That’s slowly changing as perfumers add coffee notes to scents for their richness and complexity. Coffee often adds depth to other boozy or leathery base notes, or gives a cosy vibe paired with warming spice like vanilla and cardamom, or creamy tonka bean.
Coffee notes can provide a deep, full-bodied aroma that is both intense and inviting. This can add a luxe feel to a fragrance, as is the case with perhaps the best-known coffee-spiked scent, YSL Beauty’s wildly popular ‘Black Opium’ perfume. Sweet and heady, a prominent coffee accord is woven with vanilla, white flowers, and fruity notes to create a sweet yet deep scent.
The invigorating element is also beginning to be used in unexpected ways, such as paired with citrus in Valentino’s fresh new men’s fragrance ‘Uomo Born in Roma Green Stravaganza’ EDP.
L-R: Maison Margiela Coffee Break EDT; Tom Ford Cafe Rose EDP; Tom Ford Vanilla Fatale EDP; Hugo Boss The Scent For Her Absolute; YSL Black Opium EDP
Maison Margiela takes a more roundabout route with its ‘Coffee Break’ scent, seeking to recreate the vibe of a cosy cafe, combining coffee, lavender, and a frothy ‘milk’ note. Tom Ford uses coffee in two different ways, mixed with rose and patchouli in the amber-floral ‘Cafe Rose’, and giving depth alongside dark woods and roasted barley in ‘Vanilla Fatale’.
Hugo Boss dabbles with adding coffee to the mix in the amber-vanilla fragrance ‘Boss The Scent For Her Absolute,’ and Floral Street’s strong, exotic and spicy Ylang Ylang Espresso definitely turns heads.
Scented candles too, offer a way to keep the coffee scent lingering in your home and work spaces, even without an espresso machine steaming away nearby.
L-R: Glasshouse Fragrances Eager For Espresso candle; Floral Street Ylang Ylang Espresso; Diptyque Café Gourmet Scented Candle
If you’re fan of coffee or the famous sweet Italian dessert Tiramisu, you should check out Glasshouse Fragrances new release ‘Eager for Espresso’. While sweet scents aren’t out of the ordinary for the popular home fragrance brand it previously tested the waters by releasing the candle online. A swift sell-out, it’s now been released in stores too.
French fragrance house Diptyque also knows the power of a limited-edition. It has teamed up with Verlet, the oldest Parisian coffee company still in operation with a heritage dating back to 1880, on a range of limited candles. The delectable scents are inspired by Café Verlet’s sweet delights and include notes of coffee, sweet chantilly cream and fresh-baked biscuits.
