Best Comme des Garcons 2 by Comme des Garcons Alternatives & Similar Perfumes

Comme des Garcons 2 is a landmark perfume in the CdG range, and a revered cult classic. Built around invisible incense, the suggestion of ink, and the gentle euphoria of tea, CdG2 is bright and clear, but with an unexpected tenderness. Incredibly diffusive, this EdP retains its structure and presence while also hanging in the air with a barely-there shimmer.

Terram captures the Mediterranean embrace of autumn. The path winding up from the beach is silent. Sweet aromatic notes of dry soil and clifftop pines float in the air. A haze of ambery benzoin and dusty patchouli settles over musk. Warm, woody, still — this is a fragrant mood that comforts and lulls. 

After the first rains of autumn, the woods exhale salubrious scents of peat, moss and petrichor — the ideal antidote to the scorching summer heat. Chypre-Mousse was first launched in 1914 for the dandies of the new century, and this iteration reinterprets a classic fougere with contemporary materials. This explosively aromatic blend hums with wild mint and fennel in a swirl of earthy oak moss, peppery green angelica and fresh pine. Bring the outdoors in with Chypre-Mousse.

Perfumer: Hugo Lambert

The green, relaxing scents of the Tuscan countryside blend with the liveliness of exotic spices. Cypress and Cinnamon, Bay and Pepper, Tomato and Cardamom leaves all dance together to create a rich, fresh, unique fragrance.

There’s a tantalising friction in the smell of iris root. It’s austere, but tender. It can be powdery, but it also suggests leather. Depending on the context, it can read as feminine or masculine. Iris Ardent resolves this fabled material’s dissonance in a compelling eau de parfum that balances all of iris’ contradictions. The opening spikes of cypress and vetiver provide the scaffolding for cushiony amber and powdery iris. Juniper’s bright twang illuminates the darkness of incense and moss. Intellectual, but accessible.

Blue line

Perfumer: Thierry Bessard

The best ever souvenir from London? A perfume which is a mix of rain, steaming Earl Gray tea and warm earthy vetiver.

Perfumer: Pierre Guéros

“ExpLOud marks the beginning of a new creative synergy: Laboratorio Olfattivo meets Pierre Guéros, perfumer at Symrise. This great traveller and connoisseur of Middle East immediately seduced us with his sensitivity, his human curiosity and his ability to establish an empathic contact with other cultures. Without hesitation, we entrusted him the mission of giving body to “our vision” of Oud. ExpLOud was born, as an aromatic explosion based on the most precious and luminous of Ouds, with floral notes to lift and twist the characteristic scent of this unique raw material which has already experienced numerous interpretations on the market”.

Roberto Drago

Perfumer: Bertrand Duchaufour

Visual artist: landscape artist/photographer Martin Hill.

The same way in which Martin goes to a sight and rearranges what nature left there into an installation, the perfumer rearranged some molecules and materials to put the beauty of a natural material into focus.

Also Martin aims to let his structures be absorbed back into natural chaos. Perfume evaporates into the environment in a similar fashion, beautiful but transient.

In Vanilla Shot all of the focus is on vanilla (natural, dark and balsamic). The concept of the perfume is inspired by a photo of a piece of Martin Hill's land art shot at dreamy dusk (below). The twigs used in the structure balanced over the lake are reminiscent of vanilla beans. The installation transcends two planes - liquid and ether and in the perfume vanilla spans the sweet and bitter corners of the scented universe. Vanilla Shot is not an ordinary sweet gourmand. In this perfume all nuances of natural vanilla get proper attention: balsamic, fruity, spicy, sweet and even leathery.

White is a bright and lively fragrance built around the friction between hot spices and suave florals. The cinnamon, clove and cardamom opening suggests candied red hots, which makes it all the more surprising when the melange of rose de Mai and lily of the valley softly asserts itself. The undertone of tagete, with its bitter herbalness, keeps White from getting too “pretty-pretty”.

Evoking the traditional smoking of tea leaves in ancient China, Indigo Smoke is an aromatic landscape of narrow serpentine rivers, blue mountains and incense-filled temples condensed into a complex formula of black tea, woody notes and incense. Rich, sophisticated and long-lasting. With notes of lapsang souchong tea, mandarin orange, apricot, guaiac wood, incense and pine tar.