Perfumehead is the fragrance industry’s newest kid on the block, and somehow, despite there being an overabundance of top-notch products already vying for your attention, it has managed to create an incredible buzz. How? We’d put it down to three things. Firstly, it’s very high-end, focussed with its product range, and offers only long-lasting scents. Indeed, it makes just seven supercharged extracts, and each one costs 425 USD. (Quick reminder: an extract is the purest form of perfume consisting of 20 to 30 per cent perfume oils, next up is an eau de parfum with 10 to 15 per cent, and lastly an eau de toilette is your weakest option at 3 to 10 per cent). Secondly, it’s alluring and gender neutral. In a similar vein to Le Labo, both you and your significant other can share Perfumehead fragrances and you’ll both receive compliments on the way you smell. And thirdly, Perfumehead was created by an industry veteran – Daniel Patrick Giles – who recognised the need for a backstory, and the one he chose was Los Angeles, his adopted city. He’s originally from Canada but loves the city and believes it evokes an olfactory world, something he refers to as an osmocosm. “It’s a term that was coined by the American author Harold McGee and it basically means the universe of scent,” he explains. “We believe every place has a scent, and every scent has a story. Through our perfumes, we are reimagining luxury fragrance one osmocosm at a time and, let’s be honest, LA is a city without limits, a city of contradictions, and I find living here to be a very heady experience.”

Our favourite of Giles’ olfactive Angeleno screenplays is the musky Cosmic Cowboy, which recalls the smoke and velvet of the Sunset Strip in the 1970s. It has a resinous and spicy first act, which establishes the scene with galbanum, cinnamon bark, and orris butter. Then, an inciting incident (let’s call it whiskey and tobacco leaf) propels the plot forward, until amber, cacao, suede, and musk finish off the bouquet.

“I shouldn’t say so, but I agree with your choice. Cosmic Cowboy is also my favourite,” reveals Giles. “I’ve always worn a musk fragrance, whether it was Kiehl’s or Frederic Malle or Serge Lutens and I wanted to create a musk for myself, so it’s quite personal. I was working on it a year or two before even launching Perfumehead, and people would always stop me and ask what I’m wearing.” But, if you want to take it up a notch, Giles offers a golden nugget of advice: try layering it with another of his extracts, Canadian Tuxedo. The result is even sexier apparently. “That’s because,” adds Giles, “instead of getting 20 notes in your fragrance, you’re now getting 40, so it’s really complex and long-lasting.” You heard it here first.