Teeenagers are famous for wearing excessive amounts of perfume, but who can blame us for wanting to smell good? While many of the most popular perfumes are timeless cult classics, others have recently gained popularity through social media. It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of “PerfumeTok,” but perfume is odorless through a screen. I find myself overwhelmed with descriptions that don’t mean anything, and judging mostly based on how pretty the bottle is. To help combat this, a group of friends and I decided to go and test 15 of the most common TikTok perfumes for you.
Let’s get the worst out of the way first. By far our least favorite perfume we tried was Lovefest Burning Cherry by Kayali. It got a rating of 1.5/10 because it smells like artificial cherry medicine. It is overly saccharine, and smells nothing like actual cherries. The other Kayali perfume we tried was their Vanilla perfume, which got the slightly better rating of 4/10. It was also very sweet, more similar to lotion than fruit. It wasn’t bad, but there are a lot of better vanilla perfumes out there.
In the category of “not our favorites” we have to mention the Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62 Body Spray. It is promoted as being vanilla scented with caramel and pistachio undertones, but to me smells more like an ice cream store mixed with caramel corn. Overall it’s just very sugary and one noted; it brings to mind a kid’s first perfume. Its collective rating was 3.5/10. Also vanilla scented, Vanilla Vibes by Julliet Has a Gun, received a 2.5/10 for its strong artificial scent, like nail polish mixed with rotting fruit. Considering “vanilla” is in the name, the perfume smells very little like it.
Finally, to finish off the more objectionable perfumes, is Delina by Parfums de Marly. This one surprised me because it’s probably the one I have seen praised the most often. According to my friend Lane Frazee Johnson it “smells like a teenage girl’s armpit,” which I would agree with, due largely to its strong similarity to the smell of deodorant. Overall the perfume wasn’t horrible, and we gave it a 4/10. The smell is what you might think of when someone says the word ‘perfume.’
The next tier are perfumes we considered more forgettable, but better smelling. Starting off with a solid medium-tier perfume, YSL’s Black Opium was a 5/10. Like Vanilla Vibes, it doesn’t smell much like vanilla, which is supposed to be its main fragrance. It does smell nice however, like a bouquet of flowers, or a peach. Freya Matthiessen gave it a much less positive review, saying, “it smells like bad memories.” The other YSL perfume we tested, Libre, also earned a 5/10. It is heavily reminiscent of a nice hotel lobby.
After our experience with Love Fest Burning Cherry, we were skeptical of Tom Ford’s Lost Cherry, but it was a nice surprise. Unlike the medicinal scent that Love Fest had, Lost Cherry reminds me of how Cherry Sours candy tastes, or a cherry pie. “If you really want to smell like cherries it’s a 6.5/10,” says Frazee Johnson, “but for general use it’s a 4.5/10.”
The top two perfumes in the mid-tier category are Bright Crystal by Versace, with a 7/10, and Replica By The Fireplace by Maison Margiela with a 7.5/10. Bright Crystal had the widest range of ratings out of all the perfume we tried. Personally I think it smells like makeup, but others said it reminded them of a summer breeze. Replica By The Fireplace is extremely winter coded, it’s warm, spicy and smells of wood, like a snowy holiday in. I would never wear it in spring or summer for this reason. Though it smells excellent, it loses points due to its lack of versatility.
Of our top five perfumes, four of them are an exact 8/10. Both the Ariana Grande perfumes we tried exceed expectations. Cloud and Sweet Like Candy earned their eights by managing to be sweet but not cloying. From what we could smell, Cloud presents mostly as its middle notes, vanilla and coconut, though it has many notes. Sweet Like Candy is very fruity and fun, like something Barbie would wear. “Sweet is on trend right now,” says Mark Liebman, a fragrance therapist at The Perfume House on Hawthorne. For those who are into cologne, he recommends Greenley by Parfums de Marly, which according to Liebman is “really popular for men right now.”
A perfume you have probably smelled a lot is Carolina Herrera’s Good Girl. Extremely popular for a reason, Good Girl’s rating of 8/10 doesn’t consider its fantastic packaging, which would surely raise it to a 9/10 if considered. Shaped like a high heel, Good Girl surprisingly smells a little like tea and a lot like warm florals. It is versatile and could easily be worn every day.
Christian Dior’s Miss Dior takes the final 8/10 spot. Its bottle makes it look like the quintessential teenage girl perfume, complete with a bow. Its scent is powdery and floral without being overwhelming, and it reminds me of a spring or summer drink.
The perfume we gave the highest rating isn’t actually from a perfume company. You by Glossier, a company which generally makes makeup, received a 9.5/10, everyone loved it across the board. It smells bright, fresh, and a little sweet, but not floral. It is designed to enhance someone’s natural smell, and I do think it would smell differently on everyone. It’s perfect perfume to wear anytime, and would be especially good at the gym to make you smell effortlessly dewy and clean.
In the end, all perfume will smell different on your skin, so don’t listen to me if you like a perfume that I don’t. It’s also a good idea to take your friends perfume shopping with you so they can tell if it goes with your natural musk. Plus, it’s a lot more fun. It’s also important to remember that you don’t need 10+ fragrances to smell good; one will do the trick. Social media can perpetuate the idea that you aren’t a perfume person if you don’t have a huge collection, but that isn’t true. Spend your money on the things you truly love.
