While Y2K style is making its comeback to mostly fanfare (25 years later, so right on vintage schedule), there’s a quarter of a century of beauty history to reflect on, too. You may not be excited about the resurgence of emo-ish side bangs, but how about one of the era’s most iconic scents?
“Perfumes in the ‘90s were huge in the same way supermodels were huge, and designers were huge, and personalities were huge,” says beauty editor Jean Godfrey-June. But with the strike of midnight on December 31, 1999—a beauty revolution was coming. “The 2000s were all about democracy.” She cites the then-revolutionary Lucky Magazine (which she helped start) as being leading the wave. “We showed the prices for everything just like in a catalog, told everybody where to buy stuff, and the industry was horrified.” These days, Godfrey-June’s still working toward the same mission—while smelling like the clean fragrance brand Maison Louis Marie’s No. 9. “It reads as sophisticated and together if I need that, and intriguingly French and sexy if that’s the vibe,” she says. “The chic bottle is secretly a rollerball—and the scent is actually an oil, so it feels so nice on your skin and lasts a long time. I even use it on my hair in a pinch to give a little gorgeously scented shine.”
Vogue writer Genevieve Monsma (who reflected on the return of vanilla scents) cited the intense Christian Dior Hypnotic Poison as her signature scent of the ’90s, but when the 2000s, there was a vibe shift in the fragrance world. “I wore Stella by Stella McCartney, which came out when my son was born in 2003. It had a cool girl vibe. In my mind, it was the fragrance version of a smoky eye, lowrise jeans, and a Balenciaga moto bag.” (Sadly, Stella was discontinued in 2011, but of course, Reddit has suggestions on a replacement.)
We all know that scent has the power to transport us to another time or place with a single sniff—like the halls of our high school, the beauty counter at a department store, a first date, or more. Below, we explore each of the first 25 years of this century and the most popular scent that was borne from it. The nostalgia—and selection to sniff—is up to you.
2000
The beginning of the 2000s ushered in a new category of beauty products: body splashes. At the front of the movement was Victoria’s Secret’s Love Spell and the lilac juice scenting many high school hallways. The original fruity-floral formula still lives on—notes of peach, apple, and cherry blossom make this an ultra-bold scent—with model Devyn Garcia as the face.
2001
Famed perfumer Olivier Cresp was tasked by Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana (aka Dolce & Gabbana) to capture the essence of Carpi in a bottle—and Light Blue was born. He started with a note of lemon, inspired by the fruit that grows across the island (and is used in the signature drink, Limoncello), and from there added green apple, musk, and cedarwood. Add in the sexy advertisement campaign and it became an instant classic.
2002
The coming of this iconic scent, which was inspired by Coco Chanel’s famous “I was given a chance and I took it” quote, was revealed in Vogue’s 2002 September issue. Russian-American model Anne Vyalitsyna was the face of the first campaign, where she dangled from a giant circular bottle filled with jasmine-and-amber patchouli juice.
2003
Created by perfume greats Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian, Narciso Rodriguez For Her was symbolic of everything the ‘00s fashion brand stood for: minimalist and complex femininity. The blend of rose, peach, amber, and patchouli—all housed in a millennial pink bottle years before the rise in the color’s popularity—has stood the test of time.
2004
Before the golden age of celebrity scents (that came later, in the 2010s), there was Curious by Britney Spears. And while this scent was a favorite of my high school bullies—I have flashbacks anytime I smell a note of juicy green pear—its charm is undeniable. Notes of powerful white flowers like magnolia, jasmine, and tuberose combined with the aforementioned pear, vanilla, and sandalwood into something that even Dua Lipa told Vogue in 2019 that she, too, found irresistible.
2005
Allegedly worn by both Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift during the start of their careers, Viktor&Rolf Flowerbomb is aptly named—it’s meant to emulate a bouquet of 1,000 flowers. The four perfumers behind the original scent focused on floral notes (jasmine, orange blossom, rose, cattleya) to get the explosion just right.
2006
A tie for the most iconic fragrance of 2006. In one corner, we have Tom Ford’s Black Orchid. Legend has it that the notoriously specific designer couldn’t find a black orchid with petals dark enough to please him, so he bred one with a California horticulturist—and both the Tom Ford orchid and this perfume were born.
