Ethel Cain's Favorite Perfumes

There are fragrances that aren't just worn, they're inhabited. They slip under the skin and become body, soul; they recall rooms, faces, seasons. They are intimate geographies, olfactory tattoos etched in time. For Ethel Cain, American muse with a broken heart and a voice steeped in gothic murmur, perfumes are not mere accessories, but sentimental relics. Emotional portals. Objects that remember places even before maps: an abandoned motel in Indiana, a quiet avenue in the rain in Pittsburgh, a dusty backstage during her first tour. Ethel doesn’t wear fragrance for pleasure, but to exist. Her scents are borders. Ghosts. Signs of an uncertain yet persistent faith. Some smell of forest, others of mother, still others of God. They all have something to say. 

Ethel Cain’s favorite perfumes

Le Couvent Maison de Parfum – Eau du Cloître

It’s the golden light filtering through the columns of an empty cloister. Eau du Cloître is perhaps the most spiritual of Ethel’s choices, and it’s no surprise that this perfume is evoked like a suspended moment, a silence inhabited by joy. It opens like a rosary sunlit in the hand: rose and red berries, a breath of morning air, and a heart fresh with damp wood. The fragrance is that of imagined innocence rather than lived, as if time within the convent walls had crystallized into eternal spring.

Olfactory family: Floral

Top notes: Ginger, Grapefruit, Ivy, Blackcurrant, Pink berries

Heart notes: Geranium, Rose, Magnolia, Peony

Base notes: Cedarwood, White musk

Elizabeth Taylor – White Diamonds

White Diamonds is the perfume of American feminine epic. It's the red lipstick of a grandmother sitting on the couch on an overly warm afternoon. For Ethel, it’s “the first fragrance I ever bought,” an olfactory legacy passed down through the women of her family. White Diamonds is opulent, layered, older than Ethel but not outdated: aldehydes and carnations, tuberose and musk, all whisper past luxuries and parlor dramas. It’s a fragrance that seems lifted from Technicolor films or worn VHS tapes, the kind of perfume worn by a woman smoking in the kitchen, staring out a fogged window. There's decadence, but also resilience. Like a diva who never gives up. Like Elizabeth Taylor, its creator.

Olfactory Family: Floral Aldehyde

Top Notes: Aldehydes, Lily, Neroli, Orange and Bergamot

Heart Notes: Egyptian Tuberose, Jasmine, Ylang Ylang, Narcissus, Carnation, Italian Orris Root, Turkish Rose and Cinnamon

Base Notes: Musk, Amber, Sandalwood, Oakmoss and Patchouli

Versace – Crystal Noir Eau de Toilette

Crystal Noir smells of transition, of fleeing the South, of a girl turned ghost among gothic windows and antique shops. It’s Ethel in her early witchcraft rituals. “Feminine, seductive, mysterious” in the artist’s own words, with its heart of gardenia and orange blossom, it clings to the skin like an affectionate shadow. Its spicy and musky notes outline a figure walking alone past shuttered shops in Cambridge City. It’s a perfume that remembers you even when you’ve forgotten yourself.

Olfactory Family: Floral

Top Notes: Pepper, Cardamom, Ginger

Heart Notes: Gardenia, Orange Blossom, Peony

Base Notes: Sandalwood, Musk, Amber

Elizabeth Taylor – Gardenia

Sprayed at every concert of the Freezer Bride Tour, Gardenia is a distillation of travel, of cheap motels and rain on the windshield. The opening green leaves dissolve into delicate peony and orchid, with a gardenia heart that seems to wilt the moment it's sprayed, as if to say nothing lasts forever. This fragrance is a blurred Polaroid of those days, when being an artist was still survival and wonder. It’s portable melancholy.

Olfactory Family: Floral

Top Notes: Green Leaves, Lily of the Valley

Heart Notes: Gardenia, Peony, Orchid

Base Notes: Musk, Carnation

Yohji Yamamoto – Yohji 1996

In a darker, more abstract era, Ethel chose to scent herself with glitch. Yohji 1996 is a perfume that doesn’t want to be liked. It's an olfactory refusal. A declaration of otherness. Described by her as “the scent of a 2000s video game where you fight aliens in an abandoned mall,” this creation by Yohji Yamamoto is an electronic enigma wrapped in black fruits and unsettling green notes. It’s Pittsburgh in the rain, concrete, closed windows, the feeling of being elsewhere. The vanilla and musk in the base make it strangely warm, like a hug received in a dream.

Olfactory Family: Fruity Chypre

Top Notes: Galbanum, Bergamot, Green Notes

Heart Notes: Blackberry, Raspberry

Base Notes: Vanilla, Sandalwood, Musk

Byredo – Casablanca Lily

Some scents open like theater curtains. Casablanca Lily is a fragrance that enters the room before you do, leaving behind a sumptuous, nearly decadent trail. It's drama in a bottle. For Ethel, it’s “my boyfriend’s perfume,” but also the height of performative femininity: opulent white flowers, a red-velvet-bath sensuality. Casablanca Lily embodies her vision of eroticism, made of gardenia, plum, and honey. It smells of warm skin, postcard-European beauty or a goddess descending onto a Moroccan rooftop. It seduces, soothes, lingers.

Olfactory Family: Oriental Floral

Top Notes: Gardenia, Plum

Heart Notes: Indian Tuberose, Carnation

Base Notes: Honey, Rosewood

Byredo – La Tulipe

“The freshness of spring.” La Tulipe is rebirth, the sweetness after tears. Freesia and rhubarb opening like windows flung wide after months of silence. Ethel here is new light, perhaps after a long night: the fragrance is transparent, alive, a freshly picked tulip still with earth on its roots. It’s the hope of new beginnings, of second chances, of a full breath. Green, bucolic, intrinsically alive.

Olfactory family: Floral

Top notes: Freesia, Cyclamen, Rhubarb

Heart notes: Pink Tulip

Base notes: Green Notes, Vetiver, Woody Notes

Orto Parisi – Viride

Viride is a pastoral perfume, but not naïve. Lavender, tobacco, musk: like walking barefoot on damp soil, among ancient trees and wind that smells of the past. At the same time, it’s green in the dirtiest sense: chlorophyll, bark, sun-warmed skin. For Ethel, it’s an act of defiance, a way to subvert expectations and wear something unpleasant. There’s a nearly metallic note, stinging like a cold ring on hot skin. It’s the fragrance of versions of herself that don’t fit into the world but exist anyway: stubborn, silent, real.

Olfactory Family: Green Aromatic

Top Notes: Roman Wormwood, Artemisia, Lavender

Heart Notes: Jasmine

Base Notes: Fir, Juniper, Tobacco, Cedarwood, Musk

Coty – Sand and Sable

This is the scent of a mother getting ready to go out. Of an older sister spritzing something stolen from the bathroom drawer. A classic from ’83, Sand & Sable is distilled nostalgia: a vintage America of beige carpets, used cars, and soft lighting. Ethel calls it a “cheap thrill,” but there’s nothing cheap about the feelings it evokes. The white flowers, especially gardenia, open like forgotten old Polaroids, while musk and vanilla in the base make it soft, affectionate, almost domestic. It’s the perfume left on a scarf months later. 

Olfactory Family: Floral

Top Notes: Bergamot, Neroli, Peach Aldehyde

Heart Notes: Gardenia, Jasmine, Lilac, Lily of the Valley, Rose, Tuberose

Base Notes: Amber, Benzoin, Musk, Sandalwood

Heretic – Poltergeist

“Smells like a dirty cowboy, smells like possession.” Poltergeist is a ritualistic perfume. Dense, spiritual, carnal. There’s a smell of enchanted woods, wet wood, incense, the mildew of old churches. The pine and smoke notes are so dense they feel visible, like aromatic fog that follows you everywhere. Poltergeist is an olfactory séance, done with the body, an invitation to dance naked around a fire. In this sabbath of tar, smoke, resin, and forest, Ethel finds a sinister sweetness, but also eros and death. Wearing this fragrance by Heretic has the power to evoke the memory of someone you loved and who now watches you from behind the mirror.

Olfactory Family: Aromatic

Top Notes: Wormwood, Juniper, Cedarwood, Coriander, Cinnamon, Incense

Heart Notes: Clary Sage, Galbanum and Champaca

Base Notes: Birch Tar, Patchouli, Vetiver, Sandalwood, Benzoin, Rock Rose, Vanilla

Heretic – Smudge

“The smell of the person you love when they come home.” Smudge is the scent of intimacy: sage, sandalwood, vanilla, and tonka bean. It’s what’s left on the pillow after a long night, a perfume that doesn’t assert itself, but reveals itself. If Poltergeist is the spirit that possesses, Smudge is the one that heals. Ethel describes it as her “meditative fragrance,” to wear when seeking center, when she needs something to remind her who she is, or who she was. It offers the comfort of a secular prayer. It’s the perfume you wear when you’re afraid but choose to enter the room anyway.

Olfactory Family: Oriental Woody

Top Notes: Atlantic Cedar, Incense, Sichuan Pepper

Heart Notes: Clary Sage, Juniper, Tonka Bean

Base Notes: Labdanum, Patchouli, Canadian Balsam, Sandalwood, Styrax

Heretic – Nocturnal Discovery Set

Three different nights, three petals left on the pillow of a messy bed. The Nocturnal Discovery Set by Heretic is a triptych of flowers that never bloom in daylight: carnal tuberose, psychedelic angel’s trumpet, and the elusive Queen of the Night. Each vial is a potential version of Ethel: the desert witch, the French jazz singer, the crying girl on a train. In a world that demands consistency, these samples are the luxury of multiplicity. Perfumes that may never become “hers,” but were at one precise moment. And that’s enough. 

Nocturnal Tuberose

Olfactory Family: Floral

Top Notes: Neroli, Linalool, Sichuan Pepper

Heart Notes: Tuberose, Ylang-Ylang, Jasmine, Rose, Gardenia, Orange Blossom

Base Notes: Ambrette Seed, Vetiver, Cistus

Angel’s Trumpet

Olfactory Family: Floral

Top Notes: Jasmine, Ylang-Ylang, Pink Water Lily, Tiare Flower

Heart Notes: Tuberose, Ylang-Ylang, Jasmine, Rose, Gardenia, Orange Blossom

Base Notes: Vetiver, Violet Leaf

Queen of the Night

Olfactory Family: Floral

Top Notes: Ylang-Ylang, Bitter Orange, Lime

Heart Notes: Jasmine, Mimosa

Base Notes: Vanilla, Vetiver

Serge Lutens – Collection Noire Discovery Set

Three fragrances, three identities in motion. The Serge Lutens – Collection Noire Discovery Set is more than a selection: it's a sensory map of the soul. Nuit de Cellophane whispers with osmanthus and mandarin, like silk in the breeze: ethereal, Parisian, weightless. La Fille de Berlin bursts with rose and patchouli, sharp and romantic like a proud scar. Fleurs d’Oranger recalls Serge’s dazzling first encounter with Morocco: white blossoms, cumin, jasmine, liquid happiness bathed in sunlight and wonder. Three olfactory voices, one lingering trail: for those unafraid to shift shape.

Nuit de cellophane

Olfactory Family: Floral

Top Notes: Mandarin, Red Fruit

Heart Notes: Osmanthus Flower, Lily, Jasmine, Iris

Base Notes: Osmanthus Flower, Musk, Flowers

La fille de Berlin

Olfactory Family: Oriental Floral

Top Notes: Rose, Geranium

Heart Notes: Palmarosa

Base Notes: Honey, Vegetal Musk, Patchouli

Fleurs d’oranger

Olfactory Family: Oriental Floral

Top Notes: Orange Blossom

Heart Notes: White Jasmine, Indian Tuberose, White Rose

Base Notes: Vegetal Musk, Cumin, Hibiscus