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Sweet, sugary notes have been on everyone's fragrance profiles, but lately, the best milky perfumes have us swapping (or layering) dessert-themed gourmand fragrances for something a little creamy and hazy. Milky beauty products have been dominating the online scene, and now, it's time to smell like one of your favorite sweet dairy treats (hey, whipped cream).
Our Top Picks
- Best Overall: Liquides Imaginaires Blanche Bête Eau de Parfum, $280
- Taking Over TikTok: Commodity Milk Expressive Eau de Parfum, $145
- Best White Floral: Amouage Love Tuberose Eau de Parfum, $380
- Sweet and Spicy: Casamorati Italica Eau de Parfum,
$305$296 - Smells Like Café Au Lait: Maison Margiela Replica Coffee Break Eau de Toilette, $165
- Best Gourmand: Brown Girl Jane Dusk Eau de Parfum, $102
- Best Vanilla: Ellis Brooklyn Vanilla Milk Eau de Parfum, $110
- Best Musk: Molton Brown Milk Musk Eau de Toilette, $120
- Best Hazy: Imaginary Authors Yesterday Haze Eau De Parfum, $111
Frequently Asked Questions
Best Overall: Liquides Imaginaires Blanche Bête Eau de Parfum
Why It's Worth It: If you want to smell like soft-serve ice cream, spritz on the Liquides Imaginaires Blanche Bête Eau de Parfum. This fragrance started TikTok's milky fragrance trend for its combination of velvety milk accord, warm ambrette and tuberose, and powdery white florals like jasmine and mahonia. Sure, she's pricey, but considering how much you will spray this aromatic sweet treat, the cost per wear practically pays itself.
Notes: Ambrette seed, milk accord, jasmine, tuberose, mahonia, incense, tonka, cacao, vanilla musk | Available Sizes: 3.4 ounces
Taking Over TikTok: Commodity Milk Expressive Eau de Parfum
Why It's Worth It: Liquides Imaginaires's fragrance walked so the Commodity Milk Expressive Eau de Parfum could sprint all over our FYPs. This cold milk-infused perfume celebrates the dairy note in all its lactonic glory, rather than diminishing its muskiness with loads of sugar. Though the milk is served cold, this fragrance warms up with a touch of mahogany wood as it dries down.
Notes: Cold milk, mahogany wood, marshmallow, tonka bean | Available Sizes: 3.4 ounces, 0.34 ounces (travel)
Best White Floral: Amouage Love Tuberose Eau de Parfum
Why It's Worth It: If your fragrance preferences lean more floral than sweet, Amouage's Love Tuberose Eau de Parfum is for you. In full transparency, you have to love white florals, which usually have a more pungent floral scent, to appreciate the brand's play on heady tuberose fully. Upon first spritz, its aromatic bouquet is built up with blossoms of jasmine and gardenia that dry down to a warm, sugary blend of woods, vanilla, and chantilly cream (which, yes, qualifies as a milk note).
Notes: Tuberose, jasmine, gardenia, cedarwood, sandalwood, vanilla, chantilly cream | Available Sizes: 3.4 ounces
Sweet and Spicy: Casamorati Italica Eau de Parfum
Why It's Worth It: If you like your dessert to have a bit of a kick, Casamorati's Italica Eau de Parfum belongs in your fragrance collection. It has the usual notes you'd smell in your usual latte: almond, milk, vanilla, toffee, and, if it's the weekend, bourbon. The latter's spiciness is elevated with a hint of saffron, which doesn't have the heat of a usual spicy note but certainly adds warmth to the fragrance.
Notes: Almond, milk, vanilla, toffee, sandalwood, bourbon, | Available Sizes: 3.4 ounces
Smells Like Café Au Lait: Maison Margiela Replica Coffee Break Eau de Toilette
Why It's Worth It: Even if java isn't your drink of choice, we promise you won't get enough of Maison Margiela's Replica Coffee Break Eau de Toilette. This milk fragrance is as satisfyingly gourmand as you can get, featuring an invigorating blend of coffee, milk mousse, and vanilla. To keep us on our toes, this fragrance also has a hint of sweet, herbaceous lavender that enhances as it dries down.
Notes: Coffee accord, lavender, milk mousse accord, vanilla | Available Sizes: 3.4 ounces
Best Gourmand: Brown Girl Jane Dusk Eau de Parfum
Why It's Worth It: Rather than milk itself, Brown Girl Jane's Dusk Eau de Parfum is infused with an olfactory dollop of cream that's heightened with warm, toasted almond, sweet and slightly floral vanilla orchid, and creamy coconut. Its sugariness calms down and turns into a woody haze of sandalwood, musk, and cedarwood as you wear it.
Notes: Toasted almond, cream, coconut, vanilla orchid, freesia, jasmine, sandalwood, musk cedarwood | Available Sizes: 1.7 ounces
Best Vanilla: Ellis Brooklyn Vanilla Milk Eau de Parfum
Why It's Worth It: Vanilla and milk are a couple made in gourmand heaven, so, of course, our editors are currently loving Ellis Brooklyn's Vanilla Milk Eau de Parfum. "This is the kind of scent that draws you in, and I love that about Ellis Brooklyn Vanilla Milk," says Allure associate editor Annie Blay. "It doesn't project too far, but when you come in for a hug and get a whiff of musk and vanilla, it's a comforting scent that envelopes without overwhelming."
Notes: Milk accord, bourbon vanilla bean, Madagascar vanilla bean, frangipani, peony, rose, cocoa shell extract, amyris, sandalwood, musk | Available Sizes: 1.7 ounces
Best Musk: Molton Brown Milk Musk Eau de Toilette
Why It's Worth It: If you prefer fragrances that embrace the creamier side of milk, try Molton Brown's Milk Musk Eau de Toilette. At the literal heart of this fragrance is a soft, smooth blend of musk and milk that's tied together with sweet vanilla and warm ambroxan (a synthetic form of amber). It harmoniously hits all the fragrance bases with juicy hints of pear and peach, warm cedarwood, and sweet, spicy tonka bean.
Notes: Musk, ambroxan, vanilla, milk, pear, peach, cedarwood, tonka bean | Available Sizes: 3.3 ounces
Best Hazy: Imaginary Authors Yesterday Haze Eau De Parfum
Why It's Worth It: If you want to evoke laidback, summery vibes year-round, spritz the Imaginary Authors Yesterday Haze Eau De Parfum. It contains all the scents you might whiff out on a hot August day in the countryside: fig, iris, tree bark, and orchard dust are just the beginning. A dose of cream, walnut bitters, and tonka plays up its creamy, lingering profile.
Notes: Fig, iris, cream, orchard dust, tree bark, walnut bitters, tonka bean | Available Sizes: 1.7 ounces
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a perfume "milky?"
Milky textures have taken over skin- and hair-care products, but what qualifies a non-tangible scent as a milky substance? Well, it's more about the scent's olfactory composition than its texture. "'Milky' usually describes a fragrance with milk (mostly milk sugar) or a transparent creaminess," says Vince Spinnato, a Hollywood-based perfumer and cosmetic chemist. Lactonic scents are often labeled as gourmand and tend to be paired with vanilla, sandalwood, fruits, and white flowers. "It evokes a sweetness and a coziness or comforting essence," says Spinnato.
Mandy Aftel, a perfumer based in Berkeley, California, adds that milky fragrances have a "soft, flat" composition as opposed to the sharpness of, say, cheese. "It's skin-like and creamy," she says.
Which fragrance notes are found in milky perfumes?
Fun fact: Your fragrance doesn't have to feature a milk-derived accord to qualify as a milky fragrance. Spinnato says that perfumers recreate a milky perfume smell with materials called lactones, which are typically found in fruits. "They tend to smell like coconut or peach, but when mixed with vanilla, they create a milky aroma," Spinnato notes. Other notes that impart creaminess are soft woods, vanilla, heliotrope, tuberose, some roses, and caramelized sugar, he adds.
As evidenced by the scents we've listed above, a bounty of perfumes embrace the velvety fragrance profile of milk in its whole (cow- or plant-derived) form or sugar-spiked variants like custard and whipped cream. "Fragrances with milky facets are fragrances that can smell milky or creamy from accords made to smell reminiscent of coconut milk, almond milk, and milk-based desserts," says Spinnato.
Meet the experts
- Vince Spinnato, a Hollywood-based perfumer and cosmetic chemist
- Mandy Aftel, a perfumer based in Berkeley, California, and founder of Aftelier Perfumes
Find more Allure editor-approved fragrances:
- 14 Best Vanilla Perfumes That'll Make You Smell Like a Literal Snack
- The 18 Best Summer Fragrances of 2024
- Taylor Swift’s Favorite Perfume Got Me Back Into Fragrance After Not Wearing It for 5 Years
- 14 Hair Perfumes That Smell Subtly Incredible
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