The rose, I would argue, is the ultimate high-low flower. You can find it blooming from the Villa Cimbrone gardens over the Mediterranean—or smothered in cellophane and thrust in a plastic bucket at a corner bodega. And its reputation as a perfumer’s tool has seen great peaks—say, the 19th century rose mania inspired by Empress Josephine–and a few valleys: In 1919, Coco Chanel said, “A woman should smell like a woman, not a rose.” Ouch.
It’s been a long climb back up for the rose—though it never left perfumers’ kits entirely (for the record, even Chanel No. 5 has some rose notes). But in 2024, the rose once again has top billing in the world of perfume. Its ascent was derailed a bit in recent years as fragrance lovers became fixated on all things gourmand— vanilla scents, to be specific. But now we’re ready to set down our Baccarat Rouge 540 in favor of something, well, rosier.
And what exactly does “rosier” mean right now? Truly… almost anything. We have come a long, long way from the one-note potpourri rose. Don’t believe me? How about this: Lancôme just dropped a collection of 11 rose perfumes (yes, as in, just shy of a dozen) to shake up the category—and prove once and for all the incredible diversity of this flower.
As a reformed rose hater, I can personally attest to the fact that there’s now a rose scent for everyone. These aren’t your mother’s (or grandmother’s) garden-variety rose notes. This new generation of rose perfumes is encouraging us to forget everything we thought we knew about this flower and to see (and smell) its many facets in a whole new way.
Emma Vernon, host of the Perfume Room podcast, says we can track the modern evolution of rose fragrances with cultural and fashion trends. “It's a note that's indicative of bigger trends in fashion and society,” she explains. In the mid-2010s, new niche fragrance brands, with their genderless packaging and scents, put their own new-school spin on the old-school rose. “Socially, it was a time where people were starting to understand the range of the gender spectrum,” says Vernon. And it was also the birth of the “girlboss” era, where women were encouraged to climb the corporate ladder and hustle 24/7. “Here come all of these industrial, unisex, cool-looking brands and they all put out industrial, unisex, cool-looking roses: Rose 31 from Le Labo, Rose of No Man’s Land by Byredo,” says Vernon.
The early 2020s brought the “maximalist, luxurious rose” as a marker of status. Consider Tom Ford’s Rose Prick. Shortly thereafter, the TikTok- and pandemic-driven collision of cottagecore, coquettecore, and Barbiecore led to a rise in the flirty, ultra-feminine rose, like Parfums de Marly’s pastel pink Delina (a 2024 Best of Beauty winner, we must note). Fragrance wearers were ready “to reclaim the, ‘Yes, I want to smell like a sweet rose and I have no shame in it. It’s okay that I want to be unapologetically feminine with my scent,’” Vernon says. So what next? “I think that we're headed is we are always trying to rebel against the thing that the mainstream previously said is not the way to be,” says Vernon, who thinks that maybe this will mean a return to the “filthy, raunchy, ‘80s animalic rose.” (Think Ungaro Diva and Estée Lauder Knowing. Yes, please!)
While a comeback of the big, fill-the-room ‘80s-style scents is still TBD, a full rose takeover is definitely in progress. Let’s go back for a minute to that new Lancôme lineup of 11 rose scents, officially named Absolue Les Parfums. They tapped some of the biggest perfumers in the world to interpret the flower in their own unique way. For example, Frank Voekl, the nose behind juggernauts like Glossier You and Le Labo’s Santal 33, is the nose behind Rose or Die, a woody rose with notes of smoked black tea, peony, and gaiac wood. There’s a chypre rose, an aquatic rose, a citrus rose, and a megafloral called 1001 Roses, which the brand describes as “the purest interpretation of a freshly picked rose from the Domaine de la Rose,” Lancôme’s rose field in Grasse.
As I mentioned, I was once firmly anti-rose. Then, about four years ago, Frederic Malle’s Portrait of a Lady turned everything I thought I knew upside down. I learned not just to appreciate but to adore rose scents. So when Lancôme’s new scents arrived at my door, I wasted no time ripping open the box to start sniffing. As a certified chyprehead, I was most excited about Hot as Rose by Alexandra Monet and Alber Manillas, with blackcurrant and patchouli, and I Flamed a Rose, a blend of vetiver, ambrox, and patchouli dreamed up by Daphné Bugey. Hot as Rose is an ideal entry point for the chypre genre thanks to the juicy zing of blackcurrant. I Flamed a Rose is smoky and complicated—possibly even polarizing. There are crowd-pleasing roses, like the pretty citrus and white tea Le Parfum, which would be perfect for everyday, office-appropriate wear, and weirder scents, like the frosty, aquatic, moss-based Not Your Rose.
Perfumer Fanny Bal created two scents in the collection, the dewy, lifelike 6 AM Rose, which she formulated in partnership with legendary perfumer Dominique Ropion—the nose behind Portrait of a Lady, NBD—and the fruity floral Storm & Roses, an electric blend of patchouli, blackcurrant, and Lancôme’s own roses.
“The magic thing with the rose is that you can smell it and find so many different facets,” Bal explains of her approach to the two scents—and the thesis of the collection overall. Bal describes 6 AM Rose as “fresh” and “petally” thanks to the sparkling, almost wet rose and jasmine combo, and calls Storm & Roses “electric.”
Even when it’s not the main event of the juice, this multi-faceted flower is an indispensable part of a perfumer’s palette. “One of the first things you do as a perfumer is build a rose accord,” says Joey Rosin of the boutique fragrance house Hoax Parfum, who often reaches for a rose when a scent he’s working on doesn’t “feel diaphanous enough” or lacks a specific “lift.” That’s where rose comes in. “Nine times out of 10, rose or rose materials will get you there,” he explains. “It’s just body, body, body.” (Rosin recently created a fragrance for Troye Sivan’s line Tsu Lange Yor.) Bal calls the rose a “convenient” part of her palette, saying it’s “very elegant and strong” no matter how it’s used. In his longtime Allure column, perfumer Frédéric Malle once explained how a rose is not a rose is not a rose: “In nature, there isn’t one rose that smells like another,” he wrote. “They all smell rosy, of course, but generally, the darker the color of the flower, the warmer the scent. Red roses smell fairly rich, almost like tobacco mixed with some- thing sweet, such as raspberries. Pale roses smell fresh and kind of earthy.”
So if you associate rose scents with powdery, prissy bathroom soaps and “grandma perfumes,” it’s time to open your olfactory horizons. “One of the great things about roses is that because each one has so many different facets, it lends itself to being blended with other things,” Malle previously told Allure. And because rose plays so well with a plethora of notes, it’s become such a mainstay in the practice of perfumery and an essential tool for a perfumer’s artistic expression. Rosin particularly likes a rose and lychee combo, and Bal defines a modern rose as one paired with fresh, green, and fruity notes, or wood and musk.
Ahead, discover some of the most exciting new launches from brands like Diptyque, Cult Gaia, and Byredo, and see how perfumers are re-interpreting the rose in unexpected ways.
The Rich Girl Roses
There’s no such thing as quiet luxury when it comes to big, bold rose scents. They convey loud, over-the-top opulence in the best way, like how the Kardashian-Jenner boyfriends and husbands decorate their homes top-to-toe in blooms on birthdays and anniversaries. We’d put Bvlgari’s Le Gemme Sahare firmly in the rich-girl rose category, though it smells more like the Saharan desert than Calabasas; its luscious blend of satiny desert rose and ambergris lingers for hours.
The newly relaunched Balmain Beauty Carbone pairs what the brand calls a “maximalist musk” with a “minimalist rose.” Both the musk and rose absolutes get a chance to show off their dark and light sides, with the rose appearing soft and sweet at first, then deepening alongside the sensual musk and warm, spicy cumin notes.
And Amouage, a fragrance house that practically oozes luxury, put a gourmet spin on rose with their new Love Delight. Rose is spiced up with ginger, cinnamon, and a splash of rum.
The Renegade Roses
These rose fragrances stretch the limits of what a rose can be: dry, icy, windswept. Taking a cue from nature, they show the evolution of the rose from a simple garden flower to a complex, ever-changing icon. Diptyque’s Rose Roche, part of the brand’s new Les Essences de Diptyque line, is another ode to the desert rose, but while the Bvlgari rose is a rich, deep, and spicy scent, Rose Roche feels almost crystalline thanks to a squeeze of lemon and bright patchouli. It’s got great sillage, but still feels transparent and lightweight as a linen slipdress.
The desert was also the inspiration for Byredo’s Desert Dawn, which opens with a combo of peppery cardamom softened by a handful of rose petals and blended atop a dry, crisp papyrus base. Desert Dawn isn’t a rose fragrance per se, as the sandalwood and vetiver notes dominate most of the heart, but the softness of rose helps smooth out any sharp edges.
Future Society Haunted Rose was inspired by an extinct South African flower last seen in 1960, pairing a wet, dewy, fresh rose with a wallop of saffron, black pepper, and passionfruit to shake the rose out of its garden comfort zone.
The Party Girl Roses
Some scents are just made for fun and frivolity, and rose can be a top-tier party girl. NOYZ’s Love Club is another rose-and-saffron combo, juicy and flirty as its name suggests. It’s a scent that takes the rose out of the garden and places her right in the center of the dance floor. She lent you her leather jacket and a cigarette, and who knows where the night will lead.
The translucent hot pink bottle of Charlotte Tilbury’s Love Frequency is a hint at the juice inside: a zingy, woody rose with pink pepper top notes and a come-hither trail. The fragrance was formulated with what Tilbury calls “emotion-boosting molecules” derived from rose and cashmeran to “enhance feelings of love,” which is probably just fun marketing, but hey—this could be the rose you fall for!
The Buttoned-Up Roses
There’s still a place for more “traditional” takes on the rose that fully embrace the softer side of the flower.
If you want something classic, try Frédéric Malle’s Lipstick Rose. The scent was inspired by—you guessed it—the fragrance of a vintage lipstick, with soft, powdery rose and violet notes brightened by grapefruit over a base of vanilla and musk. Think of it as a retro movie star, all bottled up in a scent.
Prada describes its Infusion de Rose as “graceful,” and that’s exactly how it smells, thanks to a pretty, fresh combo of Turkish rose and neroli. Aerin has a whole suite of rose scents, including its latest Rose de Grasse flanker, Rose de Grasse Pour Filles, a lighter, fresher rose scent suited to newbies.
Discover more new fragrances.
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