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9 Perfumes That Smell Like Candy
“Candy” covers caramel, licorice, fruit drops and marshmallow, and perfume can do all of them. These nine run from grown-up to unashamedly sugary. Start with Prada Candy for caramel you can wear to dinner, Pink Sugar for maximum sugar, and Diesel Loverdose if you like licorice.
What Makes a Perfume Smell Like Candy?
The same molecules that flavour the sweets. Ethyl maltol is caramelised sugar and candyfloss. Anethole, the main molecule in star anise and fennel, is licorice. Lactones are the creamy, milky sweetness in fudge and whipped cream. And the fruit-drop smell comes from esters: isoamyl acetate is the pear-drop and banana smell, ethyl butyrate is pineapple. Most of them are sold as food flavourings too.
Mugler’s Angel put candy into fine perfume in 1992. Everything here is a descendant, and what separates them is what sits around the sugar: musk and resin, fruit, flowers or spice.
| Perfume | The candy | What’s with it |
|---|---|---|
| Prada Candy | Caramel | White musk, benzoin, vanilla |
| Diesel Loverdose | Licorice | Star anise, mandarin, gardenia |
| Aquolina Pink Sugar | Candyfloss and caramel | Raspberry, fig leaf, vanilla |
| Britney Spears Fantasy | Cupcake | Lychee, kiwi, white-chocolate orchid |
| Britney Spears Midnight Fantasy | Cherry sweets | Plum, raspberry, orchid, vanilla |
| Vera Wang Princess | Meringue and chocolate | Apple, apricot, guava, tuberose |
| DIME 7 Summers | Whipped cream | Pear, lavender, coconut |
| Ariana Grande Sweet Like Candy | Marshmallow | Blackberry, frangipani, cassis |
| Mariah Carey Lollipop Bling Honey | Honey and lemon drops | Pineapple, passionfruit, ginger |
9 Candy Perfumes
Prada Candy
Prada Candy (2011) is the grown-up gourmand: a caramel accord with white musk, benzoin resin and vanilla. The musk and benzoin are what make it work. Benzoin is a warm, vanilla-scented resin with a slightly powdery, almost incense edge, and with musk it turns caramel into something closer to warm skin than a sweet shop. One wearer gets soft powder and smoked caramel, then balsamic benzoin. Candy Florale, Candy Night and the other flankers are different perfumes.
Diesel Loverdose
Loverdose is candy with an edge: star anise and mandarin, then licorice, jasmine and gardenia, over Ambrox, licorice liqueur, vanilla and dry woods. Licorice is unusual in perfume, and it’s what keeps Loverdose from blending in with the caramel crowd. Anethole is sweet and cool at once, so it reads darker and more nightlife than Prada. If you hate black jellybeans, skip it.
Aquolina Pink Sugar
Pink Sugar is candyfloss in a bottle. The maker names raspberry, fig leaves, powdered sugar, red fruits, caramel and vanilla. There’s no subtlety, and there isn’t supposed to be. The fig leaf adds a green, faintly bitter note that keeps it from going completely flat. It’s also cheap enough to layer over something woody. Our cotton candy list has more on the ethyl maltol behind it.
Britney Spears Fantasy
Fantasy (2005) lists red lychee, golden quince and kiwi, then a cupcake accord, jasmine and a white-chocolate orchid accord, over musk, orris and woods. It names the cupcake outright, which tells you how seriously to take it. Kiwi and lychee keep the frosting tart, so it smells like sweets with sherbet in them. Match the original EDP; the EDT and body mists differ.
Britney Spears Midnight Fantasy
The dark sister. Midnight Fantasy is black cherry, raspberry and plum, then freesia, night orchid and iris, over amber, musk and vanilla. Where Fantasy is cupcakes, this is cherry sweets and a glass of something red. Plum and iris make it the evening pick of the celebrity candies.
Vera Wang Princess
Princess lists lady apple, water lily, golden apricot and mandarin meringue, then pink guava, Tahitian gardenia, tuberose and dark chocolate, over vanilla chiffon, amber and woods. The note names read like a dessert menu. Guava and apricot make it a fruit sweet, and the dark chocolate at the heart is unexpected. The heart-shaped bottle is very teenage; the tuberose is less so.
DIME 7 Summers
7 Summers opens with bergamot, pear and lavender blossom, then vanilla orchid, whipped cream and coconut over blonde woods, Ambrox and musk. Lavender is the twist: herbal and a little cool, it stops the cream from going cloying, in the way lavender works in Ariana Grande’s Cloud. It’s the lightest candy here, more ice-cream van than sweet shop.
Ariana Grande Sweet Like Candy
Sweet Like Candy opens with blackberry, bergamot and pear, followed by jasmine sambac, frangipani and honeysuckle, over crème de cassis, marshmallow, cashmere woods and vanilla. Marshmallow is a softer, fluffier sweetness than Pink Sugar’s spun sugar, and the white flowers make it more perfume than sweet. Our marshmallow list has more like it.
Mariah Carey Lollipop Bling Honey
Lollipop Bling Honey is passionfruit, pineapple juice and lemon drops, then Amazon lily, ginger and white freesia, over musk, linden blossom and honey. Honey is a waxier, more floral sweetness than caramel, and with lemon drops and ginger it’s a honey-and-lemon throat sweet. Ribbon and Mine Again are different Lollipop Bling scents.
More Sweets
For spun sugar specifically, see our cotton candy perfumes. The honey list follows Lollipop Bling further, and the dessert list adds almond and pastry.
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