What does it mean to smell ‘expensive’?

The lives of the rich and famous have always captivated us ordinary people, so it’s no surprise that hashtags like #OldMoney and #QuietLuxury have been trending on TikTok for months. The videos under these tags commonly feature snippets of aspirational-looking lifestyles: think cable-knit jumpers draped over striped shirts; Saltburn-esque mansions complete with crackling fireplaces; and, of course, Sofia Richie’s South of France wedding. Some creators are dedicated to making guides on how to “achieve the old money aesthetic”, be it through your wardrobe, home decor, make-up – or perfume.

There are swathes of videos on the platform with titles like “how to smell like a rich girl” or “perfumes that scream old money”. They commonly feature scents like Yves Saint Laurent Libre, Le Labo’s Santal 33, and Maison Francis Kurkdjian’s hero fragrance Baccarat Rouge 540, which went viral in 2021 after TikTokers identified it as a surefire way to “smell rich”. The hugely popular fragrance even went on to launch a thousand dupes, with Ariana Grande’s Cloud and Zara’s Red Temptation purported to smell just like the £245 original.

It’s easy to see why anyone wishing to project the vibe that they have seven figures in their bank account might start with perfume. It’s much easier to spritz a fragrance on your wrists than it is to overhaul your entire wardrobe – and, crucially, cheaper: the Financial Times recently wrote that despite a broader luxury slowdown amid rising inflation, perfume sales are booming, suggesting that ‘the lipstick effect’ (where consumers remain willing to buy small luxuries when facing an economic crisis) could be becoming ‘the fragrance effect’. But what makes a perfume ‘luxury’ – and what does it actually mean to ‘smell expensive’? How do certain scents get reputations for being ‘sophisticated’, and others for being ‘tacky’?

Unsurprisingly, perfumes associated with ‘smelling expensive’ are often more expensive to make. “I think you can smell the quality of a well-made perfume which uses the highest purity of ingredients,” explains Linda Pilkington, founder of fragrance house Ormonde Jayne. “As a niche perfume house and manufacturer, we have been able to use some extremely expensive ingredients that cost tens of thousands of pounds a kilo, such as champaca absolute, in much higher proportions than a mass market fragrance could.”

Back in the 19th century, perfumes were predominantly used by the upper classes due to their cost. At one point, smelling of violets was a potent status symbol among Victorian elites, with one kilogram of violet oil requiring 33,000 kg of violet flowers. Perfumes only became available to more middle-class consumers after cost-cutting perfumers developed cheaper, synthetic fragrances in the 20th century – and consequently, wealthier consumers began demanding new, different, and more high-end fragrances to distinguish themselves from the masses.

In the 80s, perfumes considered ‘expensive’ were bold fragrances like Giorgio Beverly Hills and Joy by Jean Patou, which both had heavy floral notes of tuberose and ylang-ylang. “These scents were so tenacious and would swamp the room, drowning out everything else. It was the olfactory equivalent of taking a megaphone into a silent train carriage during rush hour,” Pilkington says. “Restaurants soon started refusing entry to customers wearing Giorgio because it was so invasive.” But, as Pilkington says, “an overpowering perfume that enters the room before its wearer is no longer equated with exclusivity”. Instead, she has noticed her clientele are increasingly drawn towards “niche” perfumery that “isn’t going to be worn by anyone else in their vicinity”.

In other words, there’s no secret ‘expensive’ note. Tastes are constantly in flux: right now, in a market saturated with sandalwood and orange blossom, the aim is to sniff out increasingly unusual scents. “It isn’t just a case of costly ingredients making for ‘classy’ scents: it also has to do with marketing,” adds social historian and author Carol Dyhouse. Take Lynx. Sure, you don’t have to be ‘a nose’ to recognise that the deodorising body spray, primarily designed for teenage boys, is not the most interesting or sophisticated fragrance. But its reputation as the epitome of tackiness was doubtless fuelled by its sheer ubiquity and a string of gimmicky ads, including one which featured bikini-clad women flocking to a man wearing the spray. By contrast, perfumes perceived as more ‘high-end’ seldom bother with cliché TV adverts or kitschy bottles, with brands tending to foster a more exclusive, ‘IYKYK’ ethos.

“Scents tend to be regarded as ‘common’ rather than ‘classy’ when they become too freely available,” Dyhouse explains. As a result, luxury perfumers are now producing increasingly abstract and unusual scents, like Pearfat’s Multiball which supposedly smells like “the sticky sweet waxed floors of an arcade, bells and chimes signalling your high score, a sip of cola”, or Toskovat’s Anarchist A which has notes of “credit cards, snow and priest’s clothes”. Pilkington believes the success of Ormonde Jayne’s signature scent Ormonde lies in the fact it brings together black hemlock absolute with cardamom, creating a totally unique smell. “It’s the winning combination of unfamiliarity and beauty in fragrance that creates the ‘expensive’ effect, an elusive appeal with heightened status and allure,” she says.

There’s no one way to ‘smell expensive’, especially as tastes are liable to shift and change almost overnight as consumers eschew scents which become too mainstream. Even the fragrance fanatics of perfume forum Fragrantica have begun turning their noses up at TikTok’s beloved Baccarat Rouge 540. Besides, the truly rich are too busy flopping about on catamarans and avoiding tax to worry about whether their perfume is giving off an ‘old money vibe’ or not. If you really want to act like you’re a one-percenter, you’re best off picking a scent you actually like – be it sweet or spicy, floral or woody, ubiquitous or niche, Lynx or Le Labo – and wearing it with devil-may-care confidence.