14 Fig Fragrances to Spritz This Season

When I was in my early 20s, I ate a fig and my face swelled up like a balloon. My tongue itched, my lips looked like they had been injected with a Super-Soaker-sized syringe of filler, and the allergist I went to said, “I would avoid figs from here on out if I were you.” I took his words as gospel, fleeing cheese boards ornamented with fig jam, waving away fig tarts and bowls of fruit, giving tables laden with figs at farmers markets a wide berth. As an unexpected consequence, over time, I forgot what figs smelled like.

My husband frequently wears D.S. & Durga’s Debaser, a fragrance I love. To me, it smells fresh, leafy, and a bit like coconut, but until recently I wouldn’t have been able to name the dominant note. Then one day when we were in an Uber, our driver asked, “What is that amazing fig scent one of you is wearing?” My mind was blown.

I realized that a note I previously couldn’t identify in several of my favorite perfumes, including Dior’s Dioriviera and Liis’s In This World, was in fact fig, the forbidden fruit. I found the way my perfumes smelled positively heavenly: plush and juicy, redolent of warm summer days and plant-filled greenhouses. I’ve always recognized it as something luscious and botanical—but fig? Go figure. The more I sniffed around my fragrance collection, the more I found it: Fig is what makes the soft-musk Henry Rose London 1983 sing on my skin. It’s why Arquiste Parfumeur’s A Grove By the Sea transports me to a sunbaked island in the Adriatic. It’s the secret sauce in Stora Skuggan’s addictive Monkeyflower. And it provides the snapped-stem vibrance that offsets the opulent rose in Liberty London’s LBTY Zephirine. With this revelation, I went from fig phobic to fig fanatic. Now I can’t get enough of the stuff (of the olfactive variety, that is).

My obsession has proven to be timely. Fig-forward fragrances are a big trend this fall, and new iterations are cropping up everywhere. Malin+Goetz is bringing back its hyper-realistic Moroccan Fig. Tom Ford’s Figue Érotique is a woody, ambery take on the fruit. And Born to Stand Out’s Fig Porn will please those who prefer their fragrances decadently sweet. My favorites are Chloé’s Atelier des Fleurs Plage du Figuier, which smells like a Mediterranean vacation, and Régime des Fleurs’ Wildly Fig, a burst of airy, lemony fig with a dash of pistachio that brand founder and perfumer Alia Raza describes as “neon green, tart, and alive.”

Fig can appear in many guises. Because the plant itself doesn’t yield an essential oil, the fragrance is conjured by perfumers using an array of synthetic molecules. This, as Raza says, “leaves a lot of room for interpretation.” A perfumer might create an accord that captures the milkiness of the plant’s sap, the woodiness of the branches, the sharp green notes that explode when you crush a fig leaf in your palm, or the succulence of the fruit’s ripe flesh. “The fig tree is a fascinating species from a perfumer’s perspective because each part of the tree has its own olfactive identity,” says Olivia Jan, a senior perfumer at Givaudan. Even the scent of the fruit itself shape-shifts, she says, from being “delicate, and slightly floral” when just picked to smelling “dark, jammy, and resinous” when dried.

L’Artisan Parfumeur’s Premier Figuier, which launched in 1994, is widely considered to have been the first-ever fig fragrance. The perfumer who created it, Olivia Giacobetti, is also the nose behind Diptyque’s Philosykos, a scent regularly name-checked as the quintessential fig perfume. Fragrance makers continue to dream up new approaches. Nathalie Benareau, the perfumer who created Granado’s new Figo Confit, developed a candied fig note drenched in heady davana, date, and plum, she says, to amplify an effect of “richness, texture, and enveloping depth.” Perfumer Ane Ayo’s idea for Plage du Figuier was to evoke the hidden flower at the heart of the teardrop-shaped fruit. “Many people don't realize that the fig flower is concealed inside the fruit itself, which makes it both mysterious and captivating,” she says. “I wanted to capture a fig that felt luminous and solar, rather than overly sweet, expressing its floral, pulpy facets, as if you were holding a ripe black fig on a warm Mediterranean beach.” Interestingly, fig seems to be a note that female perfumers are especially fond of, though the note itself is unquestionably unisex.

This versatility for the perfumer translates to the wearer. Because fig sits at the crossroads between several olfactive families—green, fruity, creamy, woody, and floral—it is, says D.S. & Durga cofounder and perfumer David Seth Moltz, “the great median accord. It might be the rose of our era, a must-have in a perfume collection that works on everybody.”

Fig is also ideal for the seasonal transition into fall. It carries a lingering memory of summer warmth in its coconut-like undertones, but it also suits crisp autumn days, as its honeyed ripeness chimes perfectly with the familiar damp-bark scent of fallen leaves. Why is it proving especially popular this year? Maybe it’s a sign we are moving away from sweet gourmands (finally), but still like to smell a bit edible. “It's more exotic than other fruits, yet familiar enough to our noses,” says Moltz.

“I think people are drawn to fig because it feels both comforting and sophisticated,” says Ayo. “It has a natural warmth and sensuality, but also a freshness that keeps it modern. There is something very evocative about it. Even for people who have never been near fig trees, it conjures images of sunshine, nature, and a slower pace of life.” I think this articulates exactly what I, as a newly minted fig freak, love about it.

In Buddhism, the fig represents enlightenment, and I do feel as though I have been awakened. My nose has, at least. I may never be able to eat a fig, but that’s not going to stop me from smelling like one.