Maison Francis Kurkdjian review
Francis Kurkdjian is one of the best working perfumers alive, and his house is the rare niche brand where the person on the bottle actually composed what is inside it.
$125–$495Read review
Shelf
Fragrance Houses
Perfumers and the houses behind them, rated on composition, longevity, price per millilitre and how candid they are about materials.
6Brands reviewed
7.6Shelf average
8.5Highest score
Diptyque review
Everyone knows Diptyque for the candles. The fragrance range is the better half of the business, and Philosykos is one of the great compositions of the last thirty years.
$40–$320Read review
Le Labo review
Le Labo sells a laboratory ritual and a genuinely distinctive house style. Santal 33 is now so common that the exclusivity argument has collapsed, and the prices have not.
$95–$420Read review
Jo Malone London review
Jo Malone London sells simplicity and asks you to buy two bottles to make it interesting. The colognes are pleasant, well-made and slightly thin, and the layering idea is a commercial strategy first.
$42–$205Read review
Byredo review
Byredo makes the best-looking bottles in niche fragrance and some of its compositions do not last two hours. The gap between the object and the scent is the whole review.
$60–$390Read review
Creed review
Creed makes two or three genuinely good fragrances and sells them alongside a founding history that historians have been unable to verify. The batch inconsistency is the bigger problem.
$195–$740Read review