The 15 Best Spring Colognes for Men, According to Experts
Experts recommend these floral, fresh, and fruit-forward favorites
Reported by Harper's Bazaar.
Spring fragrance season is officially open, and the men's cologne landscape has never been more interesting — or more worth stealing. According to Harper's Bazaar, the best warm-weather scents for men right now span everything from salty aquatics to unexpected florals, and the experts behind the picks are not playing it safe.
Linda G. Levy, president of The Fragrance Foundation, points to Tom Ford's Neroli Portofino Eau de Parfum as a perennial spring essential — Tunisian neroli and Sicilian lemon balanced by amber, a love letter to the Italian Riviera in a bottle. She also calls out Frédéric Malle's Vetiver Extraordinaire for its sea-salt crispness, and Azzaro's Forever Wanted Elixir for doing something genuinely unexpected: pairing raspberry with a leather accord for a scent that reads bold, sweet, and just a little dangerous. Meanwhile, New York-based perfumer Arielle Le Beau of Robertet is hooked on Issey Miyake's Le Sel d'Issey, citing its salty seaweed opening and woody dry-down as a fresh evolution of the aquatic genre — and championing YSL Beauty's MYSLF for proving that orange blossom has every right to anchor a masculine fragrance.
The Classics Still Earn Their Place
Harper's Bazaar beauty director Jenna Rosenstein vouches for Dolce&Gabbana's Light Blue Pour Homme — launched in 2007 and still going viral — as the ideal entry point for anyone who wants subtle but long-wearing warm-weather energy. She's equally loyal to Bleu de Chanel Eau de Parfum, calling it a year-round anchor that peaks in spring thanks to its citrus-forward freshness cut with sandalwood and vanilla. Beauty commerce editor Tiffany Dodson Davis, meanwhile, is partial to Maison Francis Kurkdjian's L'Homme à la Rose — grapefruit and rose over ambery woods — which her husband wears on rotation and happens to perfectly complement her own spring scent from the same house.
For anyone ready to go stranger and better, Mind Games' Blockade Silver Knight Extrait de Parfum stacks mango skin, tomato leaf, star anise, and oud into something that reads nothing like anything else in the category. Louis Vuitton's Afternoon Swim delivers a mandarin-ginger burst Le Beau calls "incredibly refreshing." And Dior's Sauvage Eau Forte, created by Dior Parfum Creative Director Francis Kurkdjian, threads the needle between parfum intensity and eau de toilette lightness — and happens to be entirely alcohol-free, which is its own kind of flex.
The real story this spring isn't about men's versus women's fragrance — it's that the best bottles don't recognize the distinction, and neither should you.
Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.
