Heritage and vintage perfumes have long been collectables, with thousands of people keeping treasured bottles passed down from their parents or grandparents. One might love the scent of a perfume they have worn as a signature fragrance for years or search for iconic, memorable perfumes that feel uniquely nostalgic. 

One of the challenges for perfume specialists is that many traditional perfumes have been redesigned or reimagined in recent years for varied reasons, such as replacing scarce or protected natural ingredients or using more innovative production techniques.

The perfume experts at Parfum Muse clarify why your favourite timeless scent may have changed, highlight some of the fine scent brands that continue to use by-hand processes, and suggest some exquisite fragrances that evoke immediate memories of your favourite classics.

Perfume Modernisation: Why Are Iconic Fragrances Redesigned?

It’s common to feel baffled about why a perfume brand or luxury scent maker might choose to reconfigure a much-loved fragrance that has been around for generations. Still, the reality is that many historic perfumes simply cannot be made today as they always have been.

There are diverse elements that factor into the decisions perfume designers and manufacturers make, but these are frequently due to:

• Toxicity: Replacing specific ingredients due to lack of availability, a need to use more sustainable options, or because some heritage scent notes were—while unknown at the time—toxic. Lilial is a great example, with a delicate accent similar to Lily of the Valley, but that was banned a couple of years ago due to high toxicity levels.
• Innovation: Other perfume brands choose to recreate ingredients that are scarce or that were originally extracted from protected plants or animals, leveraging advanced technologies that allow them to formulate safer, eco-friendly, and non-harmful molecules—in the above case, Lilybelle.
• Longevity: Some perfumes are modified because they become too expensive to make using the original ingredients. Despite misconceptions, this is rarely because cheap, low-quality synthetics are widely available. Instead, perfume designers look to refresh, update, and evolve their classic scents to keep pace with consumer demands, expectations, and value—such as how long a perfume will stay on the skin.

If you have a treasured scent that has been discontinued, you may need to look at the closest available alternative—we’ll advise how to do that shortly. 

However, in many cases, a reimagined version of a classic fragrance will likely sustain the same familiar profile, comprising top, heart, and base notes, but it will be more durable, sustainable, and safe to use.

Finding a Modern Signature Scent Reminiscent of a Classic

Discovering that a perfume you have worn for years has come to an end or is no longer in production can feel like a blow, with the option of trying to hunt down bottles through online marketplaces, often paying hugely inflated prices, while acknowledging that when your last bottle runs out, it will be incredibly difficult to replace.

There are a few options, but the first is to look at the scents and profile of your favourite to track down a more widely available alternative. We’ll use Chloé Narcisse, a popular scent that was discontinued, as an example.

Although there are a few remaining unused bottles sold online, a better solution is to consider the accents that made it appealing, with a soft scent that combined florals and woody notes incorporating apricot, marigold, orange blossom, and violet, with heart notes of rose, spice, gardenia, and vanilla, with cedar and musk at the base.

Athalia Eau de Parfum by Parfums de Marly has a resemblance, with bitter orange and incense, orange blossom, and a vanilla and musk foundation, with that distinct combination of wood and florals that is equally soft and sophisticated. 

Another great choice could be Springpop Parfum by La Maison JUS. It uses green grass, magnolia, and hedione combined with white musk and patchouli for a fresh, bright, and carefree fragrance that brings green fields and daffodils to mind. 

Ideal Scents for Vintage and Classic Perfume Connoisseurs

If you love nothing more than a vintage perfume or a scent that feels like it could have been worn by generations before you, the ideal option may be to look at some of the well-known luxury perfume brands that focus on heritage and classic ingredients, often concentrating on those tiny details that make vintage perfume bottles and atomisers such a pleasure to own.

Our recommendations might include scents with ingredients and accents that have easily stood the test of time, from light florals such as rose and honeysuckle to richer cedarwood and oud, which have been used in fragrance and beauty products for hundreds of years.

You might like to try:

• Parfums de Marly: Perseus is one of several incredible fragrances from Parfums de Marly, a brand heavily focused on prestige Parisian history. It is a perfect introduction, with blackcurrant, grapefruit, and bergamot undercut by geranium, mandarin, and vetiver. Ambergris and dry wood at the base give it a smooth, woody texture.
• BDK Parfums: Villa Neroli is inspired by the island landscapes of Capri. Although the sleek, minimalist packaging is as contemporary as you’d expect from this perfume house, the scent itself feels like an Italian summer in days gone by, with rose, lemon, neroli, orange blossom, patchouli, and vetiver. It’s designed to be a scent that captures ‘when time stood still’ and delivers.  
• Elie Saab: Le Parfum is a feminine, floral, and easily wearable perfume made using timeless ingredients. Its top notes include orange blossom and jasmine with patchouli heart accents and a base of cedar accord and honey rose—a scent profile that feels simultaneously modern and classic.

It’s always well worth checking the original ingredients or scent profile of a now-discontinued perfume since it’s very likely you’ll find a similar scent. Simply head to Parfum Muse and use our search function to enter the notes, ingredients, or fragrances you love, and we’ll highlight some of the closet matches that you will adore.

Published by: Khy Talara