A perfume expert has revealed her top picks for scents that will last you several hours a day without wearing off, while leaving you smelling like a ‘luxury hot girl’.
Caroline Stern is a content creator who calls herself the “CEO of the niche luxury hot girls,” and regularly shares all her product recommendations and perfume wisdom with her social media followers.
Recently, the fragrance enthusiast used her expertise to make recommendations for the best long-lasting scents — after a fellow creator wondered why products for men seem to last so much longer than those for women.
Stern, who owns more than 220 perfume bottles, offered her expertise in scents that last more than 10 hours and smell “nuclear,” starting with a scent that the expert said was “one of the most beautiful” scents.
Caroline Stern revealed her top picks for the longest lasting perfumes that are ‘nuclear’
She made her video in response to another creator who wondered why men’s perfumes last longer than women’s
“First of all, we have an Italian fruit basket in a bottle,” says Stern.
‘This is Erba Pura from (the brand) Xerjoff, and it is one of the most beautiful scents I have ever found in my life.
‘Think of the most expensive fruit salad you can imagine, and combine it with a vanilla, amber and musky sky cloud, that’s what you have with Erba Pura.’
The content creator, whose background is in the execution and strategy of influencer marketing campaigns, explained that the perfume, which went for $176 a bottle, was “technically unisex” but was a bit more feminine.
“Oh my god, if I say this is nuclear, this will easily last over twelve hours. “I think when you wear this you have to be aware of how much you’re spraying because you’re going to get looks, that’s how strong this is,” she advised.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Stern said that in addition to owning a large number of fragrances, she had also tested approximately 600 perfumes.
“The main conclusion I’ve come to is that more ‘niche’ fragrances seem to have a longer lifespan than more ‘commercial’ brands,” she explained, citing Dolce And Gabbana’s Light Blue as an example.
“But then you also have the more niche fragrance brands that are actually moving towards mainstream luxury because of their price point and the level of mastery that goes into creating them.”
Stern owns more than 220 perfumes and has tested more than 600, she said
The first long-lasting perfume Stern recommended was Erba Pura by Xerjoff
She also said that Mancera brand Roses Vanille was extremely powerful
Stern went on to explain that many of the brands she mentioned in her video, like Xerjoff, were sold in larger department stores, which “said a lot about how niche perfume is really viewed and where it’s sold.”
Next on the list of long-lasting “niche luxury hot girl” fragrances was Roses Vanille by Mancera, which retails for just over $100.
She described the scent in the video as “sweet” and “delicious.”
“This is the perfect, creamy vanilla,” Stern said.
“Imagine, just a vanilla cake, it’s sweet but not too crazy sweet, but then we have this candied jam rose.”
“For example, if you imagine a rose icing, and not the rose you would find inside, like a florist smelling a bouquet.
‘This is actually the scent that showed me that nuclear perfumes for women exist because this one lasts over ten hours, and I’ve had so many people that I’ve introduced this to who have now turned this into their signature scent, it is their most complimented scent, and you need so little of it.’
On a different note, Stern then introduced a more sultry-smelling perfume into the mix, one she recommended especially for the fall season.
“I think chocolate and citrus are one of the most beautiful combinations ever, and this, Dolce Diablo from Narcotica, is a powerful chocolate-coated apricot scent,” the perfume expert explained.
She went on to explain that she believed it was “one of the most beautiful” milk chocolate fragrances she had found to date, retailing at $280 for a 100ml bottle.
She also recommended Dolce Diablo from Narcotica, a combination of chocolate and citrus, as well as Althaïr from Parfums de Marly, a boozy vanilla
Stern is a perfume enthusiast who often makes videos on her TikTok account about the different scents she owns
“I got so many compliments on this, so many hours after I applied it, that I found myself racking my brain to remember what perfume I chose that day,” she said of Dolce Diablo
“The drying of this is so stunning and powerful and beautiful,” Stern said.
‘I received so many compliments on this, so many hours after applying it, that I had to rack my brain to remember which perfume I chose that day.’
For those who want something that smells a little more masculine and less sweet, the content creator has something in store.
“If you want something more masculine, but still smell inherently feminine, I highly recommend Althaïr from Parfums de Marly,” the TikTok creator advised.
“Technically this is a unisex scent, but this is the perfect dark, boozy Bourbon Vanilla,” she continued about the scent, which retails for $250.
“It’s kind of woody, it doesn’t smell like sticky-sweet vanilla at all, it’s very much a hotel lobby vanilla, and oh my goodness, this lasts so long.”
Stern admitted that she had to be in the right mood to wear this one, as she typically went for scents that smelled a little sweeter.
“I feel very powerful when I wear this because the bubble of scent you get when you spray this on your clothes and on your skin is so magical,” she said.
The last perfume Stern recommended in the video was Tobacco Honey by Guerlain
The perfume expert claimed that all of these scents lasted more than 10 hours
And last but not least, she mentioned Guerlain’s Tobacco Honey as another extremely powerful fragrance option, explaining that it was the “most beautiful honey scent.”
She even went so far as to say that the perfume was one of, if not the, longest lasting scent in her collection.
“When you think of that as sweet, nectar-like, amber-like, golden honey, the perfect little spoonful that you put in your cup of tea, it’s this,” she explained.
‘But it’s toned down a bit with this tobacco note, it’s like a tobacco in your pipe, not a leaf, and it gives a little woody kind of fireplace-like note in the dry-down. so magical and really grounds the scent.’
However, the expert noted that the scent was only for honey lovers, and was definitely not an item you should buy blindly without smelling it first.
“The first time I sprayed it lasted 15 hours and I could still smell the residue on my skin after showering,” she said of the perfume, which costs $380.
“This is like, be warned: If you want to create a scent bubble, and you want to be a knockout with your scent, this will do the trick.”
She ended the clip by explaining that long-lasting fragrances for women definitely exist and aren’t super intense — you just have to know where to find them.
Stern told DailyMail.com that you should pay attention to the perfumers rather than the brands they make
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Stern explained that what helped her find great perfumes was looking at perfumers and not just a brand that made it.
“Perfumers have their own version of IMDB on sites like Fragrantica and you can see their whole history,” Stern told DailyMail.com.
“I notice that certain perfumers (Jerome Epinette & Quentin Bisch, for example) consistently make perfumes that last the longest, whether they cost $30 for Zara or $300 for Byredo.”
The content creator also offered up some additional, long-lasting perfumes she had found on her journey so far.
“I recently came across Future Society, a brand new indie perfume brand that collaborated with the Harvard Herbarium to dissect the DNA of extinct flowers and convert it into molecules that can be used by perfumers,” she told DailyMail.com .
She said that their perfume in particular, called Solar Society, was one of “the most beautiful, long-lasting floral scents” she had ever encountered, and it sells for $100.
Additionally, Stern recommended Xerjoff’s Erba Gold, which is slightly more intense than its counterpart.
Stern recommended looking for the word “extrait” when choosing a long-lasting fragrance, as it meant the fragrance concentration was higher.
“People think that cologne is the same as the men’s version, but cologne is just a word that corresponds to a concentration of fragrance,” she explained to DailyMail.com.
‘Eau de cologne typically contains 4-6 percent concentrate; they are the lightest waters. An eau de toilette contains between 7 and 10 percent concentrate. And an eau de perfume contains 10 to 20 percent. So if you think of a perk, it’s beast mode!’