Paris Perfume Week 2026 best perfumes

Paris Perfume Week Venue at the Palais Brongniart

It’s daunting, slow-work and near impossible to start writing about Paris Perfume Week because it happily proved to be such a vast and sprawling concept. Outside of the grandeur of the main venue, Palais Brongniart – which was built under the direction of Napoleon in the 19th century to house the Parisian stock exchange – there were countless satellite events in the numerous brand boutiques, pop-ups and retailers dotted all around the city. And that’s alongside the panel talks, masterclasses and activations hosted up on the first floor of the Palais.

Honestly, you could have spent the full three days just inside the venue and I don’t think you’d have covered every brand and fragrance exhibited. This made the fragrant discoveries happen in a more piecemeal fashion as you’re forced to steal hasty moments talking to brands whilst onlookers and hoverers reach around and over you for testers whilst also waiting for their moment. Appointments proved inconsequential when the elevated tabletop stands were so well attended, but it gave the event a tangible energy. Sure, it was hectic, cramped and the air over-saturated with an abundance of aromas but as overwhelming as it could have been, it was exciting, lively and generated a true buzz of enthusiasm.

The main floor of Palais Brongniart at approximately noon on day one during Paris Perfume Week.

With the production team behind the event (NEZ) also operating Perfume Week in Shanghai, there was a welcome contingent of Chinese niche perfume brands present whose novelties proved to be the talk of the town. Zhufu presented some super cool aged tea fragrances in their bamboo shaped flacons alongside a flank of unique gourmands (their coffee fragrance smelled perfectly like freshly milled Columbian beans). Nana and Aged Pu-er Tea are the two that stuck out: Nana for its unique red tea note and Aged Pu-er Tea with the savoury, dusty tea backing of its bergamot opening. @zhufufragrance

L-R: Zhufu’s bamboo shaped flacons and the perfume I can’t stop thinking about, The Feast from Santimento.at Paris Perfume Week

Santimento’s paired back, rectangular presentation hid two of my highlights from the whole trip: The Feast, an unctuous and honeyed gourmand, that was infused with cognac, smelling cakey, grapey and full of raisins and The Tzar which my hastily scribbled notes say is “tea, but on a whole other level”. I got a welcome tip (hi Kate) about Chuijan who definitely impressed with ChangBai Sandal No.M37: inspired by the air of the ChangBai mountains, it has a tonally unique combination of fig and tea floating on top of an aromatic sandalwood. @santimento_fragrance @chujianofficial

Voice from The Sky’s stand was hard to get to but well worth waiting for.

Voice From The Sky is a brand run by a husband and wife whose stand was constantly congested as word spread on the quality and uniqueness of their perfumes. Gentle King was likely one of the picks of the entire show, a bright and slightly confusing spicy amber, that folds peppers, cassis and violet into a slew of woods (hinoki, cedar, agar, guaiac) and rich balsam basenotes that oddly enough reminds me of the smell of the redwood forests around Santa Cruz in California. Moreish and poised it was listed as a finalist in the 2022 Art & Olfaction awards and the other samples I received from the brand (especially Let Me Out) prove that the perfumer Tianle Feng has a unique angle and a talent for making very nuanced woody compositions. @voicefromthesky

Bain Guerbois Rose Graffiti and Thomas de Monaco Luisant Haze

Given the scale and richness of the crowd attending Paris Perfume Week, it made perfect sense for established brands to debut new fragrances or forthcoming things to friends and associates. Les Bain Guerbois showcased Rose Graffiti, a neon shock of rose and passion fruit from Jean-Claude Ellena that bears all of his deftness of touch and kept me returning to the stand multiple times over the course of two days to smell. @lesbainsguerbois

Thomas de Monaco’s newest Luisant Haze, by Karine Chevallier, is a very insistent blend of fruity (strawberry), reconstructed tuberose and cashmeran that fills space playfully, sparkling with a familiar, molecular feel. It works in a similar way to Essential Parfum’s new Osmanthus Absolu in that it blends a rich floral motif with modern aroma molecules that drive the diffusion. In Essential Parfum’s case it’s akigalawood, a scent that felt omnipresent all across Paris from the depths of the metro to the bustle of its bistros, it really is everywhere out there. @thomasdemonacoparfums @essential.parfums

L-R: Paradise in Gangwon from Organ Tale, Gin-Seng from The Different Company.

Korean brand Organ Tale premiered Paradise In Gangwon which infuses more of a fruity focus into their penchant for classic fragrances. Housing it in a purple flacon feels super apt considering the way their ‘blue’ template has been modified with notes of grape, iris and lavender. I also finally caught up with the rest of the world and smelt Neela Vermiere Creations’s Eshal – the darling of last year’s Esxence. A subtly waxy, contemplative tuberose Eshal feels purposely raw, scuffed up with turmeric and the bitterness of petitgrain to dovetail a warm haze all around the flower. I’m not necessarily a tuberose guy, but this composition from Bertrand Duchaufour emotes hard when you learn about Neela’s inspiration for the perfume. @organtale @neelavermeirecreations

As their name and modus operandi infers, The Different Company were unveiling something different, a collection of five ‘eXtraits eXtremes’ each with over 50% concentration. Veronique Nyberg delivers Maddy, a shockingly photorealistic gourmand madeleine perfume and Robertet’s Meng Gu offers up Gin-Seng a rather radical brew of goji berries, ginger, basil, blue chamomile and gin seng. As one would expect of fragrances served so strong, they are a little raw and overpowering in the first instance but their magic soon sets in the intensity they offer on skin (especially the vetiver tendrils of Gin-Seng). @thedifferentcompany

And as often proves the way, you can travel for hours only to end up meeting someone who lives just up the road (in comparison), as was the case with Nick Steward from Gallivant who excitedly revealed that his limited edition, calm as you like, soft focus perfume Nida will make its welcome return in a few short weeks. There are also forthcoming perfumes from Nissaba and L’Orchestre Parfum that stick out for their fruity inventiveness, with the latter following a run of sterling releases that I took the opportunity to try. Whilst I thought I’d most adore Vetiver Overdrive it was the dusty pause of Cocktail Appalaches and the booze of Liquor BPM that had me smiling and congratulating the founder, Pierre Guguen. @gallivant.stories @nissaba.fragrances @lorchestreparfum

After a recent name change (from Sacré Français) Dissident Parfums presented their novelty, Umbra Veris which jumped out at my nose with its great contradiction of dirty smelling cleanliness. On first blast there’s an enthralling vetiver in there but it smells as if it’s trapped behind the glass of a greenhouse, where the aroma of the humid air hangs heavy amongst the smell of jasmine, fresh shoots and greenery. As something of an aside J’s picked the brand’s previous two releases in his Best Of year-end lists so it’s evident that perfumer Alexandre Makhloufi has something we all need to watch out for. @dissidentparfums

L-R: Paris Perfume Week Blue skies at Place Vendôme, Parfum d’Empire in Jovoy Paris.

For a moment of respite from the clamour of the event, I took a stroll through Opera down to Place Vendôme to visit the Jovoy store where I got to extensively smell perfumes that were a little too crowded out at the Palais. Parfum d’Empire especially was proving inaccessible, but in store I worked through the selection, repeatedly coming back to Fougere Bengale and Tabac Tabou, two fragrances I know I’ve smelled before but am now further compelled to own. It felt a little bit like cheating after all the hustle of the fair to be so calm and quiet and move so slowly whilst still exposed to so much olfactory stimulation but it’s there I discovered that Andy Tauer’s L’Air des Alpes Suisses unlocks something in me, that for some reason I just wanted more from L’Entropiste and that Amouage’s Outlands lives up to the online hype – even if it is an enriched wood template I already know and love. @parfumdempire @andy_tauer @amouageofficial

Photo Of Christopher Sheldrake and Veronique Spoturno courtesy of Maison Spoturno

I also took the time to visit the Spoturno boutique with Guest Contributor Kristina Kybartaite-Damule, (her Part1 here) and we had a private tour through the brand with celebrated perfumer Christopher Sheldrake and brand founder Veronique Spoturno. They were kind, patient and generous with their time and the Maison’s range of four perfumes (and one extrait) are so thoughtfully executed and meticulously presented that it probably would’ve proved a lot for me to process even if I was running at optimal performance. But that’s the way of perfume, you can listen and chat through and learn the facts but it takes wearing a fragrance to really start to understand it and translate what its makers truly meant.

Maison Spoturno’s fragrant offerings.

All four of Spoturno’s perfumes have a very retro sense of refinement (they’re exploring a family lineage of Francois Coty that dates back to 1874 after all) but my sample of their mineral neroli, Alphee is drained already: an impossibly classy, sharp and alluring blend of citrus, florals and vetiver. The experience is top of mind because it was the opposite of the main venue, deliberately unrushed, personal and deep. @maison.spoturno @veronique.spoturno @christopher.sheldrake

And that’s not to say the Palais didn’t offer up multiple riches, because it most definitely did. The grandeur and scale of such a venue was impossible to ignore and it’s heartening to know how much the event has grown in three years, to now inhabit a place such as this. The pillared entrance and cool stone steps easily represent the heritage and respect due to the artistic form, while the interior so abuzz with what felt like thousands of people, 160+ brands and so much conversation represents the strong growth of this sector of the industry. It would seem, from the strength of attendance alone, that niche perfume is no longer truly ‘niche’ – at least not in Paris in the spring time.

L-R: Marie Schnirer and my 21 Conduit St perfume at Jovoy Paris, a panel talk on perfume retail as a destination with Francois Henin of Jovoy and Aik Sargsyan of Osmotecha. Paris Perfume Week @jovoyparis

– Oli Marlow, Senior Contributor

Disclaimer: Oli was gifted a bottle of Thomas de Monaco Luisant Haze and procured samples/discovery sets from many of the brands mentioned during Paris Perfume Week.

All photos by Oli unless otherwise specified

Maison Spoturno Discovery Box courtesy of the brand

Thanks to the warm generosity of Veronique Spoturno of Maison Spoturno, we have a Maison Spoturno discovery box available to giveaway for one registered reader worldwide. You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what you find most interesting based on Oli’s Part 2 Paris Perfume Week 2026 report and where you live. Draw closes 4/21/2026

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