Scent has a remarkable knack for stirring our emotions and memories. A faint trace of smoke machine fog can transport you back to the sticky dancefloors of your first night out; a whiff of a stranger’s aftershave on the Tube can have you ever grappling with the sting of an old heartbreak. But what if scent could do greater than just make us reminisce? What if fragrance holds the ability to not only unlock our emotions, but assist us in navigating them? 

Up to now, loads of “feel-good fragrances” alluded to the emotional advantages of perfume through soppy campaigns of ladies frolicking in flower fields. But today, a bunch of avant-garde perfumers are difficult the misunderstanding that mood-focused perfumes need only be related to positivity. As a substitute, their creations aim to explore our full spectrum of feeling; delving into the darker recesses of our psyche, and triggering emotions we can have long buried.

The rising interest in such fragrances coincides with a growing appetite to explore the “shadow self”; a term coined by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) to explain the parts of our personalities we are likely to hide or repress. The practice of delving into our shadow has gained significant traction in recent times – the hashtag #shadowwork has over two billion views on TikTok – a gritty antidote to the toxic positivity of the past decade. Now, this practice is increasingly extending to our beauty rituals, with fragrance offering a complimentary sensory dimension to shadow work.

As we’ve seen with the rise of “unapproachable make-up”, persons are exploring the ability of perfumes to not only attract, but repel. On the favored r/fragrance subreddit, a recent thread asks for recommendations for fragrances to “strike fear in a man’s heart”, writing, “I need to smell like a villain… I need to smell so evil and powerful and murderous that a whiff would make a person’s asshole pucker once I walk by.” The olfactory equivalent of winged eyeliner or daring lip is available in the shape of darker fragrance notes: burnt tobacco, dark rose and leather all appear within the recommendations. Meanwhile on TikTok, the search “dark feminine perfume” has reached 2.2 billion views; with suggestions for Extrait de Parfums to “match your femme fatale energy” sitting alongside instructions to “set your boundaries”, “practice detachment” and “say NO more”.

Here, perfume is reimagined as armour, a tool to provide strength, even in our darkest moments. As James Elliott, the nose behind revolutionary fragrance house Filigree & Shadow, explains: “Laurie Cabot of Salem, Massachusetts fame once wrote that wearing a pentacle around your neck was an added charm of protection because so many individuals fear what they don’t know. What’s fragrance if not a charm?” 

The connection between darker emotions and scent isn’t recent: countless expressions like “smelling fear,” “smelling anger” or “smelling a lie” attest to this relationship. On the earth of perfume promoting, ad executives have long risen to the challenge of promoting a transparent liquid by bestowing it with names that evoke the dark art of seduction: think Gucci’s Guilty, Dior’s Poison, Fendi’s Furiosa or Lanvin’s My Sin. Such perfumes beckon us with the promise that one spritz possesses the alchemic power to whisk us away from our on a regular basis lives. 

Nowadays, contemporary perfumers are delving into portraying darker moods more explicitly, utilising scent’s unique ability to permeate beyond our rational pondering and deep into our subconscious. As Tanya Moulding (AKA the Perfume Mistress) – an aromatherapist, educator, and olfactory curator – explains: “Scent is a conduit to our emotions and memories, bypassing our rational brain and tapping into subconscious beliefs, thoughts and unresolved conflicts. Uncomfortable emotions are a fact of life; nevertheless, they’ll provide us with a novel opportunity for private growth. Using a fragrance in a mindful and intuitive way may also help us to embrace the complexities of our shadow self, assisting in transforming and integrating our darker emotions.”

Brands are increasingly tapping into this sentiment, positioning perfumes as tools to help with shadow work. Etat Libre D’Orange’s Hermann A Mes Cotes Me Paraissait Une Ombre, is described as a “shadow companion… Your conscience, your soul, your complementary ego”. With notes of black pepper, incense and patchouli, its description describes how with a shadow perfume “you possibly can test the boundaries of your personal attitudes”.

Filip Rabiej, from Bloom Perfumery, explains how perfume allows us to explore our alternative selves, much more powerfully than fashion can. “Since perfumes are invisible, and due to this fact social norms don’t apply to them as strictly as to clothes, that always encourages people to go ‘all in,’” he says. “Perfumes stopped being a ‘final touch’, but have develop into a standalone a part of our presence.”

And go “all in” they do. In a backlash against saccharine sentimentality, a bunch of experimental fragrances as a substitute rejoice vice, danger and subversion. Serge Lutens’ VITRIOL D’ŒILLET (Angry Carnation) combines carnation with notes of pepper and cloves, its description notes how “anger is notched into the guts of this perfume”. Meanwhile, at Juliette has a Gun (the gun here being “a metaphor for her perfume, her weapon of seduction”), fragrances are designed to evoke different facets of Juliette’s personality: including mutinous, vengeful, fiery androgynous. 

Other perfumers tap into disgust to trigger visceral physical responses. Take, for instance, Sombre by Strangers Parfumerie, which with notes of champagne, mould, sweat and vomit, speaks to each hedonism and shame. Or Etat Libre d’Orange’s Secretions Magnifiques, a perfume designed to capture the scent of mingling bodily fluids: sweat, saliva, blood and semen. Launched in 2006, the perfume has had a resurgence in interest; its salty, metallic smell and notes of adrenaline evoke the slippery tension between sexual attraction and repulsion. “The primary time [my boyfriend] made me smell it, I literally almost vomited,” Isamaya Ffrench said concerning the perfume in 2019. “There’s something grotesquely carnal about it – almost like fresh rotting flesh, nevertheless it plays a trick in your brain and leaves you wanting to smell it repeatedly.”

While “dirty” and strange notes have long been utilized in fragrance, the incontrovertible fact that perfumers are increasingly prioritising these ingredients marks a big shift towards a more direct engagement with complex emotions. At Filigree & Shadow, each fragrance tells an emotional tale: whether of grief, ephemeral love or longing. James Elliott, the nose behind the brand, explains: “A few years ago I used to be asked who I make my fragrances for. Without hesitation, I replied, ‘individuals who’ve been broken’… I believe we search out fragrances who see us for who we truly are and rejoice that.” But perfume is usually a protest as much as a celebration; as Filigree & Shadow’s “Laughing with a mouthful of blood” shows. Created in direct response to Roe vs Wade, the perfume encapsulates feelings of rage, with one user describing it as “Absurd and manic – just like the smell of my mind on one among those days when persons are slightly apprehensive about me”.

The digital age has radically transformed how we perceive and present ourselves, we’ve develop into experts at crafting idealised versions of reality. Yet, within the shadows of those virtual identities, elements of our true selves lie dormant, waiting to be acknowledged and understood. Perfume can function a grounding counterbalance: allowing us to confront the complexity of our emotions in a controlled space; and alchemise our shadow into strength. As Rabiej notes: “To a certain extent, we’re all freaks, and perfumes just allow us to unveil that typically hidden layer.”

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