I’ve never really had FOMO, except when it comes to Francis Kurkdjian. Over the years, I’ve heard about the perfumer’s artist collaborations. First there was L’odeur de l’argent, back in 1999, for artist Sophie Calle. I desperately wanted to smell it. I couldn’t imagine Kurkdjian, the king of modern perfumery, creating anything but something beautiful and wearable. Would it be a crisp, efficient cologne, as bright as a brand-new dollar bill? Would it be metallic, deep and charismatic, like an old darkened wheat penny?

For his 2007 PréamBulle, he flooded the gardens of Versailles with a shimmering blizzard of delicate bubbles, each scented with strawberry, pear, or melon—favorites of Louis XIV. Did the pop of each bubble release the scent of an individual fruit? Or did they meld together in a juicy accord?

And then there was 2012’s L’or bleu, the drinkable perfume water that he formulated with artist Yann Toma, inspired by the 14th-century perfume tonic known as “The Queen of Hungary Water” and the methylene-blue-laced cocktails served by Yves Klein at his 1958 “Le Vide” exhibition. (Klein’s guests urinated blue for days after.) Is L’or bleu actually drinkable? Is it something like fresh cucumber juice, where the aroma and taste align? Or non-synchronous like coffee or dark chocolate? Is it blue? Does it taste blue? 

All questions were answered last week at “Perfume: Sculpture of the Invisible,” a Kurkdjian retrospective at the Palais de Tokyo. Running through Nov. 23, the exhibition, curated by Jérôme Neutres, celebrates 30 years of Kurkdjian art, from his collaborations with photographers, chefs, and musicians to his infamous site-specific happenings at cultural monuments around the world.

A few works are on display for the first time: In L’Alchemie des sens, Kurkdjian’s friends—artist Elias Crespin, pianists Katia and Marielle Lebèque, composer David Chalmin, and director Cyril Teste—team up to translate Kurkdjian’s Baccarat Rouge Édition Millésime (only 54 bottles are available each year) into an immersive experience touching each of the five senses. (There’s chocolate involved!) Calle sent over bags of material from her personal archives; during Kurkdjian’s remarks at the opening, she stood on tip-toes in the middle of the crowd, waving her arms in the air. Musician Kilo Kish flew in from New York. “The past does hold keys, processes, and ways of being that could potentially be lost without drawing those connections into the future,” Kish says. “I’m inspired both to try new things and to collaborate in new ways, as well as study the histories a bit more.” Kish’s personal favorite of the 40-plus scents on display? The rich, velvety tuberose Opening Night, composed for Isabelle Adjani in 2019, when she starred in Cyril Teste’s stage adaptation of John Cassavetes’s film. 

At perfume school, Kurkdjian and his fellow students were all told that they were artists. “Because many perfumers think that what they create is art,” he says. “But I am lucky in that my parents gave me an artistic education, so before going to the perfume school, I knew what being an artist meant.” Kurkdjian’s grandparents would take him to the Louvre all the time. Everyone in his family plays a musical instrument. He started ballet at the age of five, eventually performing with Compagnie Versailles Soleil. “Art is all of the aspects of life. Art is about finding the beauty in death. If you think about Goya, art is about feeling pain. When you listen to music, art is about all of the emotions. Art is not just one spectrum of feeling. Art has no boundaries, no limits on self-expression,” he says.

According to Kurkdjian, commercial perfume, on the other hand, has very defined boundaries. “The way the perfume world sees the world is a very narrow window where everything is beautiful,” he says. “Literally beautiful, in a very normal way. All the women and the men are just beautiful. They all drive beautiful cars. They all are happy every time. They all find love. Perfume, unfortunately, usually shows a very narrow spectrum of life, an ideal life. The perfume world just shows paradise.”

Within this paradise, Kurkdjian has excelled, winning fragrance awards and breaking sales records. He’s launched over 300 scents over the past 30 years, from his first blockbuster, Jean Paul Gaultier’s Le Male in 1995, to ethereal works for Christian Dior Parfums, where he has been the Perfume Creation Director since 2022. At his own maison, he has redefined paradise with complex, polarizing creations such as his wildly popular Baccarat Rouge 540 (currently TikTok’s most searched beauty product).

Kurkdjian credits Calle with pushing him out of commercial perfume’s safe, pretty paradise. “She opened the door to abstraction. She opened the door to something totally out there. She opened the door to the world of linking art and smell together. I owe her all of that,” Kurkdjian says. “Sophie is the one who brought my consciousness to another aesthetic level.”

“Perfume: Sculpture of the Invisible“ spotlights Kurkdjian’s more challenging scents, such as the aggressively melancholic Courante—created by Kurkdjian and cellist Klaus Mäkelä for a 2022 performance of Bach’s “Cello Suite No 2.” One museum-goer said that it felt like “a punch to the nose.” And as for the Calle x Kurkdjian scent of money? While the notes seem benign—linen, ink, and basmati rice—the final composition is far from innocuous: it smells uncomfortably warm, sticky, and oily, like the body odor of a stranger. After smelling it, you’ll feel itchy. You’ll feel like you need to wash your hands. 

L’or bleu, however, is pure delight. At the installation, the clear water (no methylene blue here) is served in paper cups. The recipe, hung on the wall, promises, “This magical and beneficial water will bestow the finest artistic energies on whomever drinks it.” It is addictive—light and fresh, super invigorating, with hints of citrus, rosemary, and spearmint. Over the course of the hour, I went back for a second and third cup: the first two, I drank straight away, the third I splashed on my wrists and neck. I would buy gallons of this.

L’or bleu tastes cool and sparkling, yet, physically, it’s neither cool nor sparkling, a magic trick created via the power of aroma. When teaching, Kurkdjian hands out bags of Haribo Tagada. He’ll ask students to plug their noses “really tight, so no air gets in,” place the treat on their tongue, and then chew for three seconds. “Really pay attention to the flavor, to the texture,” he says. The treat tastes flat—sweet and white, generic. At four seconds, he’ll instruct you to “free your nose” and take a breath. A candy-bright flood of red strawberry will hit your mouth with such force that you’ll see pink. For the rest of your life, you might never see a tagada without thinking of Kurkdjian. 

For his VR experience Ėden, Kurkdjian developed V-scent, a device that attaches to a traditional VR headset to release timed aromas. Wherever you “look” while wearing the scented VR headset, you’ll grow a new, mysterious plant or tree or fungi, each releasing a unique odor—some ominous and others ethereal—and each, like the flora that they belong to, both strangely familiar yet completely new. You might, unaware, brush up against the IRL gauze curtains that enclose each viewing cabine, and feel as if your garden has reached out into the real world to touch you. That’s the magic of Kurkdjian: he brings the surreal into the real world and makes the real world feel more surreal.

The culmination of the visit is a recreation of Kurkdjian’s office—on the walls, his art; at his desk, paper blotters and glass vials and, intermittently over the four weeks of the exhibition, Kurkdjian himself. On my visit, he was answering emails. During other “work hours,” he will tinker with Variation pour Sophie, a brand-new fragrance being created on site for Calle. A lifelong perfume lover who wears scent everyday, Calle told Kurkdjian that “perfume dresses her just as clothing does, and that she can’t imagine leaving her house without it.” She challenged Kurkdjian to create a new scent that would “synthesize” those that she’s loved the most: Kurkdjian’s own Grand Soir, Guerlain’s Habit Rouge (created by perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain in 1965; updated by perfumer Delphine Jelk in 2024), and Molinard’s Habinita (created by perfumer Henri Bénard). As the formula is updated throughout the month, Kurkdjian will sample the latest version via unlabeled blotters in the back of his “office.”

On opening night, version one of Variation—a seductive warm, smoky amber—was already a hit. Guests were going back again and again for the blotters, tucking them behind an ear or in a lapel. At the opening, I asked Calle for her opinion of this first iteration of Variation pour Sophie, but she replied that I was too impatient, that the perfume wasn’t finished yet, and that she wouldn’t be able to give me her opinion for another four weeks.

“I try to enjoy the ride,” says artist Kustaa Saksi of the visual auras, brought on by debilitating migraines, that inspire the mesmerizing shapes and psychedelic hues of his tapestries.

Woven on looms at the TextielMuseum’s TextielLab in Tilburg—a former blanket factory turned experimental weaving hub—Saksi’s textiles are dreamscapes of floating threads and dense layers, with luminescent bio-forms that mesmerize and intricate patterns that disorient. His latest piece, Golden Threads, is an abstract ode to the Norse goddess Sif, famed for her golden hair. Saksi created the tapestry—which took six months and more than 180 pounds of thread—in partnership with Oribe as part of its annual artist program, now in its eighth year, which invites creatives to reinterpret Oribe’s visual language for limited-edition holiday packaging. (Past participants include Kenyan photographer Thandiwe Muriu, Japanese digital painter Kohei Kyomori, and American Indigenous clay artist Rowan Harrison.) 

“We consider it a collaboration, not a commission. We learn about the nuances of their world—paper, textures, saturation, technique, endpoints, engineering—everything that the artist incorporates into their work,” says Daniel Kaner, co-founder and president of Oribe. For Kaner, these collaborations carry forward co-founder Oribe Canales’s vision of beauty as art. “Oribe always referred to himself as an artist. Yes, he was a hairdresser, but he considered himself a creator first,” Kaner says. “Oribe [as a brand] has become so much more than just shampoo. It’s become an art project.”

Kaner sends his team to art shows around the world and encourages visits to museums and galleries during work hours. “We create opportunities for people to go out into the art world—we’re not just sitting behind a desk searching artists online,” says Jennifer Smith, vice president of product creation at Oribe. “We became obsessed with Kustaa Saksi’s work. Our team thought he had embodied the mastery of traditional craft with a signature storytelling aesthetic that embraced ideas of nature.” 

Here, Saksi shares his inspirations, his process, and how hair, hallucinations, and history became woven into Oribe’s 2025 holiday collection.

Why did you say yes to Oribe?

There’s such a high level to what they do. The love for craftsmanship and the understanding of quality and texture—there are so many similarities between what we do, that it was easy to say yes.

Your work is known for its hallucinatory jubilance, but also is so grounded in nature. Where do you find inspiration?

I’m really interested in the textures and patterns that we see in our everyday lives — on the street or in a forest. It’s a mishmash of sources of inspiration that come together, and then I convert it to my own visual language at the end…  I’ve suffered from migraines all my life. But the migraine attacks have always been so visual for me, that at one point I started to enjoy it in a way. And, actually, lately, my headaches aren’t so bad anymore, but I still get the visual show. 

What do you see?

It’s always different. It’s never the same. There might be a few continuous elements, but each time it’s a different show. I sometimes try to sketch the images that I see on a paper so I can remember afterwards, because after the attack it might be a couple of days before I can work again.

Should your pieces be touched? I want to curl up in them.

The museums always put signs up saying not to touch, but people still touch them. It’s been almost impossible to prevent it, that drive to touch. The softness of the material, you want to put your hands on it.

Where did your mind go when you first started planning your Oribe work?

My main inspiration was that floating feel of hair—that’s what I wanted to emphasize in this work. I wanted to capture that feeling of movement. So in the piece, most of the yarn is floating free—it’s not flat. You can see the yarn, see how it lifts. The piece is based on a mythology of Sif and her golden hair. She’s the wife of Thor in Norse mythology. The trickster god Loki was so jealous of her hair that he stole it one night. Thor was really angry and forced Loki to weave this amazing wig of golden hair, which was even more beautiful than the original hair of Sif. The story is quite sad, but I wanted to depict it.

That’s the gold we see!

I’ve been using quite a bit of golden yarn in my work. Somehow when I’m mixing materials, natural with metallics, it brings something new out of it. Combining a very natural material with a high-tech material creates something very nice. I have the urge to push the boundaries of weaving every time, and I’m glad that I can work at the TextielLab. There are commercial mills that just all do the same things, but here I can experiment.

What artists do you find inspiring? 

I live right next to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, so I go there quite often to see the works of the Impressionists. I like how they mix colors. I use the same concepts in my work: I don’t actually mix the yarns—rather, the viewer mixes the colors in their head. And also there’s a link to Surrealism. There’s always a surreal approach to my work. I give hints to the viewer, but the viewer needs to do some work.

How do you incorporate innovation—whether a new technique or fiber—into your pieces without having that innovation become the focus of the piece? 

I always try to push the boundaries of weaving, but not go overboard. There’s a challenge there. I think we inspire each other here—the artists and the staff at the TextielMuseum. They might have figured out a new way of weaving or a new material, and I get inspired and use it right away. There’s this fine line between overdoing things and keeping the story alive, which is the most important thing when you are creating. It has to be crystal clear, the message of it.

Shop the Oribe holiday collection with limited-edition packacing by Kustaa Saksi: HERE.

In an age when we can wash our hands with Jean-Claude Ellena soap and blow bubbles scented by Francis Kurkdjian, fine fragrance can be found everywhere. But with over 3,000 new perfumes launching globally each year—and more self-anointed scent experts than ever before (#perfumetok alone has racked up over 7 billion views)—it can be challenging to discern which scents are worth the sniff. To help, CULTURED has enlisted three top fragrance critics, each of whom have earned their loyal audience outside of the algorithm.

For ELLE, The Cut, and Town & Country, New York-based journalist April Long has harvested roses in Turkey and frankincense in Oman, winning 15 Fragrance Foundation edit awards along the way, more than any other writer in the award’s history. Always questioning yet eternally optimistic, bicoastal beauty philosopher Arabelle Sicardi treats perfume as both cultural artifact and personal talisman, exploring our collective, complicated relationship with aesthetics. In Los Angeles, CULTURED contributor Maxwell Williams works both as a journalist and as a perfumer/olfactory artist, a rare blend that gives them deep insight into both the science and culture of fragrance. Here, the three tackle everything from the power of niche perfumery, dupe culture, A.I. noses, and the question at the heart of it all: When is a perfume a work of art, and when is it just another thing to smell? 

Let’s begin at the beginning. What led you to write about perfume? 

Maxwell Williams: I came into writing about fragrance through trying to get away from writing. About 10 years ago, I took a class at the Institute for Art and Olfaction. At first, I was really just dabbling. Then I built a lab in the second bedroom of my apartment, and now I’m a working perfumer. Today, I think of myself more as a perfumer who happens to write, than a writer who writes about perfume.

April Long: Well, Emily, I always credit you with making me the fragrance writer that I became. When you assigned my first fragrance story at ELLE, you said, “I think you will be a good fragrance writer because you are a music writer.” I was like, Really, will I? I set about doing it, and I fell in love with it. I mean, there are countless similarities between the two arts. I went from thinking of fragrance as something not particularly necessary—maybe even obnoxious—to being something that I loved more than any other thing that I could find to write about. Today, I write a perfume column, Good Scents, for The Cut as well as The Pomander, a Substack about fragrance history and the origins of natural ingredients. 

Arabelle Sicardi: I’ve been online for far too long, and I’ve been writing about beauty since my brain was literally forming. I started writing about beauty for Rookie when I was still in high school and college, and I think my fragrance obsession was always part of it. It’s core to who I am. The origin story for House of Beauty, my nonfiction book coming out this fall, was my obsession with Chanel No.5 [Perfumer: Ernest Beaux], specifically. Before the book was sold, I spent two years of my life shaping my entire existence around it—traveling the world to research it, going to Berlin and Paris to find materials and evidence about Coco Chanel firsthand. 

And you’ve gone from writing about beauty culture to building beauty culture.

Sicardi: I impulsively started Perfumed Pages, which is this scent-centered events collective. I love participating in scent culture, and I wanted to do a collective experiment that was about centering the joy and fun and curiosity and play about fragrance—and beauty in general—because there’s not enough opportunity just for this. It’s really about having a chance to be alongside other people who just really love this thing, and you’re rooting for each other. That’s where I want to be in beauty.

Over the past 25 years, the perfume industry has experienced the same changing of the guard as traditional print media. Nimble, digitally-savvy newcomers have chipped away at the centuries-long dominance of the luxury houses. How has the proliferation of niche perfumery and niche journalism changed how you approach your work?  

Long: I came into it right at the moment that things were pivoting to niche. There was a bunch of garbage, the ubiquitous celebrity scents, but then you had Frederic Malle enter the conversation. The biggest change for me has happened in the last five years. Post-pandemic, there’s been a massive shift in the scope of the job, because there’s just so many new fragrances. Fragrance became a touch point for so many people during the pandemic. People were stuck at home worrying about their sense of smell and, then, learned to love fragrance. It became a wellness product and obviously, wellness sells. So now everybody’s got a fragrance, even Hellman’s mayonnaise. I looked up the stat, and 10 years ago, the norm was for something like 400 new fragrance launches a year. Today, it’s over 3,000. You can’t really smell it all.

So how do you smell it all? 

Williams: I have a bit of a different perspective on the glut. There are so many different musicians and bands producing so much music—way more than 3,000 music releases, right? And we don’t think of that as a glut. Rather, we should focus on the niches that we are attracted to. So if you find the kind of perfume that you like, then seek out more in that category. This might feel like a little less of a task than having to smell all the perfumes. Because I’m never going to be able to listen to all the albums that come out this year.

Maxwell, I like your advice. However, April, as a fragrance critic who writes for massive publications, your job is to cover the entire industry for millions of readers. Are you expected to test all 3,000 launches? 

Long: It’s a beautiful thing that the conversation is so robust. There are Reddit threads, Instagram accounts—what used to be isolated is now everywhere. There are infinite opinions, and that’s amazing. But yes, to be a responsible fragrance journalist for a large readership, you still have to smell all 3,000 of those new launches.

Sicardi: Just thinking about that 3,000 makes my nose run. I am of two minds on this, and I can’t really decide if I need to land anywhere. On one hand, I love how accessible fragrance creation has become. There are more and more niche perfumers that did not and could not exist before, because they didn’t have access to the formal education of going to Grasse, going to the Hogwarts of fragrance. Now you can take educational courses and get formal accreditation through so many more places than even just five years ago. So this has made everything so much more interesting. But we also have more dupe culture than ever before. There’s still this pressure to consume. There’s pressure to have a fragrance wardrobe. Finding a way to balance these multiple natures is part of our task as humans. You have to ask yourself, What do you want out of beauty? Because you can have anything you want if you’re conscious of it, and you determine where you stand. Some people will be absolutely inundated and overwhelmed. Other people really relish the infinite opportunity. And for me, I choose to love the overwhelm.

Let’s talk dupe culture. At a recent CULTURED event for Valentino Beauty perfumer Fabrice Pellegrin, I was reminiscing with a fellow Gen X perfume-head about Primo, “If you like Giorgio, you’ll love Primo!” (one of the original dupes). We grew up hearing about perfumes like Giorgio Beverly Hills [Perfumer: Bob Aliano] in movies and on TV, but for both of us, the nearest Giorgio Beverly Hills fragrance counter was a few states away. At our local drugstore, we had Primo. I desperately wanted to see how it compared to the real thing. The first thing I did when I went to my first big city was track down a Giorgio counter. So although I hate dupes, I have a dupe to thank for my lifelong love of perfumery.

Sicardi:  I have such strong feelings about dupes that I wrote an essay about it on my Substack called “Dupe Culture in Beauty is Ruining Everything.“ And by dupe, I mean the ones that are: “This smells like Baccarat Rouge [Perfumer: Francis Kurkdjian].” Yes, dupes make fragrance more accessible. Love that. Ultimately, I would love beauty to be accessible to all people. But not by sacrificing the work of people involved in artistic creation. Your desire for a beauty product does not make you entitled to it. A lot of people assume that because they want something, they should have it—that the people involved in the labor and the resources required to create it are less important than their desire to consume something. I think this is fundamentally a very American entitlement, and one I don’t agree with. Dupes just basically crib someone else’s homework. They don’t further the fragrance industry. 

“Ultimately, I would love beauty to be accessible to all people. But not by sacrificing the work of people involved in artistic creation.”—Arabelle Sicardi

Williams: There’s no copyright in perfume. You can’t copyright the juice. It’s a really difficult legal question that gets asked a lot in the arts. [Elaine] Sturtevant claimed appropriation, but Richard Prince was successfully sued, right? There’s Sherrie Levine. It goes back and forth in art. It often comes up in French courts with perfume, but with every case, it’s determined that a scent can’t be copyrighted. The bottle can, but not the scent. Pia Long from the British Society of Perfumers says that the duping trade isn’t just plagiarism, it’s fraud. They are deceiving consumers about the quality and the safety of the perfume, so they are criminals. They might work out of perfumery labs, but they are crooks in lab coats. They’re making an exact replica of a Picasso, saying, “You can hang this on your wall and say it’s a Picasso, and we’ll charge you just half of the price of a real Picasso.”

When it comes to perfume, people often celebrate the dupes they’ve “discovered.” They’re proud to hang a forgery up on their wall. 

Williams: Perfume is expensive, and these dupes are cheaper alternatives. They want that fake Picasso. But I’m not trying to be elitist about this. I do think that we should hold space for people who don’t have a lot of money to spend on perfumes. The perfumers behind SAMAR [Na-Moya Lawrence and Debbie Lin], this amazing, small artisan brand in LA, have been thinking of ways to bring people in, to make perfume not such an overwhelmingly expensive thing, so they’ve started offering smaller bottles for purchase.  

Sicardi: Throughout history, perfume has always been classist. It was made for royals. All the original perfumers, they were nepo babies. They had royal decrees to be doing perfume art for actual royals. It was a way to create distinction between them and the peons. So of course I’m glad that perfume is more accessible now, and that it doesn’t fundamentally mean that you’re better than anyone else. With a lot of the newer generation of perfume houses, such as SAMAR—it’s not a coincidence that SAMAR is owned by people of color and they’re queer—their understanding of community and politics and beauty are so intertwined. They want to be transparent, they want access, and they want all of the things that are not often afforded to people of color or to queer people, especially in the beauty space. So what they’re doing is very different, because of the people that they are. 

When we think about dupes and access, I wish that more people had a better understanding of how hard it is to create a perfume. For perfume, all of the ingredients take so much time and effort, natural or synthetic. Synthetic ingredients can take 40-plus steps to get right. And for naturals—for something like palo santo, you have to find a dead tree. It has to be a female, dead, palo santo tree. You have to have the license to harvest it. It has to be dead a certain amount of time—at least three years—before you can even harvest it. And that’s just one ingredient in a fragrance. 

Long: You can be inspired by Picasso, and make something that might be Picasso-esque, but it should still be a work of art in its own right, not just a copy. The fundamental thing that I would love more people to understand: works of art are precious things. And they shouldn’t be duplicated so casually. I’m all for democratization of fragrance, but it does devalue the original. The original loses something of its luster as it’s photocopied down the line. 

Do you think part of the disconnect is that many view perfume as just another everyday consumable, and not as a form of art? 

Sicardi: That’s a juicy question. This has so much to do with the Industrial Era, and also the fact that social spaces have been sanitized in terms of fragrance. If something is smelly, people get suspicious. There’s a lot of weight to the terms smell [and] smelly. It’s preferred that people in public don’t really have a smell, and if they do wear a fragrance, there’s a certain level of politeness. They shouldn’t smell too much. That’s why I like the work of Dr. Ally Louks on olfactory ethics. People really respond to her because we are starting to understand that smell culture is so part of culture at-large, and [it’s] also so politicized. 

Williams: When the photograph was first invented in the 19th century, it was thought of as this kind of novelty. It took a long time until it was brought into contemporary art spaces. A lot of people credit John Baldessari as the turning point when photography started being considered in the fine arts space. Now that we’re seeing perfume being used in contemporary art with exhibitions that are specifically using scent as a medium, perfume as a fine art is coming more into focus. There are people that are out there, like Maki Ueda and Sissel Tolaas, who are extremely rigorous, contemporary artists using scent. Scent is just part of our palette as artists. There’s even an award at the Institute for Art and Olfaction that’s given out to artists that work with scent in their art. 

“Scent is just part of our palette as artists.”—Maxwell Williams

Long: The disconnect throughout history has been that you don’t know the name of the perfumer. It’s an anonymous art. So people don’t immediately connect to the idea that this perfume was made by a human being, and it’s so conflated with commerce. To draw on the parallel to photography: not every fragrance is a work of art. Not every photograph is a work of art. It’s about intent. And it’s about skill.

Williams: Over the past 5 to 10 years, people have started to have an interest in the perfumers behind a scent. You can go on Fragrantica, see a perfumer and a list of all of their perfumes, and I think that’s really cool, because there are a lot of people out there who have ridiculously cool resumes—like [Christophe] Laudamiel made Abercrombie’s Fierce but has also made really artistic perfumes for small houses. And I think Fierce is very artistic in and of itself. 

Sicardi: Oh yeah, I love Fierce. 

I agree, both on Fierce and the importance of the perfumer. Yet, if you ask an A.I. perfume house, they might say that we don’t need perfumers at all anymore. 

Williams: I’m really, really, really distrustful of A.I. in fragrance. In anything. For instance, I do want to call out Osmo. They’re claiming to use A.I. to create new molecular structures. I don’t think that’s good. It’s just an attempt to claim ownership over all the new molecules. Look at how the film industry has approached A.I., where the unions push for protections to get the studios to say, “We’re not going to use A.I. for this or that reason.” Perfumers aren’t unionized. I’m also scared it’s going to kill off artisan perfumery because A.I. can now dupe things even faster. A.I. makes it easier for more people to make a reconstruction of an entire perfume.

Sicardi: I’m part of the A.I. working group for freelancers at the National Writers Union, so I’m inundated with all of the news about how A.I. is taking creative jobs in every single industry, and I regularly get emails from people who have lost their jobs because of A.I. I agree with Maxwell that this is going to fundamentally hurt independent and small perfumers, because the conglomerates have already been using all of the technology possible to privatize and patent specific molecules and accords for a really long time. So this A.I. definitely feels like an intellectual property grab. It promises ease of access, but at the risk of what? 

Williams: In the Seth Rogen TV show The Studio, they spend a whole episode worrying about a movie being racist. And, at the end of it, they’re still racist, but they leak that they’ve used A.I. And the show ends with Ice Cube and the whole crowd at Comic-Con chanting “Fuck A.I.!” And I just want to say “Fuck A.I.” 

SHOP THEIR PICKS

Below, our panel of fragrance critics speak to the scents that they adore.

April Long

Heretic Flower Porn ($195) by perfumer Douglas Little

“I have been through several bottles of this stuff. It’s like wearing the back room of a flower shop: super-green crushed leaves and snapped stems (geranium, violet leaf and olibanum) mingled with orange blossom and rose.”

Kindred Black The Fall of the Immortal Perfume Oil ($365) by perfumers Alice Kindred Wells and Jennifer Black Francis

“Every Kindred Black essence is so exquisite and special. The bottles are gorgeous magic, and many of the florals are sourced from a genius perfumer/enfleurage expert based in Cherry Valley, New York, where my mom lives. My forever favorite is the seasonal wildflower fragrance that I douse myself with all summer, but The Fall of the Immortal, which is based on 19th century Florida Water, is one I dab on all year like a tonic.”

Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle Heaven Can Wait ($348.50) by perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena

“I wear this Jean-Claude Ellena masterpiece incessantly throughout winter. It smells like a vintage French carnation fragrance, with spicy clove and hazy orris, then soft ambrette and vetiver in the drydown.”

Arabelle Sicardi

ICONOFLY Personne Parfume de l’Odyssée ($210) by perfumer Alexandre Helwani

“This is a cult-favorite for perfume-heads, and for good reason. As a writer of course I am tickled by fragrances inspired by literature, and I have a firm, personal ranking of Odyssey translations. The perfume itself is its own journey through The Odyssey‘s smell landscape and when you smell it, you are plunged into the journey with a splash. The wild laurel, rosemary, roses, shipwreck, hemp, and pear! My first sniff made me gasp. And my second. And, and, and…”

Meo Fuscini Odor 93 ($325) by perfumer Giuseppe Imprezzabile

“If I could have any one single brand’s entire oeuvre, it would be Meo’s. Something about his olfactory sensibility just fits me like the perfect leather jacket, you know what I mean? Odor 93 is my current favorite and it’s a flowery, spicy, green. It opens like fog and you walk into it like you’re chasing your own Persephone into hell. It’s a dark, lush dream, like all my favorite stories are, so no surprise that I love it. Smell while you’re listening to the band it’s inspired by: Current 93.”

Jaeger-LeCoultre The Timeless Stories (not available for sale) by perfumer Nicolas Bonneville

“Jaeger gave me a bottle of this when I was mooning over the movements in their latest watches; I didn’t even know they commissioned fragrance before this, but I guess anything they do, they do marvelously. Violet leaves, orris, and leather in a perfectly balanced composition. I come back to it on my wrists throughout the day and learn it a little differently each time.”

Maxwell Williams

D.grayi Red Jasmine Rice ($100) by perfumer James Nguyen

“James from d.grayi is a mad perfumer. He makes all these tinctures and then builds his perfumes with them. The Jasmine Rice perfume—the red rice version—is so, so good. He gave me a bottle, and my girlfriend ended up buying a bottle of her own. Magical.”

SAMAR Grove is in the Heart ($55) by perfumers Na-Moya Lawrence and Debbie Lin

“SAMAR are so cool. Grove is in the Heart is that long-lasting citrus scent of your dreams. Juicy and jubilant. Funky and fresh.”

Perfumer H Saddle ($205) by perfumer Lyn Harris

“The rumors are true: I’m a horse girl. I love this take on playing horsey so much. The stable, the hay, the leather, the must, the fur, the gallop through the fields—it’s all there. Hermès Galop [Perfumer: Christine Nagel] used to fulfill my horse girl dreams, but Saddle is my new go-to.”

Scent is never inert: “Perfume is always in dialogue with not only the skin but the air,” Régime des Fleurs founder and artistic director Alia Raza says, noting that temperature, humidity, and altitude always chime in to veer the conversation to a new, site-specific direction. “Humidity gives fragrance more of an aura, letting lush and heavy notes bloom and linger. High altitude strips the air, making a fragrance feel more sheer and ephemeral.” When we asked four top fragrance critics to share the best scents for two very different climates, it was no surprise that, unprompted, two of Raza’s creations made the list. Below, find their recommendations—exclusively curated for CULTURED—for fragrances that shine in some of the States’ most sought-after destinations.

Scents of Place: Hamptons

These luminous, high-impact scents sparkle during long nights Out East. 

Steven Gavrielatos, fragrance expert and creative director

Parfums de Luxe Illúsio ($175) by perfumer Daniel René

“With its photorealistic orange blossom, serene jasmine, and sparkling pear notes, [it’s] the perfect fragrance to wear on a long night in the Hamptons.”

SHOP FROM: Valencia Perfumes

Steven Gontarski, artist, musician, and storyteller

Régime des Fleurs Jade Vines ($275) by perfumer Alia Raza

“[This] presents a tuberose and gardenia blend with snappy green stalks. The humid air preserves the scent emanating from gardens, as the sun retreats and the day comes to an end.”

SHOP FROM: Assembly New York, Ministry of Scent, Moda Operandi

Paula Gröger, founder, Revive World 

Diptyque Eau Capitale ($255) by perfumer Olivier Pescheux

“A modern rose chypre with bergamot, pink pepper, and patchouli, [it] brings a sparkling, vibrant elegance that perfectly mirrors the energy of a Hamptons night. You can’t go wrong with this one.”

SHOP FROM: Bluemercury, FWRD, Bloomingdale’s

Roja Parfums Manhattan ($403.39) by perfumer Roja Dove

“It’s a sophisticated amber with warm spices, soft woods, and subtle sweetness that not only holds its own in humidity but also transitions effortlessly from a [busy] day into a late evening out.”

SHOP FROM: Bergdorf Goodman, Scent Split, Fan Di Perfume

Vilhelm Parfumerie Chimilka ($350) by perfumer Jérôme Epinette

 “White peach, cardamom, osmanthus, and leather: confusing combo, maybe, but the result is a beautifully juicy yet laconic scent that’s sophisticated and very unserious! A bit of a chameleon—it’s juicy and fruity, milky and comforting, and also earthy and dark. But it always smells exciting and energizing to me. It has that kind of energy to it that precedes a night out, like anything could happen.” 

SHOP FROM: Saks Fifth Avenue, Twisted Lily, Smallflower

Sable Yong, host of Smell Ya Later; author of Die Hot with A Vengeance

Mancera Instant Crush ($200) by perfumer Pierre Montale

“One of those elusively addictive scents that you can’t quite put your finger on what you’re smelling, but it’s transparently addictive. I call that the saffron effect, as saffron is one of my favorite perfume notes for its chameleon-like quality to add glassy roundness and ozonic sweetness to a scent. I can otherwise broadly categorize it as a musky, ambery floral—it has a delicate floral aura around a warm, creamy center. Is it gourmand? Is it a floral? Is it a spice? Sure, all three! But the balance is so sheer and veiled that it wears lightly despite being a complex profile.”

SHOP FROM: Bloomingdale’s, Twisted Lily, Saks Fifth Avenue

Matière Première French Flower ($320) by perfumer Aurélien Guichard

“My favorite tuberose perfume for giving you exactly what you expect in the most deluxe and decadent scent profile. French tuberose is the sweetest and most nectary kind (so I’ve been told), it has a dessert-like quality that makes me think of macarons or a light crème fraiche if it were made with tuberose. But there is also ginger, green pear, and tea leaf to give it a crisp and vegetal edge, so it’s not just a sweet blob. Honestly, there is so much romantic tension in this perfume!”

SHOP FROM: Liberty US, Fragrancenet, Jomashop

Courrèges La Fille de l’Air ($175.49) by perfumer Fabrice Pellegrin

“This is an airy neroli that reads very fresh in a ’90s way, to me. It’s sweet and slightly tart, like a nectar, with some sort of soft and musky pepper balancing it out, just for texture. It feels very preppy-hot-girl to me.”

SHOP FROM: Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, efragrance

Scents of Place: Aspen

Late nights, low humidity, high elevation: these fragrances are built for an array of extremes.

Paula Gröger, founder, Revive World 

Chanel Les Exclusifs de Chanel Sycomore by perfumer Jacques Polge

“One of the most elegant and understatedly classy perfumes out there. Its cool, dry vetiver and soft smoky cedar evoke the crisp air and natural refinement of alpine landscapes. In high altitudes where scents evaporate quickly, Sycamore’s woodiness lingers just enough without overpowering.” 

SHOP FROM: Modesens, Harrods, Editorialist

Steven Gavrielatos, fragrance expert & creative director

Valentino Private Talk ($340) by perfumer Nicholas Bonneville

“A sophisticated blend of coffee, tuberose, cedar wood, and sandalwood, [it] is long lasting enough to endure the high-altitude temperatures of Aspen, but it also conveys the earthy atmosphere to align with outdoor adventures.” 

SHOP FROM: Sephora, Neiman Marcus, Modesens

Steven Gontarski, artist, musician, and storyteller

Tenebrae 26 by L’Artisan Parfumeur ($314) by perfumer Daphné Bugey

“It smells like the shadow of pine trees in cold air stretched across damp earth. The air is thin and carries a subtle sweetness.”

SHOP FROM: Smallflower, Liberty US, 24S

Sable Yong, host of Smell Ya Later; author of Die Hot with A Vengeance

Arquiste A Grove By The Sea ($205) by perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux

“Salt, mineral, rosemary, and wet stones. It smells like you’re getting closer to the ocean while taking a slight detour off the cobblestone path around a Mediterranean forest.”

SHOP FROM: Derm Store, Scentbird, Smallflower

Elorea Hanok ($131.75) by perfumer Linda Song

“This smells like a hinoki wood cabin in a pine forest, maybe like Twilight if it was re-filmed in a South Korean forest.”

SHOP FROM: Elorea

Hawthorne Green Cypress ($60) by perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux

“Very green, very crisp, and with a resinous sweetness that veers the whole thing slightly ‘sport scent,’ but with a really lovely musky dry-down that declaws any associations with toxic masculinity colognes of the aughts.”

SHOP FROM: Hawthorne

Régimes Des Fleurs Falling Trees ($275) by perfumer Alia Raza

“This is a soft, sweet wood scent—I imagine it like how all the carved cedar furniture smells in a luxury wellness retreat.”

SHOP FROM: Smallflower, Ministry of Scent, Moda Operandi

“How do you feel?” The question—posed again and again by the narrator of Joel Quayson’s short film How Do You Feel?—echoes as Quayson, a student at the Hague’s Royal Academy of Art, dresses and undresses in front of the camera. He pulls a simple white shirt over his head, its open collar revealing a silver cross. How do you feel? He tugs on a fuzzy pink balaclava—a frame for sad eyes bedazzled with fuchsia glitter and shimmering crystals. How do you feel? He removes the shirt. He wipes away the makeup. How do you feel?

“Compact. Raw. Real. It questions you. You question him. The concept is simple but pure,” says Peter Philips, creative and image director for Dior Makeup. He and fellow jurors—including partner institution Luma Arles’s founder Maja Hoffmann and artists from around the globe—awarded Quayson the 2025 Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents at the annual Rencontres d’Arles photo festival. “There’s such a heaviness behind it: He wants his parents to see who he is, but he can’t show them,” adds photographer and jury chair Yuriko Takagi. “After I watched it, I couldn’t stop thinking of it. You wonder how he feels—and by the end, you return to questioning how you feel. How do I feel?”

On the eve of his award ceremony in July, Quayson shared just that with CULTURED’s beauty editor.

Describe the feel of your work in three words.

Vulnerability. Acceptance. Discovery.

What draws your focus to the concept of multiple selves?

It’s something that I have struggled with, the different sides of me. The video shows one part of me: how I’m seen by people who know my orientation, [how] I like to go out and be around my friends. Dressing up. Just being open and expressive. And the other part is about my culture, my religion, and my family—how they see me.

Both sides are very different, but it is still one person. I’m getting ready for a party and putting on things and having fun with it. After the party, when I go back home, I have to take everything off, so that they won’t see. Otherwise, they would question why I dress like this. They would ask, “Are you this? Or are you this?” This struggle has gone on and on and on for so long.

Has your family seen your work?

No, I’ve told them about it, that my work was selected and that I won. They wanted to see it, and I want to show it to them, but I don’t know how to. I don’t know how they will react to it. They don’t know I’m queer.

What are your essential ingredients when shooting photography or a film?

I admire people. I love to look at people on the street, at school, or any place—see how they dress and how they behave. Where else do you turn for inspiration? Movies, TV, definitely music. Charli XCX really inspires me. For photographers: Peter Lindbergh, Tyler Mitchell, Ryan McGinley, Petra Collins.

Petra’s really the one, along with Peter Lindbergh, who made me want to start doing photography. Her work is so vulnerable and so soft and beautiful. Whenever I see her work, I go, How does she do this? I check on YouTube to see behind the scenes but still can’t figure it out. With makeup, I’m inspired by the people around me: drag queens, ballroom artists, photographers. On social media, [it’s] the people doing extraordinary things with makeup, and Euphoria. It was so simple, but so beautiful.

You don’t have to be a tetrachromat to recognize a shade created by Gregoris Pyrpylis. As the creative director of Hermès Beauty, the Greece-born, Paris-based makeup artist works in microtones and glimmers, concocting jamais vu versions of a classic brick-red lip or smoked-out gray shadow. For his latest collection—17 sheer, silk-inspired lipsticks—he plays with the idea of color, suspending pigments in a texture as airy as organza, laced with a barely-there shimmer— just enough to catch the light and flatter absolutely everyone. “That was my goal!” Pyrpylis says. “You can close your eyes, pick any color, and it will still look beautiful.”

How much silk did you surround yourself with when designing this lipstick collection?

You know when you wear a silk scarf around your neck, and it creates this radiance on the skin? I’ve always thought that lipstick has this same power. Even before Hermès, I wore silk scarves—the small ones that fit in a suit pocket. They bring such beautiful light to the face. When I’m tired, I wear one. I wanted the lipstick to feel like that. In the ’90s, my mom would pick me up from school wearing a long silk scarf. She would hold my hand as we walked, and the scarf would float in front of my face. I would look at the world through it.

For the lipstick, I borrowed this transparency from chiffon, shine from silk lamé, the caressing feel of tulle. It’s a melting pot of my favorite elements. The memory of sunlight shining on the Aegean sea inspired the soft shimmer of some of these shades.

Can you tell us more about how memory influences your work?

I grew up in a place where beauty comes through light, through the transition of the seasons. Everything transforms while keeping its essence. I fall in love with the sparkles on the sea in summer, and I also find beauty in the winter sea, when it’s rougher and the blue is a different hue. It’s about having open eyes, an open mind, and observing. I think that’s where I fit in with the house of Hermès. We don’t try to transform with makeup—we try to express and celebrate what’s already there.

You mentioned that you think Rothko would have made a great makeup artist. Are there other artists who influence your use of color?

Rothko’s colors are so singular. When you stand in front of one of his paintings, you get a vibration from the color. It’s almost spiritual. Josef Albers was also a great influence—he taught me how a specific color can interact with a specific complexion. Helen Frankenthaler’s eye for the transparency and evolution of color inspires me too. For this particular collection, there’s a beautiful painting by Matisse, L’Atelier Rouge. I’ve always loved this specific shade of red. Yesterday I was at MoMA, and there it was.

Was there a particular moment growing up when you decided to become a makeup artist?

I remember it exactly. One day at university, my best friend wanted to go out. She had a small makeup bag—three or four products—and I did her makeup. She had a kind of caramel terra-cotta lipstick, and I used it for her lips, cheeks, and eyes, and added a bit of mascara. It was natural, but she looked in the mirror and felt in sync with herself. I’ve seen that moment with other women—models, actresses, even my mom. She’s always minimal with makeup, but the moment she applies it, there’s a transformation. The inner self and the outer self snap into alignment.

When Saul Bellow wrote that life is a series of “unexpected intrusions of beauty,” he wasn’t talking about Mrs. Meyer’s Snowdrop dish soap or Marvis minty toothpaste. But the sentiment still holds: According to many of the world’s top perfumers, inspiration is regularly derived from the humblest of places. Here, a few of our favorite noses share the everyday scents that alight their senses, and keep them feeling cozy, energized, and refreshed.

Ben Esposito, Perfumer and Founder, House of Mammoth

“I love what Mrs. Meyer’s has done with their scenting, showcasing a wide range of smells not typically used in cleaning products. I hoard their Iowa Pine over the holidays (the best Christmas tree scent) and I’m clinging to my last few ounces of Snowdrop, a fresh floral and a touch fruity, pure ’90s nostalgia. I’ll probably grab Dandelion or the classic Basil next for the warmer weather. Tip: a lot of the scent names are more vibes than realism, so don’t just go by the name.”

SHOP NOW: Mrs. Meyer’s (price varies)
SHOP SIMILAR: The Laundress surface cleaner ($16), Blueland multi-surface cleaner starter set ($21), and Diptyque la droguerie multi-surfce cleaner with vinegar ($48)

Rodrigo Flores-Roux, Perfumer, Givaudan

“For me, it’s an imprinted scent of a product I love, and that I use everyday: Maja de Myrurgia soap, redolent of lavender, geranium, cloves, vetiver and coumarin… a typical fougère! It’s rumored that historically, the actual soap paste is prepared with the addition of vetiver essence in it. It’s of Spanish origin and dates from the 1930s, but it’s still produced in Mexico.”

SHOP NOW: Maja de Myrurgia ($11.35)
SHOP SIMILAR: Compagne de Provence authentic Marseille cube soap ($13.50), Jo Malone lime basil and mandarine soap ($35), and Flamingo Estate manuka soap brick ($58.00)

Alexis Grugeon, Perfumer, Givaudan 

“The Aesop Aromatique Reverence hand soap, which contains lots of vetiver (one of my favorite ingredients) and is quite unexpected for a hand wash. Along with the vetiver, I love the freshness coming from the citruses: bergamot, grapefruit, and bitter orange. Those notes give me a smile and a boost of energy every time I wash my hands. It is the perfect combo of efficiency, pleasure, and luxury.

The Tokyo Candle by Diptyque is another. It’s a limited edition to the Tokyo store, but I am obsessed with this scent of incense, cypress, pepper, and clean, aldehydic freshness. It reminds me of the traditional Papier d’Armenie but brings more facets to it, similar to the smell of the temples in Japan. It brings me peace and calm every night; it’s also an amazing air cleanser after cooking.”

SHOP NOW: Aesop Aromatique Reverence hand soap ($46) and Diptyque Tokyo – classic candle ($86)
SHOP SIMILAR: Diptyque l’papier candle ($74), Dior Eden-Roc candle ($100), and Trudon Versailles classic scented candle ($260)

Mathilde Laurent, Perfumer, Cartier

“A sip of hot tea. A true perfume to swallow and contemplate sensorially. [Laurent prefers a custom-blended oolong green tea created by nunshen exclusively for Cartier.]”

SHOP NOW:  nunshen green passion bio ($16.29)
SHOP SIMILAR: Harney & Sons ali son oolong ($35), Rishi green tea mint ($49.50), and Palais De Thés long jing pre-qingming ($55)

Pia Long, Head Perfumer and Director, Olfiction Limited

“The first thing I do with a book is sniff. I bury my face between the pages and huff books—always have done. It is the most comforting, grounding, soothing smell I know. Of course, the variety is huge. Old books eked out from tall piles with questionable structural integrity smell sweet, powdery, dusty, a little like vanilla, and some may have a hint of Miss Havisham’s decaying dresser. New books smell of fresh printing and ink. There are specific comic books from my Finnish childhood that I wish I could bottle the smell of. Ever since I started creating fragrances, I have been searching for a magic way to capture the pure joy that books bring to me. Some sandalwood and iris qualities have a papery aroma, and vetiver has been used as an ink additive, so these materials can evoke part of the experience.”

SHOP NOW: Thrift Books
SHOP SIMILAR: Barnes and Noble, Taschen, and Assouline

Luca Maffei, Perfumer and CEO, Atelier Fragranze Milano

“Every choice we make in our daily rituals reflects who we are. For me, even something as simple as brushing my teeth is an experience that deserves attention. That’s why I’ve chosen Marvis Aquatic Mint. The flavor is crisp, invigorating, and perfectly balanced, with that touch of freshness that wakes up the senses without overwhelming them. What draws me in, beyond the performance, is the design. That iconic metallic tube, the bold lettering, the vintage-meets-modern aesthetic—there’s something incredibly satisfying about using a product that speaks the language of beauty and function so fluently.

Moving into my new home in the heart of Milan, I wanted to create a space that felt entirely mine—a place of calm, privacy, and quiet elegance. For me, scent is at the core of that feeling. That’s why I’ve chosen Nuncas Zagara Pavimenti Profumati for something as simple, and yet essential, as cleaning my floors. That burst of citrus blossom, fresh and luminous, gently fills the space without being overpowering. When I walk through the door and breathe in that familiar, floral note, I feel at peace. I feel at home.”

SHOP NOW: Marvis Aquatic Mint ($10.50) and Nuncas Zagara Pavimenti Profumati ($7.44)
SHOP SIMILAR: Aesop toothpaste ($19), Selahatin amorist whitening toothpaste ($19), and Homecourt neroli leaf surface cleanser ($25)

Adriana Medina, Perfumer, Givaudan

“For me, it is the imprinting smell of Fabuloso. It reminds me of my mom cleaning on Saturdays and the smell of lavender all over the house, listening to all her Spanish ballads and Salsa songs in the morning. I love that smell!”

SHOP NOW: Fabuloso ($9.89)
SHOP SIMILAR: L’Avant Collective mulit-purpose surface cleaner ($14), Flamingo Estate roma heirloom tomato surface cleanser ($28), and Primally Pure warm citrus spice home collection ($120)

Erwan Raguenes, Perfumer, dsm-firmenich

Mrs. Meyer’s Pet Odor Eliminator in Coconut Leaf is my favorite scent because it strikes the perfect balance between freshness and comfort. The watery, dewy green leafy notes instantly make the space feel clean and airy, like opening windows on a spring morning. Then it softens into a creamy, musky coconut that feels unexpectedly cozy and cocooning.”

SHOP NOW: Mrs. Meyer’s Pet Odor Eliminator in Coconut Leaf  ($12.98)
SHOP SIMILAR: Pura juicy acai ($15.99), Clean Coats deodorizing conditioning spray ($19.61), and Santa Maria Novella rose scented spray for pets ($20)

Dana Schmitt, Perfumer, Givaudan

“I love the smell of Dove bar soap! Its clean fragrance is so beautiful, and I admire the work of the perfumer who did it. Every time I use it, the smell puts a smile on my face. I have never gotten tired of it, even after so many years. I hope to one day have a product like this on the market—something that people connect with and imprints on them and their families.”

SHOP NOW: Dove beauty bar soap for women ($1.50)
SHOP SIMILAR: Cerave foaming cleaning bar ($8.79), Drunk Elephant peekee bar ($28), Soft Services green banana buffing bar ($30)

Berenice Watteau, Perfumer, dsm-firmenich

“The scent of a fireplace holds one of my dearest childhood memories. It takes me straight back to our cozy living room in France, to chilly Sunday afternoons wrapped in warmth, surrounded by family. We’d talk for hours, play games, laugh, and sometimes roast chestnuts or caramelize bananas over the open fire—the whole room filled with enveloping, smoky comfort. Those moments were simple, but filled with so much joy. That smell, for me, is the essence of warmth and nostalgia. It’s a note I often return to when creating fragrance—familiar, grounding, and deeply emotional. I may not have a fireplace in my New York apartment, but there’s always a Feu de Bois candle from Diptyque burning—it brings a little piece of home with me, wherever I am.”

SHOP NOW: AllModern howland round fire pit ($93) and Diptyque feu de bois classic candle ($76)
SHOP SIMILAR: Burberry ivy and sandalwood candle ($280), Frontgate classic copper fire pit ($599.25), and Nest Indian jasmine decorative luxury candle ($225)

Seventy-nine years later, skincare is a snow-day essential (regardless of what Warren Miller's scene-stealing sunburns would have us believe), and this month, La Prairie teamed up with St. Regis Aspen for a "glass skin" pop-up, featuring deeply restorative après-ski facials from the iconic Swiss brand, a favorite of St. Regis Aspen Spa Director Amelia Winfrey. “Aspen’s high altitude and dry air can leave skin dehydrated, sensitive, and more prone to sun damage. The intense UV exposure accelerates aging, while cold winds cause chapping and irritation,” Winfrey tells me. “To stay radiant, I stay hydrated, wear SPF daily, and use La Prairie moisturizers.” With that regimen in mind CULTURED asked 10 creatives to share the TLC hydrating creams that keep their high-altitude skin in tip-top condition.

Aureta, designer and creative Director

“During winters, La Prairie's Pure Gold Radiance collection is a must for me.”

Vanessa von Bismarck, co-founder and partner at BPCM

“My face was super-chafed after skiing in Kitzbühel, Austria, and I had sandpaper skin and scrapes for almost a week. Using Irene Forte Hibiscus Serum and Night Cream took care of that in two days. Now I slather on the serum every time I get off the slopes.”

Tommy Buckett, hairstylist

“I use Bioeffect EGF Power Serum followed by Swiss Perfection RS-28 Rejuvenation Cream and, of course, IS Clinical Extreme Protect on the slopes. My skin gets dry and windburned easily and, let’s be honest, when I wipe out, the snow in my face can also feel dry and irritating. So after a day with snow and sun, these products soothe, smooth, and plump my skin back up.”

Georgia Dant, designer and founder of Marfa Stance

“My favorite moisturizer is my friend Tata Harper’s Water-Lock Moisturizer. I have used it for years now! It is a gel-crème, lightweight texture that really hydrates your skin and leaves you feeling fresh and with a lovely glow all day, which is of course very important when you are on the slopes.”

Chad DiNenna, co-founder of Nixon

“Sun Bum sunblock and Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream. I also love Range Essentials.”

Sophie Elgort, photographer

“My favorite cream that I've used for years outdoors in the winter is the Révive Moisturizing Renewal Day Cream because it has sunscreen in it and is pretty thick, which I need to keep hydrated in the cold weather.”

Liz Goldwyn, artist and writer of STARF*CKER

“I hate the cold, which is why I live in Hawaii. The only part of being in snow I enjoy is drinking hot chocolate. If I’m visiting a winter climate (anything under 60 degrees) I slather myself in Baumé 27 Créme from Cosmetics 27, a product line I was turned on to by my amazing facialist, Joomee Song.”

Jane Gottschalk, co-founder of Perfect Moment

“We made a co-branded ski cream with Barbara Sturm last season, and I still use that (although they don’t make it any more). Other than that I’m using beef tallow which I found on Instagram —super thick and nourishing. Coconut oil as a staple. And always Guinot's Essential Nutri-Comfort face mask—super thick with essential oils.”

Jamie Rosen, writer of Office of the Surface

“I never travel without the original Weleda Skin Food. It really sticks to your face and does not let go. And Biologique Recherche Biokiss lip balm!”

Adam Stamp, artist

“For the last year, I've been obsessed with this Japanese brand Athletia and with their products. My skincare routine is basically the same from London's rain (and hard water), to sunny Rome, to Aspen or the Alps. For daytime, Skin Protection UV Gel is the perfect, non-oily SPF layer. Après is like a repeat of the start of the day: Treatment Cleansing Oil, followed by the Core Balance Toning Lotion, the lightest, most hydrating toner I've found. I also love their Refresh and Restart Tuning Aroma Mist and the Feel at Ease Hand Cream.”

As awards season barrels in, we've been taking a look back at the standout beauty moments from the year's most cult films. Anora's lace-up tattoos, Wicked's symphony in green hues, and MaXXXine's signature eye shadows—you saw them on screen before they trickled through the beauty pipeline to makeup kits everywhere.

For more on exactly how these looks came together, and which products you can use to recreate them, our beauty editor sat down with the makeup artists behind them for a peek at their palettes. 

Annie Johnson, lead makeup artist on Anora 

Danessa Myricks-Blurring Balm Powder in Universal: “I am a huge fan of this product. You can use it under or over makeup. This product balances oils and maintains hydration, which was essential during shooting, because we were filming in the middle of winter in some especially cold exterior shots. I wanted to keep Mikey [Madison, who plays Anora]’s skin as healthy and hydrated as possible.”

Face Atelier Ultra Foundation Pro: “This is one of my go-to foundations. It is silicone-based and leaves a dewy natural finish and looks absolutely amazing on camera. I used this very sparingly on Mikey; her skin is phenomenal and I wanted her natural skin to show through on film.”

Lancôme Teint Idole All Over Concealer and Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer: “I really love these two concealers. They are super blendable and natural. I used these sparingly as well.”

Danessa Myricks Colorfix Mattes in Latte: “Danessa Myricks has some extremely artist-friendly products. I love this one because it lasts and can be mixed with other shades. It’s really versatile! I used this one on her cheeks, lips, anywhere we wanted some flush or a pop of color.”

Chanel LES BEIGES Healthy Glow Bronzing Cream in Soleil Tan Bronze: “I wanted [Madison's character] Ani’s makeup to be a bit more elevated during the 'girlfriend experience' look. We added more bronzer and contour in those scenes. You can never go wrong with Chanel!”

Danessa Myricks Colorfix Mattes in Blackout: “I used a couple of different products to create Ani’s winged eyeliner look. This one was key in making it long-lasting. I would sometimes use this in combination with the M.A.C. paint pots.”

Makeup By Mario Ultra Suede Lip Pencil in Almond: “Mikey and I decided on this shade during the camera test! We tried a few, and this one just looked so beautiful. I love that she has a signature lip color throughout the film.”

Fenty Diamond Bomb All-Over Diamond Veil in How Many Carats?!: “The glitter bomb looked phenomenal on film. The product itself is buildable and I had a fun time working with it. I layered it on her eyes, cheeks, and even mixed it in with her lip gloss in certain scenes!”

Ani’s Iconic Back-of-Leg Bow Tats: “A New York-based tattoo artist actually drew these up for me—his name is Sean Huang. He did a fantastic job. I sent the drawing over to Tinsley Transfers in LA to get hundreds of the transfers printed out, because I knew we would be going through a lot of them! They did a rush order and got them to me the day before we started shooting, I can’t thank them enough.”

Ardell Demi Whispies: “These lashes were essential in completing Ani’s look. You can find Ardell lashes in any drugstore and they’re a staple in my kit. I had customized the Demi Whispies and cut them down about 1/4-inch to size them to Mikey’s eyes. We went through so many fake lashes throughout shooting. Sometimes after a long shoot day I would go home and find them stuck to my clothing.”

Frances Hannon, hair and makeup designer on Wicked

“I started prep for Wicked by designing the green for Elphaba. Elphaba’s look required a custom green skin tone, a critical aspect of her character. I researched and tested many green products on the market. After multiple trials, we found a combination of products that created the right shade of green to which I then added a neon undertone. It was airbrushed for smoothness and then I added freckles, more prominent for younger versions of Elphaba and softer as she aged. Her look further involved contouring to enhance depth and shape.”

Maekup by David Stoneman Elphaba Green Base Coat and Maekup by David Stoneman Elphaba Inkz Top Coat: “I have worked with David Stoneman many times over the years across many different films. These are two bespoke products made for Elphaba: a base coat and a top coat. After initial research and trials with models with Cynthia’s skintone, I decided a custom-made product would need to be created to ensure we had the right color. With David, we trialed my green with different mediums—Isododecaine, a slow-drying solvent made from coconut, and Isoamylavirate, which stays wet-looking and gives a luxurious skin feel.”

Neon-green makeup: “Finding the correct bespoke shade of green was only one aspect. Making the perfect green tone that worked in every lighting situation was proving to be the most challenging. We tried everything—olives, greens, blues, yellows, whites with iridescents, pearlescents and opalescent. The revelation moment came when I discovered a discontinued neon-based cream that gave the reflective quality required for Elphaba’s green skin to look real in different lighting setups. This was the key in making Elphaba’s green skin look and feel real on camera.”

Green glazing gel: “Added contouring and highlighting when Elphaba’s makeup required and to enhance depth and shape.”

Elphaba’s green lipstick: “Elphaba’s green lips were a combination of many different products. Her lip colour and contoured makeup gave depth and balance to her green skin. The lip color and density depended on where the character's progression is in the story.”

Chartreuse-green textured makeup: “To enhance depth and shape, a mixture of body paints was used for additional contouring and highlighting.” 

Sarah Rubano, lead makeup artist, MaXXXine

Skin Illustrator airbrush ink and Freckles Single Color Pot: “To create her freckles, I airbrushed a freckle brown Skin Illustrator airbrush ink through a custom vaquform stencil, and used the Freckles Single Color Pot for touch-ups.”

Gunmetal gray eyeshadow: To create Maxine [played by Mia Goth]’s "sleek, sexy, dangerous" smoky eye, Rubano swept Urban Decay Naked2 Frisk as a base, Sephora About Last Night to define the crease and outer corners and Antonym Slate to darken lids. To finish, Rubano brightened inner corners up to the browbone with Antonym Ice.

Maxine's iconic light-blue eyeshadow from X, for context: To create the “retro/classic ‘X’ baby-blue eyeshadow” from MaXXXine prequel X, Rubano blended two (now discontinued) shades of blue, Stila Liquid Eye Shadow in Something Blue with Morphe Matte Blue, in a 95/5 ratio. 

Dior Addict Lipstick in Superstar and Smashbox Gloss Angeles: To create Maxine's "glossy luster" pout with a "glass-like" finish, Rubano swiped Goth's lips with Dior's Superstar shade and finished with Smashbox's extra shine gloss for a "punchy pop."

MaXXXine x Half Magic Set: Post-production, Rubano reworked her custom creations into three pre-mixed versions. “Half Magic cosmetics and I built a MaXXXine makeup collection that was released when the film premiered. We developed and formulated this palette together.”

Here, top runway road warriors—those creative geniuses that keep the fashion wheel turning—share what’s in their fashion-week/month/year survival kits.

Leaf Greener, Editor, Creative Consultant, and Art Advisor

MANITO silk crystal eye mask: "Super soft and covers all the light, so I can sleep anywhere and anytime."
Edie Parker tassel earplugs: "Beautiful design. It reminds me of  Holly Golightly."
Chanel tweed sunglasses: "No time for makeup––just wearing Chanel sunglasses is the best way to freshen up."
Tapper 18K-gold-plated AirPod case: "A piece of jewelry for AirPods. It’s the perfect match with all my different outfits during shows."
Pura Papa Ointment: "A quick fix for my dry lips and skin. This is a magic cream."
Stephen Ellcock's book Elements: "This was a gift from the writer. I always like the idea of bringing a book with me during fashion weeks."

Osama Chabbi, Stylist and Fashion Journalist 

Electricity: “My power bank; otherwise, I can’t make a single review because fashion month is so HECTIC.”
Chanel Baume Essential: “This is a new thing I discovered recently from Chanel. It’s a transparent glow stick that gives you a healthy glow. It’s literally a balm for your cheekbones.”
Hat trick: “And a set of black caps; I only wear plain black caps.”
Paraboot Scottish-Thread Socks: “And high socks because I hate my ankles showing when I sit. They’re always from Paraboot.”

Vanessa Craft, Global Head of Content Partnerships, TikTok

The Essentials: “My oversized Victoria Beckham sunglasses and matcha shot for obvious reasons; Hermès notebook to add luxury to my everyday compulsive note taking; Chanel spritz, Kiko shadow stick, and Charlotte Tilbury eye gel for freshening up from day to night and a vanilla perfume [Nemat Vanilla Musk] with a comforting nod to my first fragrance, the iconic Body Shop vanilla!”

Shandi Alexander, Stylist 

My Chanel 2022/23 Métiers d’art bag: "I usually carry my favorite little Chanel bag from the Metiers d'art Senegal Collection, as Senegal is my home away from New York home. I can't really fit that much in it, so I have to really edit what comes along with me. Full disclosure: in New York, I usually carry an extra tote in black to hold water and various other things, but in Paris, I rough it and deal all day with just my mini clutch on a chain."
AirPods: "More so to watch news updates on Threads than for listening to music."
Hi-Chew candy: "I discovered these while living in Japan many moons ago and love that they are in every corner deli now. I like sugar—a lot. So when I need a quick pick-me-up on the go, these are my go-to. They also help freshen breath."
Orbit Peppermint Gum: "At shows, you are sitting in a cramped space, literally breathing in the breath of the person next to you. If you've ever had to suffer sitting next to someone that doesn't have gum, you will never forget it. Hence, I try to always have gum in my mouth and on me."
Tula Glow and Get It Brightening Eye Balm: "I love these Tula under-eye balms. They give you an immediate feeling of coolness, which is very refreshing, plus they help moisturize and combat fine lines."
Dior Lip Gloss: "I'm obsessed. I own more than I know what to do with. I sleep with this stuff on."
An atomizer filled with Annick Goutal Petite Chérie: "Running around all day, a little spray of my favorite Annick Goutal makes me happy and keeps me fresh."
Red Edge Fixer Max Hold: "I wear a tight bun every day. All the time. This helps keep my baby hairs laid and back strays away."
Glow Recipe Watermelon Dew Balm: "I basically just wear bronzer because I like to shine. I rub this all over when my skin starts to look a little dull. It moisturizes, has SPF 45 and hyaluronic acid."
Cetaphil Moisturizing Cream: "It's winter, and my hands get dry, pale, and ashy. This is very effective, unscented, and non-oily. Plus, I got a ton of free samples from my son's dermatologist."
Zippo hand warmer/portable charger: "My husband bought me this random thing to use when we ski, but it's become a great city item. I'm always cold, and our phones run out of battery quite fast during FW because of Google Maps and taking videos."

BORING NOT COM, Anonymous Fashion Commentator

Dr. Barbara Sturm Glow Drops: “They keep my skin glowing and healthy, especially after all the running around, sleepless nights, and one too many glasses of champagne and cocktails at fashion week events (which I try to avoid if possible).”
All-black Nike VaporMax: “Always in my bag, perfect for a quick run or keeping things casual at the shows. Ideal for a sore-feet day.”
A favorite scent: “I love masculine fragrances. Louis Vuitton, Rabanne, and Tom Ford are currently the best. I can always count on them to get at least one compliment a day. And let’s be honest, we all need a little ego boost now and then.
Hugo Boss leather jacket: “My current obsession keeps me warm and stops me from getting sick, something many experience during fashion week in Europe thanks to the unpredictable weather mixed with a serious lack of rest.”
All-black Hermès Kelly: “Goes with everything, always with a green Granny Smith apple inside.”
A crisp white shirt.
My Alaïa pumps.
A good pair of black sunglasses: “Because no one needs to know how tired I really am.”

Kelly Cutrone, Founder and CEO, People’s Revolution

The Prisoner Cabernet: “I’m already a prisoner of fashion week, so I drink this wine to reflect my state. Nothing like a little Cabernet at the end of the day.”
Acne boots: “I love them because they’re chic, they mean business, and they go from day-to-night, super tight!!”
Edibles from Dagmar Cannabis Dispensary: “Owned by my friend and former fashion photographer Jennifer Tzar. This is not only a good place for cannabis but also celebrity sightings. We like to go before fashion week and stock up. Let’s face it: seating charts are tedious. We’re picking up Jenny’s edible chocolates and the pineapple ginger heart-shaped edibles––perfect for Valentine’s Day! Let’s support female-owned businesses.”
The Y Code Well Kept Serum: “Truth be told, this is the ultimate undereye serum. Geared toward men, I grabbed it from my partner, and I can’t live without it. It’s tinted, and I don’t like to wear makeup. It also deals with puffy eyes.”
Augustinus Bader's The Face Oil: “I don’t have time for a seven-step skincare, so I swear by this face oil. Super hydrating, and I always buy it from my favorite pharmacy in New York, Bigelow. It’s a bit expensive at $260 but, in my opinion, worth every penny!”
Jacques Marie Mage sunglasses: ”I can’t live without shades, and I don’t like cheap sunglasses. These are the ultimate repellent to prevent me from having to make eye contact with seat crashers in the front row. Also, runway lights can be very blinding.”
Initio Parfums Privés Oud For Greatness: “Hands down, this is the most awesome fragrance I’ve ever owned, and I wear it daily. And the name gives me a little extra to make it through fashion week.”

Laure Dansou, Paris- and LA-based Makeup Artist 

Mediheal radiance sheet mask plus Isdin Flavo-C serum: "The perfect duo for instantly hydrated and radiant skin, even with the stress and fatigue of Fashion Week."
A detox daikon and umeboshi tea: "This is a great way to flush out toxins and start the day with fresh energy. Drink first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. In a pot, combine a cup of spring water, a half-cup of finely-grated organic daikon, and half of an umeboshi (remove and discard the pit). Heat on low to medium heat for five minutes. Sip the liquid, then finish by eating the daikon and umeboshi.”
Neostrata Bionic Cream (for nighttime): "It keeps my skin deeply hydrated while gently exfoliating. Fatigue throws off the skin’s pH balance and leads to dead skin buildup, which is essential during fashion week."
An energizing smoothie: "Fashion week days are long and intense. Instead of giving in to sugar cravings that only increase fatigue, I go for a nourishing smoothie—moringa, chickpeas, brown rice, chia seeds, vanilla, rice milk, water—to sustain my energy all day."
Yoga and deep breathing: "Fashion week can be stressful, and yoga helps me keep my body relaxed and my mind calm. It’s my moment to reset and stay balanced throughout the week."

Gabriella Khalil, Founder and Creative Director of Palm Heights, Creative Director of WSA

Biologique Recherche Cryo-Sticks: “Fashion week is so hectic with shows and events. I use these cryo sticks every morning to re-set for the day and sometimes at night before I get ready for an event. (I keep mine in the freezer so they are extra cold).”
Kiehl's Lip Balm #1: “It is February, and I need lip balm all day long. I just started using this Kiehl's lip balm again and remembered how much I love it. I take it everywhere.”
Vyrao Magnetic 70 fragrance: “I love this grounding scent, and—even more—I love that it connects to positivity and protection.”

David Mallett, Hair Stylist and Founder of David Mallett

Comme des Garçons 71: "71 is the only perfume I wear. It's dry and like nothing else I’ve ever smelt. I spray my clothes with this perfume."
Maison Bonnet glasses: "My glasses are an extension of who I am, and I love the craftsmanship involved. They allow me to see, and they never leave my sight."
ASeriesof New Dawn Incense: "It lifts my spirit, makes me feel safe, and I love the clean sherbet smell. It’s absolutely positive and makes me feel at my house."
David Mallett FRESH Eau de Concombre: "I love my fresh cucumber spray. It’s like spring in a bottle or drinking Pimms or the sound of fizzy water. When I spread it on my hair and face on a plane, it wakes me up and makes me feel good."
Travel-size shampoo and conditioner: David Mallett Shampoo PURE and David Mallett Travel Kit Duo.

Yu Masui, Fashion Journalist 

Bread and pastries and danishes: “This is not for physical health. Totally for mental health! I don’t usually eat bread. But I stay motivated with good croissants and pain au chocolat (also baguettes and sandwiches—anything available from boulangeries) during PFW. Another obsession is Danish pastries when I am at Scandinavian FWs.”
A special incense from Kyoto: “I am not religious or spiritual at all. But sometimes, I have spooky experiences at random hotels. So to avoid unnecessary stress!”
Low-fat, low-calorie snacks: “I work on deadlines till late. So I need some keeping-myself-up-and-going snacks. But during FWs, I can’t risk putting weight on!”

Ayaka Nihei, Makeup Artist

Herb Pharm Soothing Throat Spray: “When I start feeling a sore throat, I’ll spray twice. It tastes weird but works perfectly to relieve irritation. And no chemicals!”
SELALY Lumineux Glow Mist Lotion: “An easy hybrid mist-lotion for busy days. After a shower, before or after makeup, anytime during the day! Your skin will be firm and glowing.” 
Odacite SPF 50 Tinted Mineral Drops Sunscreen: “The best tinted sunscreen that I have ever used. After skincare, you only need this to make your skin look naturally perfect. It’s sunscreen, foundation primer, and foundation, all in one drop. And it’s all mineral.”
Superegg Calm Movements Eye & Cheek Mask: “This is a mask for tired and dry skin. I’ve used so many different types of sheet masks, and it’s rare to find one that’s fragrance-free.”
Vimergy Micro-C Capsules: “According to my friend/fashion stylist/supplement master Jenny Haapala, Vimergy is one of the best supplement brands. I normally try to get nutrition from food and don't get sick. But when I’m super busy, it’s good to add Vitamin C for immune support.”

Omayma Ramzy, Makeup Artist 

Omayma Skin Active Rejuvenation Oasis Serum: “I cannot, cannot, cannot live without this every single morning. It’s an instant perk up for my skin and keeps it supple, bright, and bouncy. It’s a master formulation!”
Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil in Hot As Fudge: “This looks so good on me and everyone, no matter the occasion, with or without a full face of makeup. It’s quite possibly the best $8 I’ve spent in a long time.”
Jade Leaf Matcha: “It comes in these really easy packets, and it’s ceremonial grade. I’m a licensed esthetician, and sadly, coffee fatigues my adrenals, which, in turn, causes me acne and premature aging through dehydration. So I made the matcha swap, and I have to say I cannot live without these matcha packets on the go at any moment.”
My black boots: “Despite being four inches, they are insanely comfortable, and I’ve had them for years. Thank you, Kurt Geiger!!”
Sunglasses: I’ve got too many pairs and still never seem to have enough around. I can’t exist without my sunglasses, especially when I’m jet lagged!

Rachna Shah, Global CEO, KCD

Lemon water: “Number one in my wellness plan is to drink a full glass of lemon water when I get up—such a simple thing, but I finally committed to it, and I feel so much better heading into the day.”
MBR Face Cream Smooth 100: “Cayli Cavaco Reck of Knockout Beauty introduced me to this MBR cream over Covid when I wore no makeup and had lots of time for skin care. It is a game changer—perfect for all seasons, and it activates from an anti-aging perspective without irritating my skin.”
Lip Combo: “I am obsessed with the combo of the Augustinus Bader x Sofia Coppola Tinted Lip Balm and the Hourglass Phantom Volumizing Glossy Balm. The tinted lip balm delivers some daytime color while keeping my lips from drying out, And the Hourglass adds more color for night or events. I wear a lot of black during fashion week, so adding color this way brightens me up.”
Tom Ford Eye Color Quad in Sous Le Sable: “A neutral palette, so I can go day to night since I never have a chance to stop and put on makeup.”
Barebells Cookies & Cream Protein Bar: “I was never a fan of protein bars—they were too full of sugar, got stuck in my teeth, or just tasted so dry. But the Barebells Cookies & Cream bar is perfect for on-the-go.”

Lauren Sherman, Chief Fashion Correspondent, Puck

Flow water: “I don't know what it is about this water—probably all psychosomatic—but I swear it keeps me more hydrated than other water. I buy it in bulk.” 
Henné Luxury Lip Balm V2: “This is the only balm I've ever used that works to cure dry, chapped lips. I also buy this in bulk.”
Hermès Satin Lipstick in Rose: “I don't wear a lot of makeup, but I almost always wear lipstick. I also buy this in bulk.”
A Podcast: “I spend a lot of time on trains and walking around during the shows, so I tend to burn through podcasts pretty fast. A fashion month favorite is Acquired, a long-form podcast about how successful companies really get built.”
Sleep: “I know it's tough, but I truly believe a good night's sleep is the answer to a lot of our problems!”

Romy Soleimani, Makeup Artist

A protein shake: “I try to start my day with a protein shake. I use standard process protein, frozen blueberries, a hemp/flax/chia mix, collagen, Armra for gut and immunity, maca powder, and I have recently started adding a little creatine for cognitive health. This starts my day off right, and I’m ready for the day. Followed by a black coffee with some dates.”
Pic’s Peanut Butter Slugs: “A perfect clean protein hit. These save me when I’m running between shows, on the way to events, and traveling.” 
Re-Lyte electrolytes: “I make a huge effort to stay hydrated, something that has been a struggle for me in the past. Electrolytes make me feel great. My body craves the salt. Daphne Javitch of Doing Well got me hip to Re-Lyte as it’s a better quality pink Himalayan salt. I carry around a huge Yeti bottle with water mixed with a Re-Lyte packet. And it makes me feel great!”

That's why we asked 14 art-world figures attending this year's Art Basel Miami Beach to tell us what essential items will be in their bags. Some responses were haiku-esque; others, like that of New York-based dealer Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle, are epic. “Art Basel is a marathon, not a sprint,” she says. “Making this list kind of reminded me of that Naomi Campbell video that’s been memed into oblivion.”

Below, these pros share everything you'll need to survive Miami’s busiest week of the year, including this year’s MVPs—Compeed bandages and Topicals lip balm appear more than once—plus, immune-boosting sprays, aromatherapy cure-alls, and artist Misha Kahn’s ode to a CVS bag.

Cecilia Alemani, director and chief curator of High Line Art

• LaBello Med Repair lip balm: “I always carry my favorite lip balm, which I buy in Europe. I could not live without it. Not fancy, but a very good product, which I find so much better than most US lip balms.” 
• Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask: “After so much talking (and kissing) a lip mask by Laneige.”
• Sulwhasoo UV Daily Cream: “Mandatory.” 
• Ayrloom Up Orchard Sunrise Apple Gummies: “My favorite gummies to breeze through the fair with a big smile come from Gotham Dispensary. I love this one.” 
• Amass Four Thieves Spray Hand Sanitizer: “Lots of hand sanitizer! I particularly love this one, which is spicy and refreshing and keeps people away.”

Augusto Arbizo, art advisor with Schwartzman& 

• Poketle 120S water bottle: “The lines are always long to get water or coffee at art fair cafes or lounges—especially on preview days—so I always have a small drink bottle that fits in a jacket pocket or cross-body bag.”
• Charmast Mini Power Bank: “One cannot run out of battery! Cordless is best.” 

Arri Burrows, institutional sales at Goldman Sachs and board member of VIA Art Fund

• Noise-canceling headphones: “Red-eye flights from New York to London or Los Angeles are barely long enough to get sleep, but it becomes impossible without headphones. Babies crying, conversations, and flight attendants asking if you need anything = no sleep."
• Kiehl’s Facial Fuel Collection: “Kiehl’s Facial Fuel eye depuffer, face scrub, and face lotion. The Facial Fuel line might be the best on the market—especially the depuffer, which ensures I never look as tired as I may feel.” 

Eleanor Cayre, art advisor and founder of Cayre Art Group

• NSAIDs, ink, and energy: “I always carry an Alka-Seltzer and a pen to cross off galleries on the map. A battery pack for my phone is a must.”

Kimberly Drew, curatorial director at Pace

• In the carry-on: “Band-Aids, hand sanitizer, a toothbrush, and lotion in my ‘personal item’ for the commute to and from the airport. For hand sanitizer, I love Aesop, and for lotion, I am obsessed with 54 Thrones. You never know how quickly you’ll need to hit the streets when you land, so I try to make sure I can refresh efficiently.”
• At the hotel: “I always unpack everything and organize my skin care and makeup as soon as I arrive at my hotel (even if it’s at 1 a.m.). Mornings are so hectic during a fair week that I like to keep things in order to have an easy ‘area of action’ to make sure I hit the ground running. I make sure I have makeup brush cups to organize all my brushes.”
• In the tub: “I recently started traveling with bath salts just in case there’s a tub. It’s always a roll of the dice, but being able to soak during a hectic trip is the ultimate luxury.”
• Everywhere: “Finally, I always pack palo santo for both the scent and its cleansing properties. It always centers me. I also keep lavender pouches in my suitcase.”

Heather Hubbs, executive director of NADA

• Fresh organic lemons: “I drink warm lemon water every morning to help regulate my nervous system and move into the day. I also bring a travel hot water kettle and a simple lemon juicer with me, as most US hotels don't have these in the rooms.”
• Beekeeper's Naturals Propolis Nasal and Throat Spray: “This stuff is amazing for protecting your immune system while traveling and being around large groups of people.”
• Aquis hair-drying towel: “Never leave home without it.”
• Essential oils: “Geranium (to calm the nervous system), rosemary (to relieve mental fatigue and exhaustion) and sitka (revitalizes and restores). I carry these with me and use them based on how the day is going. They seriously help!”

Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle, managing partner and co-owner of Canada gallery

• Moon Juice Super Power and Super You supplements: “A daily vitamin-packed cocktail to keep my energy and immune system in tip-top shape during long days and nights. It’s a lifesaver for staying sharp from beginning to end.” 
• Sakara Life Detox Water Drops: “Add these to your water, and voilà—hydration galore. Plus, they help me detoxify after a champagne-fueled night.”
• Byredo Rose of No Man’s Land Hand Cleanser: “A chic essential for keeping my hands fresh and germ-free, with an elegant, refreshing scent.”
• Phlur's Heavy Cream with Jo Malone's Mimosa and Cardamom:  “No questions, just pair and prepare to be showered with compliments."
• Topicals Slick Salve: “A must-have for soothing and hydrating my lips on the booth, not tacky and don’t have to reapply often.” 
• Byredo Liquid Lipstick in Matte Red Coma: “This is my signature lippie—it instantly elevates any look, even when I’m running on fumes.”
• NEOM Organics London Perfect Night's Sleep Magnesium Body Butter: “My go-to for ensuring a peaceful night’s sleep, even after an eventful day.” 
• Ouai Chill Pills bath bombs: “The ultimate indulgence for easing my tension after a long day on my feet.” 
• Biodance Bio-Collagen Real Deep Mask: “When I need a serious skin pick-me-up, this ultra-hydrating mask works miracles––refreshed, plumped, and glowing before big events.”
• Augustinus Bader The Rich Cream: “The Rolls-Royce of moisturizers—it’s worth every penny, pinky swear.” 
• Vintner’s Daughter Active Botanical Serum: “An evening ritual to revive my skin, ensuring it’s glowing by morning.” 
• Black Girl Sunscreen: “A lightweight, ultra-moisturizing sunscreen that blends seamlessly without a white cast. It's my go-to for protecting my skin under Miami’s bright sun while staying photo-ready.” 
• Dr. Dennis Gross DRx SpectraLite FaceWare Pro: “This LED mask is my ultimate flex—it's also maybe a little terrifying… but just three minutes of red and blue light therapy and I’m ready to take on the world (or Miami at least).” 
• Compeed Blister Cushions: “A must for preventing and treating my blisters during long days.”
• Margaret Dabbs London Foot Soak: “A luxurious soak with emu oil to refresh and hydrate my soles after endless walking and standing.” 
• Gucci Horsebit monogram slingbacks: “A backup for my heels, combining style and comfort without compromise.” 
• ​​​​​​​Ettitude Sateen Travel Sheet: “This silky reusable bamboo travel sheet set turns even a questionable Airbnb into a five-star experience.”  

Misha Kahn, artist​​​​​​​

• A plastic bag: “Mainly, I would suggest a plastic bag. These are hard to come by in New York now, so if you're coming from there, maybe just get one at a CVS in Miami when you touch down. The bag is gonna do a lot of heavy lifting for you. It will keep people from asking where you're staying (maybe you’re not staying anywhere) or when you got into town (it gives off the air of having just always been there). In the bag you should put a bottle of water and a swimsuit and maybe a tab of acid cut into fourths. The swimsuit is great, because at nearly every party there’s a pool and usually nobody even gets in, so the bag will be great to put your wet suit in after you break that trend. If your acid doesn’t get soaked from your swimsuit, just a tiny bit can help you process the endless slog of random shapes you’ll encounter in any of the fairs—something minimal! Something graphic! Something figurative! Something abstract! The water comes in handy when you get parched and they only have champagne.”

Irene Kim, global head of VIP relations and member of the Management Board, Art Basel

• The Essentials: “What I carry: phone, credit card, YSL lipstick, business cards, and a handful of minty Halls drops!”

Dmitry Komis, director at Marian Goodman

• A travel steamer: “Depending on how long I’m staying during the week, I typically pack 4 to 5 suits, so one essential I never travel without is a steamer! Suits for ABMB—I like a bit more relaxed fit than usual: Valentino, Dries Van Noten and Lemaire.”
• Skyn Iceland Hydro Cool Eye Gels and Sulwhasoo First Care Activating sheet masks: “Getting ready in the morning of a fair is always about extra hydration, whether face or eye masks; they force me to slow down and relax, as I don’t like hectic mornings before a fair starts.”
• Meal plan: “Diet: During the fair it’s always cold brew the first half of the day, a side of protein for lunch, and a glass of champagne after 5 o’clock.”
• Aquaphor Lip Repair Stick and shades: “I’m never without a lip balm (I love the basics) or a good pair of sunglasses when I’m out and about.”

Anwarii Musa, art advisor and founder of ArtMatic

• A Vespa: “When I have multiple events and meetings during the day, I usually get around on a Vespa to avoid all of the insane traffic that week, especially on VIP day.”

Destinee Ross-Sutton, founder of Destinee Ross-Sutton and Associates and Ross-Sutton Gallery, and head curator at the Pierce and Hill Harper Art Foundation

• Noshinku Lavendula hand sanitizer: “The smell is nice, the bottle is thin and fits well into any purse, and it is a bug repellent in a pinch.” 
• Topicals Slick Salve: “It’s a bit sticky, but I like it. It stays on for hours. I’ve woken up with it mostly still on. Makes my lips so soft.” 
• One/Size On ‘Til Dawn Setting Spray: “Keeps my skin as oil- and sweat-free as possible, and protects my makeup from anything — even Miami humidity.”
• Compeed heel patches: “An absolute must-have.” 
• Yerba mate: “I don't like coffee but need the caffeine to keep going.”

Hannah Traore, founder Hannah Traore Gallery

• Miso soup packets: “They give me life. The sodium and bits of protein are so comforting and revive me when I need a pick-me-up. Just add hot water and you’re back to life.”
• My own silk pillowcase: “It protects my hair and makes me feel like I have a piece of home with me.”
• Brother Vellies shoes: “I cannot live without my Brother Vellies kitten heels in red and in brown. They are so chic, and I can stand in them for hours.” 
• Lá Bel Golden Glow: “It’s the only product that keeps my face moisturized on a flight. I can’t fly without it!” 

Jasmine Wahi, founder and co-director of Project For Empty Space

• Compression socks: “It used to be ‘spare sneakers for when my feet get tired of heels,’ now it’s 'compression socks because my legs are tired already.’” 
• An insulin-pump pod: “Before I leave the house I make sure I have at least one extra insulin pump pod in my bag (literally can’t live without them).”
• Welch’s Fruit Snacks: “I also have a big-ass ziplock of Welch’s fruit snacks (mixed berry flavor) because snackies are fuel. Also, the best way to make new friends is to have snacks on deck.”
• A water bottle: “Keep a refillable bottle with a tightly closing lid for water. Water is your best friend. Especially when you're walking and talking for hours.” 
• Tequila: “At the end of the day all I need is Casamigos Añejo, a large glass, and rocks.” 
• Yoga Toes Toe Stretchers: “Before bed I use Yoga Toes (shoutout to Monique Meloche for putting me on to these) for nights when I do actually put on heels. I like hammer pants, not hammer toes, so every night I wear heels I use these squishy things for about 10 mins to straighten those tootsies out.”