Meet The Future Fragrance Icons

From Chanel N°5 to Le Labo Santal 33, the fragrance world is awash with cult favourites. But what's next? We take a whiff of the up-and-coming scents that will soon be everywhere.

- Hanna Ibraheem

Just scroll through #perfume on Instagram and you will notice a theme behind the staggering 18.6 million posts.

A longside titles like The only perfume that made me literally gasp when I first smelled it and even 'Perfumes that make his knees weak', we are seeing scents like Byredo's Mumbai Noise, Le Labo's Santal 33, and Maison Francis Kurkdjian's Baccarat Rouge crop up over and over again. Nowadays, dominating a social media hashtag has become the cultural accolade fragrance brands need if they want a new perfume to cut through the competition and achieve bestseller buzz.

But what makes these perfumes appeal to the masses and become hashtag-worthy? When we asked French perfumer Francis Kurkdjian why Baccarat Rouge is so universally loved, he told us, It is contemporary, yet there is a timeless feeling to it. The trail is very unique and remains recognisable among any other fragrance.

Unique, but recognisable. It is no new phenomenon in the fragrance industry we have seen it with iconic perfumes of the past. Take Dior's J'Adore for instance. Launched in 1999, it is still the brand's bestselling scent today, counting Charlize Theron and Kate Winslet as fans. Meanwhile, Chanel recently celebrated N°5's 100th birthday, collecting a pack of celebrity devotees along the way. Marilyn Monroe once famously said she wore nothing but Chanel N°5 to bed, while Nicole Kidman, Lily-Rose Depp, and even Brad Pitt love this fragrance.