The first chill of autumn is finally creeping in, meaning it’s the ideal time to start building your scent arsenal for the fall season. From dust motes and moss to dead roses and ripe berries, we present the smallest sampling of our most coveted picks. These fragrances that embrace the beauty in autumn’s decay.
These aren’t affiliate picks, but our own curated selection of scents that we feel bring out the haunted, decrepit, cold air of autumn when worn. We’ve sampled eau de parfums, spray perfumes, solid perfumes, and perfume oils at a few different price points. Rest assured that there’s a little something for everyone.
Earthy
These aren’t the verdant, bright scents typically associated with green perfumes. These bouquets paint pictures of lonely trees overlooking quiet, empty cemeteries, or the damp soil of a still-fresh grave.
Seance – Cemetery EDP
($125)
With a deep centering of the metaphysical and paranormal, Seance creates scents that are rich and often moody. The earthy, woodsy profile of Cemetery delivers you to the graveside of a soul long-since departed. Bright and grassy notes linger hauntingly, paired with just a touch of vanilla reminiscent of sweeter days. The strongest note is that of wet dirt. Wearing it feels like returning to the cradle of the earth.
Scent notes: dragonsblood resin, grass, earth, moss, wood, vanilla, patchouli
Andrea Maack – Coven EDP
($195)
Andrea Maack is an artist with a desire to explore visual arts through scented mediums. The inspiration for Coven struck Maack when she was digging up russet potatoes in Iceland. It certainly evokes the feeling of wiggling your fingers in the dirt after a downpour. It’s a cold, damp, witchy scent; a beautiful nod to the harvest season.
Top notes: Vanilla, labdanum, whiskey
Heart notes: Cedar wood, oak moss
Base notes: Galbanum, clove
Amorphous Perfume – Autumn In Salem
($160)
Formerly known as Black Baccara, Amorphous Perfume is the perfume house of Kalliope Amorphous. It specializes in dark, elegant scents, with a Autumn/Halloween 2025 launch adding to its already impressive arsenal. Autumn In Salem transports you to the streets of Massachusetts on a rainy autumn day. It’s foresty, vegetal profile brings to mind dead leaves, dirt roads going nowhere, and the creak of old floorboards.
Scent notes: Elemi, cedar, figs, birch, cucumber, fresh rain
Halloween
From pumpkins and candies to warm fall spices, these gourmand scents capture everything we love about such a beloved autumn holiday.
Amorphous Perfume – Carnival Of Ghosts Perfume Oil
($26)
As one of the sweeter autumn scents Amorphous offers, Carnival Of Ghosts will leave you feeling like you’ve entered a small town in the midst of Halloween celebrations. The air smells of caramel apples and carnival popcorn, and a breeze from over the horizon carries the faintest scent of freshly-turned soil from the harvest. It’s a cheeky mix of sweet and wicked, much like the spirit of a carnival itself.
Scent notes: Benzoin, agarwood, patchouli, anise, pumpkin, apple, caramel, popcorn
Ghoulish Goods – Scarecrow Perfume Oil
($26.50)
Ghoulish Goods create affordable oils, solids, and perfumes with a slant toward the macabre. This dark take on a classic fall favorite uses clean pumpkin and baking spices with just a dash of cashmere and oud to keep things from getting too sweet. It’s reminiscent of a baker’s kitchen, the oven keeping the home warm while the scent of old clothing and woods from beyond a cracked window drift through.
Top notes: Pumpkin, cinnamon leaf, clove, peppercorn
Middle notes: Vanilla, oud wood, embers, cashmere
Bottom notes: Sandalwood, warm amber, suede
Alkemia Perfumes – Trick or Treat Perfume
($20)
The creator of Alkemia Perfumes, Sharra, started her business in 2009 as a way of providing ethical, affordable scents for perfume aficionados who also happen to be sufferers of scent-triggered migraines. Trick or Treat is a candied scent with mature notes of black licorice, tonka bean, bourbon vanilla, and blonde patchouli. The slight woodsy undertone makes one think of a quaint cabin’s kitchen, where the sole resident stirs a pot of sticky caramel on the stove.
Scent notes: Black licorice, mandarin orange peel, caramelized brown sugar, bourbon vanilla, candied ginger, tonka bean, blonde patchouli, cedar tips, oakmoss, sandalwood
Vampiric
These perfumes use rich, deep notes like wine and berries paired with aged scents like decaying wood and parchment. They’re cold, ancient, and elegant; all that a vampire may be.
Liquides Imaginaires – Bloody Wood
($210)
Bloody Wood is one of a trilogy of perfumes from Liquides Imaginaires’ Les Eaux Sanguines set, inspired by holy wines and celebrating the ties between wine, life, and death. It’s a deliciously dark blend of cool and warm scent profiles evoking both tender embraces and sharp betrayals. Rather than being dark or sensual, it’s more evocative of fresh berry juice spilled over the wooden floorboards of a sunlit church.
Top notes: White wine lees, violet, rose oxyide
Heart notes: Fruity wine accord, cherry, raspberry
Base notes: Woody accord, sandalwood, oak barrel accord
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab – Blood Kiss
($7.75 – $40.00)
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, founded in 2002 by Elizabeth Moriarty Barrial and Brian Constantine, is a strong name in the alternative scent scene with a focus on dark stories, pagan art, and mythology. This perfume oil has a cult following, and for good reason. Blood Kiss combines sweet, pure notes of honey and vanilla with red-stained cherries and dark cloves. When mixed with poppy, wine, vetiver, and musk, it spins a tale of love gained and lost.
Scent notes: Cherry, clove, cream, feral musk, poppy, vetiver, wine
Sylhouette Parfums – Romance Noir
($225)
Crafted by Sylhouette Parfums, a small Vietnamese brand that won the 2024 Art and Olfactory Artisan Awards, Romance Noir whisks you into the heart of a long-forgotten library filled with dusty, ancient tomes. Leather and dried rose leave the strongest impression, with dust, sweet berries, and rich wine evoking images of overstuffed chairs and empty ballrooms in a once-vibrant manor.
Fragrance notes: Wild berries, aged wine, dried rose, dusty leather, dark smoke
Amorphous Perfume – Vampire Romance
($160)
Another Amorphous scent that will leave you enchanted, Vampire Romance lies at the heart of twisted adoration. Its notes weave a story of old, empty coffins laden with funeral lilies. The rich and mature presence of black roses linger behind it like a lost lover, with slight decay from leaves and wood threading delicately through.
Scent notes: Aged coffin wood, autumn leaves, blackened funeral lilies, opulent black roses, Malbec wine, forest floor
How to wear perfumes and EDPs
Eau de parfums have a lower concentration of scent than perfumes, so you may want to be more generous with them when applying. The means of application, however, often stay the same. Spray a small amount onto pulse points like the wrists or the inner elbows. Applying your perfume or EDP on warm and moist areas allow the scent profiles to linger and play with the natural oils of your skin.
You may choose to mist your hair or use your fingers to apply excess product behind your ears, but be careful not to inhale any perfume that is not biodegradable.
How to wear solid perfume
Scoop a small amount of the product out of its container with a clean finger or tool and warm it between your fingers until it melts. Dab this onto your pulse points. Some also enjoy using it to tame fly-away hairs, or to touch up liquid perfume or EDPs as a way to make those (often more expensive) products last a bit longer.
How to wear perfume oils
Perfume oils are even more concentrated than perfumes, so a very small amount goes a long way. Take a tiny dab of the scent onto your fingers and touch it to your pulse points, such as the wrists, the hollow at the base of the throat, the crook of the elbows, and behind the ears. Thanks to the intense concentration, you will likely be able to go much longer without touch-ups.
Regardless of type, all scents are meant to be worn directly on the skin, as your skin’s interaction with the oils and its temperature bring out the fullest scent profile. Spraying your clothing or hair (or even your linens) may give off a different aroma that you find equally pleasant, even so. Likewise, choosing to layer products is an excellent way of tailoring a scent completely unique to you.