From ‘horse skin accords’ to notes of hay and leather, the new wave of perfumes is inspired by everything equine
- THE TREND: A wave of perfumes inspired by everything horse: the animal, the gear, cowboys, grass, you name it. Scents to transport you to the dressage ring or rugged ranch.
- WHO’S DOING IT? Niche perfume houses are leading the charge but the ever-equestrian Hermes are also in on the action.
- HOW CAN I GET IT? Roll around in a stable, wear head-to-toe leather, or spritz some of these evocative fragrances.
From high-class stables to dusty Wyoming plains there has been a wave of perfumes inspired by horses and the equestrian lifestyle hitting the market in recent years, with more set to come in 2024. So why might someone want to smell like a horse?
Scents which try to evoke the animal itself are often shocking to smell, especially if you are used to more mainstream and designer scents. Corpus Equus by Niomi Goodsir, which translates from Latin to ‘body of a horse’, is described as a “deep black animalic composition” meant to be a tribute to a “fiery and tempestuous horse”. The perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour does so with plenty of leather, smoke and patchouli to evoke something animal, powerful and perhaps a little dirty.
One of the upcoming horsey releases this year is Epona by British perfume house Papillon Artisan Perfumes. Founder Liz Moores always releases bold scents but Epona’s promise of leather, saddle soap and horse skin accords, alongside more tame notes of vetiver and violet, make this sound like one of her boldest. Inspired by the Celtic goddess of horses, this scent hopes to “capture the essence of equine potency and pastoral tranquillity” and evoke the “velvet heat of a warm horse ride”.
The recreation of not only an animal’s physicality but an entire scene with scent epitomises the magic of perfumery, particularly niche perfumery. But why horses? “I suspect the answer may simply lie in the fact that horses are associated with leather, and the latter is a popular note in perfumery, which has been revisited for decades,” says perfume critic Persolaise. “If we’re being more poetic about it, horses are seen as encompassing ideas of romance, speed, power, beauty, nobility, authority, untamed nature, humanity in harmony with nature... all concepts beloved by marketing departments.”
Perfumes that recall the horse lifestyle can be broken down into two categories: the preppy equestrian and the cowboy. Hermés is the undisputed leader in the preppy category, with its latest limited release Paddock launched to tie in with the Saut Hermés equestrian event in Paris. This France-exclusive release blends the scents of leather, hay, vegetal carrot seeds and something darker and almost unpleasant. An unusual release for Hermés who typically stick to the more elegant scents. Hermés Galop d’Hermés was an earlier horsey release, with a brilliant stirrup-shaped bottle, which stuck to the safer notes of leather and rose. Even recent release Oud Alezan, which in-house perfumer Christine Nagel claims is inspired by the fear of horses, features rose and a heavily tamed oud which avoids its possible animalic facets.
There have been many cowboy-inspired scents popping up over the last few years. This is not a new trend, with Coty’s Stetson from 1981 being a classic masculine scent. However, recently we’ve seen releases like Cosmic Cowboy from Perfumehead, Yippee-Ki-Yay from Ranger Station, and Boy Smells’ Suede Pony and Cowboy Cush.
So why the sudden fascination with cowboys in fragrance? On the one hand, it’s a convenient image to market leathery or smoky scents with – it immediately conveys what these fragrances are to the customer. However, this interest in cowboy fragrances also goes alongside a resurgence of interest in country music, with mainstream artists like Lana Del Rey and Beyonce dipping their toes into the world of country. In fashion, the Western aesthetic has been on the rise and cowboy boots are back, while in beauty Isamaya Ffrench launched a collection inspired by rodeo queens and rhinestone cowboys.
These kind of scents are never going to unseat the widely loved crowd-pleasers: musky skin scents like Glossier You, sweet fruity florals or out-of-the-shower freshies. This trend for horsey perfumes is perhaps just another indicator of the current state of mainstream fashion: it will keep being shaped by internet microtrends which, while in some ways may be frustrating, may also push people outside of their fashion or olfactory comfort zones.