Has the strawberry perfume trend already ended, or has it even begun yet?

I’ve been reading about the history and symbolism of strawberries in preparation for an upcoming talk, and my research has made me want to dab some fraise-inspired fragrance onto my wrists. Who doesn’t love a real-life strawberry, or a dessert that incorporates strawberries? They’re sweet, they’re easy to handle (no seeds, pits, or peels!), and they can be eaten straight out of the container yet also rise easily to more sophisticated treatments. I think strawberry notes should show up in perfumery often.

The ancients would have agreed: “With your own hands, you shall yourself uncover strawberries, growing so soft beneath the woodland shade.” — Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 13

Here are a few of my favorite scents with compositions that incorporate strawberry, from niche to indie to mainstream. Please feel free to share a few recommendations of your own! The only ground rules: I won’t try anything from PHLUR, and Malin + Goetz Strawberry is pleasant (if short-lived) but smells absolutely nothing like berries, no matter how many beauty writers keep mentioning it without having smelled it.

A decadently messy strawberry: Hilde Soliani FRaaagola Saalaaata (Hilde Soliani, ca. 2008). A salted strawberry salad! Seriously, a little bit of salt really does enhance the flavor of strawberries. (So does a dash of balsamic vinegar. It’s all in the contrast?) Emma Vernon of Perfume Room once said that she also gets a subtle violet-y note from FRaaagola Saalaaata, and I agree with her impression.

A woodsy #lumberjackcore strawberry: Imaginary Authors Cape Heartache (Josh Meyer, 2013). Cape Heartache’s strawberry is a surprising, but welcome, accent to a forest-y composition of Douglas fir, pine, hemlock, and mountain fog. This fragrance alludes to a (non-existent) book recounting an expedition to the Pacific Northwest in the 1880s, but you could also just wear it for a walk in the park, or for an evening at home.

An English picnic strawberry: Angela Flanders Rose Sauvage (Angela Flanders, 2007). I purchased a travel-sized spray of Rose Sauvage at Angela Flanders’s Columbia Road shop in London last year, and now I wish I’d sprung for a larger bottle. This perfume suggests “happy summer days in the countryside” with a vibrant pairing of ripe strawberry and jammy eglantine (a type of wild rose). It makes me smile every time I wear it.

A vintage scented-candle strawberry: Ava-Luxe Strawberry (Serena Ava Goode, ca. 2000). Serena often brings discontinued fragrances back into circulation, so let’s hope for this one to return. Ava-Luxe Strawberry reminds me of the bright-red wax and wonderfully artificial smell of a specific candle in a strawberry-shaped ceramic container that I loved to sniff as a child. Pure fun.

A nouveau gourmand strawberry: Anna Sui Violet Vibes (Jérôme Épinette, 2023). The name is a little misleading—this isn’t a violet perfume, and I’d say it smells like less like a sundae, more like a float, with strawberry sherbet, lemon soda, and some vanilla-infused whipped cream on top. My favorite from the Sundae trio.

A classic Y2K strawberry: Marc Jacobs Daisy (Alberto Morillas, 2007). Daisy has had about two dozen flankers at this point, but the original still reigns as a 2000s classic. At the time, a strawberry note (even within a sheer floral composition like this one) really felt like a novelty! I didn’t wear Daisy in those days, because I was in my “niche snob” phase, but I appreciate it now.

I hope you’ll enjoy an abundance of berries *and* berry fragrances this spring and summer.