Unisex niche perfumes

Why most niche perfumes are unisex

Unisex means the house does not assign the perfume to a gender, or says outright that it is for everyone. In niche perfumery that is the usual case: houses build a perfume around an idea, a place or a material, such as a desert at night, a smoky bar or a fig tree, and leave the wearer out of the brief.

So this page is the widest in the collection. It holds dry woods and clean musks, juniper and tonka, whisky cream and cocoa, and pastel fruit florals. Some perfumes are described with four notes, others with more than twenty. What they share is the label, not a smell.

Unisex does not mean neutral or mild. Some of the perfumes here are dense with smoke, leather or sweet resin, and others are almost transparent. The word describes who the house had in mind, which is everyone, not how loud the perfume is.

How to choose

Since the label no longer helps, start with an idea of what you like: dry and smoky, soft and clean, sweet, or green. Then use the pyramid and read the base first. A short note list, as several houses publish, gives the character in a few words, while a long pyramid shows how the perfume unfolds. Our plain-language guide to what niche perfume is explains why houses work this way.

From the collection

Some unisex perfumes from the houses on our brands page:

Byredo Mojave Ghost is built on ambrette and naseberry at the top, magnolia, sandalwood and violet in the heart, and cedarwood, musks and vetiver in the base.

Le Labo Santal 33 lists five notes, cardamom, iris, violet, Australian sandalwood and cedarwood, and the house tells it as firelight and drifting smoke.

Diptyque Orphéon pairs juniper berry, cedar, tonka bean and jasmine, and the house sets it among the jazz clubs of early 1960s Saint-Germain.

Maison Margiela Replica Jazz Club is an eau de toilette with pink pepper, lemon and neroli on top, rum absolute and clary sage in the heart, and styrax, tobacco leaf and vanilla bean below.

Stéphane Humbert Lucas Sand Dance opens with whisky cream, mandarin and coriander, moves through cocoa, sandalwood and Kashmir wood, and rests on benzoin, cedar, styrax, patchouli and tonka bean.

Zoologist Hummingbird is a pastel bouquet of lilac, peony, mimosa and honeysuckle with apple, cherry and plum, over amber, musks and sandalwood in the base.