The £3 incense from the nose behind Baccarat Rouge 540
A perfume industry secret from the maker of TikTok's viral fragrance
I kept noticing the same perfume in changing rooms or restaurant bathrooms, it was soft, fruity and full-lipped.
It smelt like an expensive hotel room, and frustratingly, as a fragrance obsessionist, I couldn’t place it. Without looking too much like a creep, I’d follow girls (they were always girls, not women, boys or men) down the street, taking in greedy gulps like a modern-day Jean-Baptiste Grenouille.
I then read about Baccarat Rouge 540, and realised it had to be that! I knew all the other fragrance hits by heart (and nose).
As a perfume brand founder, I’ve given up on buying new perfumes, I make my own now, and live a mostly happy life, doing without new formulations by others. (Disclaimer: I still have an extensive archive collection from my previous job as a beauty editor, but I haven’t added anything new for years.)
But this new tangle of notes was getting up my nose and inside my head.
A trip to Harvey Nichols confirmed what I had been smelling was indeed Bac-Rouge. I knew it before my nose met the scent strip, it was like seeing an actress in real life and thinking just for a second, she was someone you knew. Straight from the bottle, it was a little more ‘apricot yoghurt’ than on the skin of others, but don’t let that put you off.
There’s nothing I love more than a viral scent, for its tribal nature and for bringing perfume into the conversation. We may know a Birkin bag, all about the Barbie movie or can name a Taylor Swift song, but perfume rarely crosses over in the same way things do in fashion, film or music.
For Baccarat Rouge 540 by perfumer Francis Kurkdjian, the hype stems from rumours that the formula was duped by Cloud, Ariana Grande. Was I smelling Bac Rouge or Cloud, or even Zara’s Red Temptation, another popular tribute?
Dupes are a subculture of perfume I have mixed feelings about.
On one hand: Yes! There is something punk about it, perfume doesn’t need to be prohibitively expensive, and anything that gets people excited about the weird world of scent is a good thing. It’s never indie brands that are duped, just huge conglomerates, so who cares? We all know how much is added on to a cult fragrance, the big houses that get duped don’t lose money from the knock-offs, it just adds to the price and allure of the original. But for those wearing the dupes, in those ugly bottles, where the labels rub off, and where any natural notes have been replaced for sure, there are great affordable ways to smell amazing if you know where to look!
Easy wins are: investing in the brand’s tester kits, revisiting vintage classics, or even mixing high-grade natural oils like patchouli or sandalwood directly onto your skin.
Bac-Rouge (and its many knock-offs) is what Tom Ford's Black Orchid was to my generation, and Santal 33, or Glossier YOU to generations in between, and here’s my tip if you want to get in on the action, but are on a budget and don’t want a dupe.
The nose behind Bac-Rouge is Francis Kurkdjian. If you want a whiff of his bougie, powdery signature, you can get that for just £3.20 in the form of incense. Long before his perfume was a hashtag on TikTok, Kurkdjian made the formulations for two of the scents (Papier Rose and Arménie) in my favourite paper incense collection: Papier d 'Armeni.
Papier d 'Armeni incense papers are everything I love about the perfume world. When you know where to look, you can find something that smells beautiful, costs less than 4 quid, and was created by a cult perfumer behind the world’s most-wanted scent.
I always stock up on these sweet vintage-style booklets of incense papers whenever I’m in France. They’re sold behind the counter in most pharmacies. You simply rip off a strip, concertina the paper ‘accordion style’, light it, and quickly blow out the flame to encourage wafts of sweet musky smoke.
The original is called Tradition (not by Kurkdjian, but still beautiful) and is inspired by the benzoin that Amenian families burnt in their homes in the 19th century to ward off illness and invite comfort.
The mother of essential oils
Benzoin is a creamy and woodsy essential oil, rumoured to be one of the original ingredients of Coca-Cola. That gives you an idea of its medicinal but vanilla scent. It's gentle and universally popular in my natural perfume workshops. According to Highsnobeity, Coca-Cola is a trend in perfume right now.
When you slash the bark of the styrax plant, benzoin oozes out like caramel to protect the tree, that’s why it’s known as ‘the mother of essential oils’ for its healing and protecting properties. It was the OG 'cosy scent’ before that this term got appropriated by Starbucks pumpkin lattes and synthetic cinnamon candles.
Kurkdjian’s creations for the collection build on the benzoin but add in more sophisticated notes: Arménie is an earthy mix of lavender, myrrh, and cedar, and Rose is a powdery Turkish delight bloom finished with a smoky musk - both are definitely in the Bac-Rouge arena of fancy, powder notes.
The tiny booklets are perfect for travel, and there’s no better feeling than unpacking in a new place, hanging up your outfits, opening the windows onto a new view, and locating yourself with the scent of incense. I have a very sensitive nose, and usually the hot air, or smells from a new street are part of the joy, but occasionally a vacation apartment can smell stale, or strange, and incense helps me land.
Only the French would have something as frivolous as incense designed by a world-class perfumer offered at the point of sale in their pharmacies. What could be more essential than indulging your senses when you pick up your prescription?
A colleague once posted some from her trip to Paris, I could smell them before I opened the envelope. It was such a treat on a dark winter morning.
They make the chicest stocking filler that’ll last all year long. To order in bulk go to their website: and if you are in the UK this website has French pharmacy essentials. I couldn’t pick a favourite: buy all three and that’ll still be cheaper than a Bac-Rouge dupe, and you have the original.
