Sycomore EDP combines smoky notes and vetiver with cedar and vanilla. Vetiver is a grass root, earthy and smoky, and Sycomore is about as dry and unsugared as evening perfume gets.

It sits close to the skin, which suits a dinner for two.

Choose the EDP when matching these descriptions. Sycomore’s other concentrations and earlier releases have their own review histories.

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5. Byredo Bal d’Afrique Eau de Parfum

Byredo’s EDP notes include bergamot, African marigold, buchu and blackcurrant, followed by cyclamen, jasmine petals and violet. Cedarwood, vetiver, musk and tonka form its woody base. Buchu, a South African herb, has a blackcurrant-like tang, and with marigold and blackcurrant it gives the opening a bright, green sharpness before musk and vetiver warm it.

It ends up as a warm, almost sweet skin scent.

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Choosing for the Evening You Have Planned

For dinner in close quarters, start with a light application and notice how much scent surrounds you before leaving. If one perfume’s sweetness feels heavy after an hour, try a contrasting style: Sycomore’s smoky vetiver against Black Opium’s vanilla, or Bal d’Afrique against 1 Million Parfum’s floral leather.

If you are buying for a partner, make the comparison together. A vial of a style they already enjoy is more useful than choosing solely from a “sexy” label. Our signature-scent guide helps with that comparison; the difference between projection and sillage helps describe how much of a fragrance you want others to notice.