Perfume Oils Pick Up a Scent

Oil’s applications seem to know no bounds. Once the devoted bedfellow of vinegar, it has become a staple of the vanity table as much as the pantry.

Over the last year or so, moisturizing face oils have proliferated madly, and now oils are gaining popularity as fragrances. Typically less bright and sharp than traditional alcohol-based eaux de toilette, perfumed oils have a deeper warmth well suited to cooler weather. Many, offered in sleek packaging, are particularly appealing to men.

Next month, Tom Ford is adding three intensely perfumed beard oils that promise to condition facial hair as well as scent it. Malin & Goetz, the unisex skin-care line, has just introduced three perfume oils, including an herbaceous blend called, suggestively, Cannabis. These are available in a small glass tube topped with a shiny metal roller ball.

Byredo Parfums, the Swedish fragrance brand that is sold at stores like Barneys New York, offers unisex perfume oils in a similar format, introduced earlier this year. Scents include some of the company’s top sellers, like Gypsy Water, with rich notes of pine needles, incense and sandalwood.

Although some companies, like Le Labo, offer perfume oils in bottles, roll-ons are less fussy to use. (Bottled oils like Le Labo’s, which come outfitted with an eyedropper-style applicator, can get a bit messy.) The three scents from Terveer, a fragrance line that was introduced last year, are available solely in the roll-on format; Diptyque’s perfume oils, in a couple of unisex scents, come in a slender black roller ball vial as well.

“It’s very easy because if you’re traveling, you’re not going to have an issue where it will leak or break,” said Mindy Yang of MiN New York, the SoHo fragrance boutique. “Projection is very easily controlled as well because you can put a little bit of it on your pulse points.”

A trim roller ball also has an understated charm, particularly for male customers.

“Men like it because it doesn’t look overtly feminine,” said Andrew Goetz, a Malin & Goetz founder. “There’s a comfort zone. They’re not going to have a big glass bottle with curlicues all over it.” The company has quietly offered perfume oils, mostly hand-poured in its boutiques, for several years; it is gradually phasing those out in favor of the roll-on.

In many cases, the price is also appealing, often a fraction of the cost of more conventional formulations, and yet the oils still look (and smell) like a luxurious product. For example, Tom Ford Conditioning Beard Oil in Tobacco Vanille sells for $50, while the smallest size of its companion eau de parfum is $215; Malin & Goetz’s Dark Rum eau de toilette is three times the price of its oil.

“It was a way for us to deliver our fragrances to someone who didn’t necessarily want to spend $150,” Mr. Goetz said. “It makes it accessible.”

SOURCE:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/fashion/perfume-oils-pick-up-a-scent.html