Perfumes for People Who Don’t Like Perfume
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If you pick up your nearest bottle ofperfumeand check the ingredients label, the first ingredient listed will very likely be alcohol. Alcohol has long been the solvent and carrier of choice for the fragrance industry: It easily dissolves essential oils and aroma compounds, it helps fragrance molecules project by evaporating quickly, and it can act as a preservative so that the perfume lasts longer on your shelf. But lately, various formulas have entered the market that don’t contain any alcohol at all. Instead, they use water as their main base, blended with essential oils and other ingredients that act as surfactants, stabilizers, and preservatives.
According to perfumer andDelbia Dofounder Darryl Do, non-alcohol-based perfumes are not a new concept. Water-soluble fragrances that are mixed with a surfactant like soap, as well as fragrances with an oil base like jojoba or argan, have been around for centuries; using oils to capture botanical essences was a technique used by ancient perfumers in Rome and Egypt. However, a new variation has recently emerged “that takes a fragrance oil that is micro-encapsulated and has a water base in the mixture, so that the oil doesn’t separate from the water like an Italian dressing,” Do explains. Think of the “micro-encapsulations” as tiny beads of scent: “When it sprays out, the microencapsulation breaks up and disperses the fragrance oil.”
Water-based perfumes are ideal for people who want to avoid alcohol, or who prefer a very light scent
The main reasons someone might seek out a water-based perfume, Do says, are that it can be a good alternative for people with medical or religious reasons for avoiding alcohol, or for people with very dry or sensitive skin. The downside, however, is that water-based perfumes tend to be weaker and lighter than even an eau de toilette — Do estimates that about 80 percent of the time, water-based perfumes will have less projection than alcohol-based ones, since the scent molecules aren’t getting an automatic lift from the vaporization of alcohol. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you’re someone who finds most traditional perfumes overpowering or headache-inducing (or if you’re shopping for a tween who’s just getting started with perfume).
The water-based scents I tried were fresh and lovely, but fleeting
I tested some of the water-based formulas on the market right now to see for myself how they performed. Below, my findings.
The one that most closely imitates traditional perfumes
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Clean Reserve H2EAU Waterfall
I tested four Clean Reserve scents:Waterfall, which has notes of vetiver and apple blossom;Nectarine Petal, which has notes of peach and musk;Golden Citrus, which has notes of mandarin and orange blossom; andWater Lotus, which has notes of peony and cucumber. The scent profiles are similar to bright, fruity offerings from fragrance houses like Creed or Acqua di Parma, but with much less longevity. I spritzed each one liberally on my wrists and neck, and after a few hours I could only smell a faint hint of the original fragrance. All four scents are definitely on the light and fresh side, which tend to disappear more quickly than heavier, richer scents, so the fact that they didn’t linger wasn’t a big surprise. The Clean Reserve website offers four different bottle sizes, and I would recommend going for the smaller 10-ml. or 30-ml. sizes so that you can tuck them into your bag and reapply during the day.
The “natural,” skin-forward one
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Uni is the brand that first put water-based perfumes onto my radar. I kept getting Instagram ads for its two fragrance offerings:Sunset, a blend of cedar leaf, juniper, and sandalwood, andRain, a blend of peony, oakmoss, and patchouli. They’re designed to be naturalistic and skin-centric with an intimate sillage — meaning someone would have to be quite close to you to smell it — so if you find traditional perfumes too synthetic or strong, these would be a very good alternative. I liked both, but neither lasted very long; the top notes disappeared after 30 minutes or so, and after half a day I could barely detect any fragrance on my wrist. That’s not a knock, per se — I wouldn’t wear these scents if I wanted my perfume to make an impression, but they’ve been excellent as a breezy pick-me-up during these warmer summer months.
[Editor’s note: Uni’s fragrances are currently sold-out but will be back in stock soon.]
The one that exceeded expectations
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Decorte is a luxury Japanese cosmetics line that offers both alcohol-based and water-based perfumes, along with a variety of skin-care, makeup, and body-care products. I testedHikari, a green floral, andMai, a warm vanilla musk. The perfume exits the atomizer in a very gentle, fine, diffuse mist, like a soft veil of water droplets lightly fluttering onto your skin — an agreeable experience to be sure, but I really had to douse myself to feel like I’d applied enough for the scent to be noticeable. Mai, the vanilla musk, turned into a subtly sweet skin scent after a few hours, pleasant but not very strong; but Hikari lasted longer than I expected — after a long day of attending a work event, taking two dance classes in a row,andtrudging through a downpour, I could still smell it on myself once I got home.
The one with an unusual formulation
Bella Hadid launched her fragrance line Orebella in 2024 with three exclusively water-based scents:Salted Muse, a blend of sea salt and pink pepper;Window2Soul, a blend of rose, jasmine, and lemon; andBlooming Fire, a blend of patchouli, monoi flower, and bergamot. I tried all three when they first came out, and still have the bottles now, two years later. I was a little hesitant to give them another try considering how much time had passed, but when I sprayed them they smelled just the way they had initially — nothing seemed off or funky. Unlike the other three formulations, however, which use a soluble dispersion of fragrance oils in water, Orebella’s formulas are a “bi-phase” layered mist that naturally separates; when you shake the bottle, the liquid turns into a milky emulsion that’s ready to apply. That may explain why Orebella’s perfumes felt by far the oiliest on my skin, leaving a slick sheen on my wrists and neck that took a while to absorb. The scents themselves are appealing — the woody, marine Salted Muse may be one my favorite scents in my collection — though I wish they didn’t leave such a heavy, greasy residue. They also lasted longer than the Clean Reserve and Uni scents, maybe in part due to the oiliness; after applying in the morning, I could catch intermittent whiffs of the fragrance throughout the day well into the evening.
Turns out, how you apply them can make a big difference
One thing I noticed during my testing was that ultimately all the perfumes lasted longer on fabric than on skin — though the scents faded quickly from my wrist, I could still smell them on my clothes for two, sometimes three days in a row. For that reason, I started applying them by spraying the scent into the air and walking through the mist a few times, so that it created a shroud of scent over my whole person rather than just at my pulse points. Although I wouldn’t typically recommend applying perfume with this technique, I believe it makes sense for water-based perfumes, especially since the experience of applying them sometimes feels more like wearing abody spray— since they’re overall weaker, with less projection, it follows that they’d require a more thorough immersion to get the scent to come through.
Water-based perfumes are ideal for people who find traditional perfumes overpowering
Ultimately, I love it when people come up to me to tell me I smell amazing, so the water-based perfumes I tried were a bit too subtle and ephemeral for me to make them my everyday fragrance. But if you tend to feel overwhelmed or assaulted by the stronger scents of traditional alcohol-based perfumes, water-based perfume is worth a try.
Some traditional perfumes and body mists we like
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A drugstore fragrance that doesn't smell cheap or cloying.
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My favorite of the new slew of banana perfumes.
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Gap's nostalgic fragrance line is back; Dream is "the classic white T-shirt of scents."
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Modern-day body mists smell much more sophisticated than you'd expect.
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Supposedly worn by Carolyn Bessette Kennedy.
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A functional fragrance designed to energize and uplift.
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