Cumin

Jean Paul Gaultier

Ultra Male opens with a jolt of sweetness—candied pear and mint collide over lavender, creating something between a barbershop and a patisserie.

Kenzo

Kenzo Jungle l'Elephant opens like a spice market in the afternoon — cumin first, unmistakably, with cardamom and clove crowding in behind.

Viktor & Rolf

The opening is immediate and loud: black pepper crackles through thick cinnamon and a sweetened tobacco accord that registers almost as burned caramel.

Tauer Perfumes

L'Air du Desert Marocain opens with a jolt of cumin that stops just short of body-note territory — it reads as warm skin in dry heat rather than sweat, a distinction that matters enormously.

Azzaro

The opening announces itself with an unexpected jolt—sharp cinnamon clashing against lavender's aromatic coolness, the lemon barely tempering the heat.

Dior

Eau Sauvage opens with a bracing citrus clarity—lemon and bergamot lifted by aromatic herbs that feel more medicinal than culinary.

Parfums De Marly

Pegasus opens with an unusual brightness—heliotrope's powdery almond sweetness colliding with cumin's warm, slightly animalic edge, softened by bergamot.

Dior

Fahrenheit Le Parfum opens with the unmistakable smell of fine suede—not the harsh chemical approximation, but a supple, worn-in leather accord that feels closer to textile than hide.

Amouage

Epic Woman opens with a dry cinnamon that feels resinous rather than sweet, setting an austere, almost ceremonial tone.

Amouage

The opening is a plume of altar smoke—olibanum sharp and resinous, saffron lending a medicinal tang, cardamom and pink pepper crackling at the edges.

Le Labo

Le Labo's rose-31 opens with the deliberate strangeness of cumin folded into rose petals—not the sweet, dewy rose of traditional perfumery, but something faintly sweaty and alive.

Cartier

Declaration d'un Soir opens with a dry spice assault—black pepper and cardamom crackle against the skin, sharp and almost austere.

Penhaligon'S

Halfeti opens with a jarring contrast: bright citrus sparks colliding with the dusty heat of saffron and cardamom.

Rasasi

Daarej Pour Homme opens with a direct shot of cardamom and cumin—the kind of spice combination that announces itself immediately and doesn't apologize.

Etat Libre D'Orange

La Fin Du Monde opens with a sweetened almond warmth — benzoin present early, before anything more ceremonial arrives.

Creed

Érolfa opens with a generosity characteristic of early 1990s luxury fragrance: melon, lime, bergamot, lemon, and orange all present simultaneously, the result neither fruit salad nor cologne but something that smells specifically of a Mediterranean deck at sunrise — bright, salt-adjacent, slightly herbal from the rosemary and basil.

Amouage

Overture Man opens with a full-orchestra entry: ginger, cumin, saffron, grapefruit, cardamom, and nutmeg simultaneously — a spice-citrus blend that is dense and warm from the first moment.

Montale

Cumin announces itself immediately — sweaty, warm, almost animalic — paired with saffron's leathery, slightly medicinal warmth.

Creed

Royal Water is one of Creed's most distinctive and challenging masculines.

Etat Libre D'Orange

Experimentum Crucis opens with tart apple and the body-warm push of cumin — an immediately provocative pairing that doesn't resolve easily.

Armaf

Craze opens with cumin — warm, slightly sweaty, body-close — alongside heliotrope's powdery almond quality and bergamot's clean citrus.

Antonio Banderas

The Golden Secret opens with a green-fruity combination of apple and mint — clean and fresh-smelling, if uncomplicated.

Zoologist Perfumes

The opening of Moth feels like stepping into a spice merchant's storeroom at dusk—warmth radiates from cinnamon and clove while cumin and black pepper add an almost animalic edge.

Tiziana Terenzi

Maremma opens with a deceptive sweetness—bergamot and blackcurrant mingling with heady white florals that feel almost tropical in their lushness.

Giorgio Armani

Eau de Cèdre opens with a bright citrus wash—lemon and bergamot—cut through by the aromatic bite of sage.

Amouage

Fate Man opens with a blast of heated spices—ginger and cumin shoulder-to-shoulder with saffron—that feels almost culinary before the resinous heart takes over.

Roja Dove

Diaghilev opens with a curious tension—the brightness of citrus undercut by tarragon's anise-green shadow and a faint animal warmth from cumin.

Cartier

Déclaration Parfum dispenses with top notes and arrives immediately at the heart: cumin and cardamom together, an accord that's warm, body-adjacent, and assertively aromatic.

Penhaligon'S

The first spray announces itself with cardamom and cinnamon that feel less festive than they do darkly aromatic, setting a tone that's warm but far from sweet.

Les Liquides Imaginaires

Fortis announces itself with the heat of cumin and saffron, a deliberate spice that feels almost feverish against the skin.

Rochas

Rochas Mystère opens with a sharp galbanum-and-bergamot strike that feels almost metallic in its brightness, a green jolt that clears the air before the florals arrive.

Beaufort London

The opening is tart and shadowed—black currant with a mineral edge, like cold fruit pressed against stone.

Comme Des Garçons

The opening is immediate and unflinching: hot cumin and clove collide with cardamom's green rasp, creating an aroma that sits somewhere between construction dust and spice market gunpowder.

Montale

The opening is blunt and unapologetic: cumin lands with an earthy, almost savory intensity that immediately polarizes.

L'Artisan Parfumeur

Al-Oudh opens with a distinctive cardamom-dusted orange blossom, the pink pepper adding a glittering sharpness that cuts through the sweetness.

Roja Dove

Burlington 1819 opens with a sharp, almost medicinal mint that cuts through citrus brightness—lime and grapefruit provide acidity rather than sweetness.

Marc Jacobs

The opening delivers a warm spice jolt—ginger and cardamom with cumin's earthy edge—that quickly settles into something softer than expected.

Histoires De Parfums

Fidelis opens with a taut, spice-heavy salvo—cardamom and cumin glinting against saffron's leathery warmth, while coffee grounds add a roasted, slightly bitter edge.

Tom Ford

London opens with a jolt of spice—black pepper and cumin threading through saffron and cardamom, their heat tempered by a dark coffee note that keeps the opening from feeling purely savory.

Etat Libre D'Orange

Frustration opens with a blast of hot spices—cinnamon and cumin—tempered by the boozy sweetness of rum.

Nicolai Parfumeur Createur

Cuir Cuba Intense opens with a bracing jolt of mint and anise that feels both medicinal and aromatic, like stepping into an apothecary where leather jackets hang on cedarwood racks.

Roja Dove

The name promises sweetness and oud, but Sweetie Aoud delivers neither in expected ways.

Mancera

Aoud Exclusif opens with a warm, spice-dusted haze of saffron and cumin over labdanum's resinous sweetness.

Burberry

The opening announces itself with a peculiar fruitiness—raspberry and fig tempered by savory cumin and sage—that walks the line between fresh and resinous.

Guerlain

L'Homme Idéal Platine Privé opens with a crisp burst of grapefruit and bergamot that feels scrubbed clean rather than sparkling—there's a metallic coolness here that justifies the "platine" in its name.

Penhaligon'S

Much Ado About The Duke opens with a bright citrus surge—bergamot and mandarin—that quickly gives way to a heart of violet leaf and cedar.

Hermès

A crisp aromatic from the early postwar years, Eau d'Hermès opens with the bright snap of citrus and lavender, grounded immediately by sage's powdery earthiness.

Valentino

The opening arrives crisp and savory, with basil and pink pepper lifting bergamot into something closer to a Mediterranean garden than a typical citrus blast.

Jovoy Paris

The opening strikes with a sharp, green petitgrain that quickly gives way to something warmer and more disconcerting.

Roger & Gallet

The opening is tart and slightly savory, grapefruit cutting through cumin's earthy warmth in a way that feels more Mediterranean garden than spice market.

Perris Monte Carlo

Rose de Taïf opens with a flash of lemon brightness tempered by nutmeg's warm spice, a prelude that quickly gives way to the perfume's true focus.

Zoologist Perfumes

Sloth opens with a peculiar drowsiness—violet leaf's metallic green haze meets lavender's herbal softness, creating an atmosphere both fuzzy and disorienting, like waking mid-dream.

Roja Dove

Roja Dove's Danger opens with a sharp aromatic sweep—tarragon and lavender anchored by citrus—that feels both classical and oddly subversive.

Roja Dove

The opening of Danger Pour Homme bristles with aromatic tension—tarragon and cumin create an almost savory edge against bright citrus, while lavender adds a sharp, herbal clarity.

Swiss Arabian

Shaghaf Oud Aswad opens with saffron's metallic warmth and thyme's herbal bite, tempered by rose petals that feel plush rather than sweet.

Frapin

Terre de Sarment opens with an unlikely marriage of bitter grapefruit and earthy cumin, the neroli providing just enough floral relief to keep things from turning too savory.

Perris Monte Carlo

Oud Imperial opens with a brief flourish of jasmine that quickly yields to a resinous heart of incense and saffron, the spice adding a leathery, almost medicinal edge to the smoke.

Salvatore Ferragamo

Urban Feel opens with a dark bergamot brightened by coffee and clary sage — a smart, slightly bitter combination that feels more caffeinated than citrusy.

Penhaligon'S

Halfeti Leather takes its name from a small Turkish village on the Euphrates where near-black roses bloom, and the fragrance leans into that mythology.

bdk Parfums

Nuit de Sable earns its name — the opening is a warm, spiced dryness, cardamom and nutmeg over cumin, building toward something genuinely arid rather than the usual oriental warmth.

Akro

Night by Akro is a three-ingredient argument: Bulgarian rose, cumin and saffron, oud.

Serge Lutens

Christopher Sheldrake's description is accurate: the spices here nearly cry out.

Miller Harris

Incense opens with a direct, resinous declaration — lavender alongside it providing the only aromatic gentleness before the composition dives deep.

Armaf

Rose, geranium, and citrus open with a dry floral-herbal freshness — the geranium medicinal and green, rose providing warmth, citrus adding lift before the transition to the heart makes its intentions clear.

Costume National

So Nude is Costume National's 2012 white floral oriental, and the name is more accurate as a description than a provocation — the composition has a genuine undress-the-flower quality, stripping white florals to their most essential character.

Oriflame

Amber Elixir Crystal opens with a slight paradox: watery facets land alongside amber and grapefruit, creating a luminous, almost translucent effect — amber seen through glass rather than worn as resin.

Rasasi

Rasasi Tasmeem Men opens with the kind of warm, spiced immediacy characteristic of Gulf-market masculines: cumin and cardamom arrive together, dense and body-forward, signaling depth before the fragrance has time to develop.

Roja Parfums

Roja Dove's Sweetie Aoud wastes no time: bergamot's citrus brightness opens and departs, leaving May Rose standing alone in the heart — a compositional choice that signals confidence in both the rose and what follows.

Dior

Dior Jules (1980) belongs to a tradition of French masculines that contemporary perfumery has largely set aside — a rich, mossy chypre of real complexity.

Perris Monte Carlo

Bois d'Oud opens with a customary bergamot note — a clean interval that buys the wearer a moment before the real composition begins.

Guerlain

Oud Nude opens with an unexpected trio: incense's smoky spirituality, cumin's warm skin-adjacent earthiness, and almond's sweet-amaretto note.

Stephane Humbert Lucas 777

Rose de Petra opens with pomegranate cutting through rose — not sweetening it, but sharpening it, bringing tartness to a note that can too easily become saccharine.

Téo Cabanel

Barkhane announces its character early: bergamot's brightness burns off quickly, and cumin takes over — warm, slightly carnal, the kind of note that divides rooms.

Issey Miyake

Or Encens positions itself far from the original L'Eau d'Issey pour Homme's aquatic restraint.

Tous

Black pepper, cardamom and bergamot open with a dry, peppered citrus — a familiar smart-casual signature, more chic than blistering.

Roja Dove

Parfum de la Nuit No.

Puig

The opening is famously aggressive — cumin's warm body-odor pungency hits immediately, layered over lemon and grapefruit that try valiantly to keep things fresh.

Jo Malone London

The opening is unexpectedly spiced — cumin and chili pepper create a dry, almost savory warmth before the fragrance pivots to juniper's sharp, resinous greenness in the heart.

Maison Crivelli

Opens with a warm cinnamon dust over cumin — spiced and slightly skin-warm from the very first second, the cumin reading more bodied than sweaty.

Masque Milano

Cumin opens immediately — sweaty, warm, almost skin-like — and the first minutes are confrontational in that specifically human way cumin can be.

Penhaligon'S

The Blazing Mister Sam announces itself with cinnamon and cardamom — two notes that register as warm-spice before the composition pivots.

Les Liquides Imaginaires

A dense spice cloud opens — black pepper sharp and dry, cumin warm and slightly skin-like, saffron metallic, cardamom husky, nutmeg dusky.

bdk Parfums

Ginger and saffron open with a bright-but-dry spice flicker, almost metallic in the first seconds before the smoke takes over.

L'Artisan Parfumeur

From the Explosions d'Émotions collection, Onde Sensuelle earns its name through accumulation rather than through any single dominant note.

Atelier Cologne

Mint, almond, cardamom, and bergamot open in a curious cluster: the mint cool and slightly toothpaste-clean, almond adding marzipan sweetness, with cardamom's dry buzz and bergamot's bright rind tying it together.

Lattafa Perfumes

Safeer opens on bergamot and artemisia — a herbal, slightly bitter green note that sets an austere tone from the first spray.

Nobile 1942

A sandalwood study with a warm, slightly animalic frame.

Roja Dove

Opens with a sharp citrus blast — lemon and bergamot — that yields almost immediately to a dense floral core of jasmine, osmanthus, and rose.

Roja Dove

Bergamot and lemon open cleanly before a floral heart of jasmine, rose, and osmanthus asserts itself.

The Spirit of Dubai

The opening is dense and busy — pineapple and strawberry fruit collide with cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, and pink pepper, while bergamot and black currant pull the citrus and berry edges into focus.

Carner Barcelona

Rose & Dragon opens hot — cinnamon and cumin sliding straight into saffron, no citrus interlude.

Histoires De Parfums

The opening throws a citrus-herbal-spicy avalanche — black pepper and ylang-ylang against lime, orange, lemon, eucalyptus, grapefruit, galbanum, ivy, lychee, and bergamot.

Nabeel

The opening is a crowded fruit-and-spice market: pineapple, apple, peach, strawberry, orange, and bergamot tangled with cinnamon, cardamom, pink pepper, cumin, and coffee.

LM Parfums

Cumin and nutmeg open hot and slightly sweat-warm, with frankincense lending a cool resinous counterweight.

Roja Parfums

United Arab Emirates was created as a tribute fragrance, and it smells like one: serious, ceremonial, designed to project cultural weight rather than individual personality.

Giorgio Armani

Eau de Cèdre is Armani's wood-forward masculine built around dry cedar rather than using it as a supporting player.

Lomani

Cardamom and bergamot open cool and aromatic, with cardamom doing most of the talking — green, slightly mentholated, clean.

Amouage

Spice-forward from the first second: cinnamon and cumin laced with pink pepper, the cumin reading distinctly skin-warm rather than buried.

Penhaligon'S

Zizonia opens with a luminous citrus — bergamot, mandarin, and a slip of pink pepper — over a green, almost leafy violet that smells more cut-stem than candied.

Zara

Bright Rose opens with an unusual spice combination — cinnamon and cumin together, which push the opening into territory more bazaar than perfumery counter.

Roja Parfums

Danger pour Homme Eau de Parfum opens with a tarragon-lavender chord that is more herbal than conventionally aromatic — tarragon's anise-like sharpness lends an edge uncommon in mainstream fougères.

Giardino Benessere

Pineapple and bergamot open with a juicy tropical sparkle, gardenia and tuberose already creaming in underneath to soften the fruit's acidity.

Aesop

Petitgrain, black pepper and frankincense open with a dry, smoky brightness, the petitgrain giving a green citrus edge to the resin's heat.

Roja Parfums

Parfum de la Nuit 3 lives up to its name: this is a deliberately dark, low-illumination composition built for intimate wear after sundown.

Roja Parfums

Vetiver Roja Parfums 2012 Parfum strips away nearly everything to foreground one material.

Houbigant

Lavender, lemon and bergamot open in textbook fougere brightness, the citrus keeping the lavender from feeling stuffy.

Laurent Mazzone Parfums

Épine Mortelle stacks a remarkable amount of material into the opening — pink and black pepper, cumin's animal undertone, lemon and bergamot, nutmeg, anise — and lets the heart absorb it into a damp, slightly green floral of magnolia, mimosa, violet, and damask rose, woven with frankincense and black currant's photographic green.

Jul et Mad Paris

Cumin opens with its distinctive warm-skin spice, paired against pink pepper's bright crackle and orange-bergamot citrus brightness.

Miller Harris

A sharp, slightly skanky opening — petitgrain and violet leaf cool and green, raspberry pulling sweet, and cumin laying a warm-skin undertone that immediately gives the composition body.

Aesop

Pink pepper and bergamot open dry and slightly austere — there's no juice here, just a clean peppery citrus that feels more architectural than playful.

Agonist

The opening is dense and busy — ginger and pepper crackling through fruit, raspberry and peach dragged by cumin into something faintly skin-warm, bergamot doing the necessary lifting work.

Roja Dove

Ti Amo is from the Profumi D'Amore collection and reads like a declaration in fragrance form — generous, layered, demonstrative.

Olfactive Studio

Cumin and saffron crack open the bottle in skin-warm intimacy — the cumin animalic and slightly sweaty, the saffron leathery and faintly medicinal, with clary sage adding a green herbal undertow that keeps the opening from feeling claustrophobic.

Les Liquides Imaginaires

An unapologetic skin-and-fur composition that opens on a hot crackle of black pepper, cumin and saffron — the spices feel pelt-warmed rather than kitchen-dry, immediately suggestive of body.

Lattafa Perfumes

Oudain opens with an unusual pairing: fresh mint and cardamom alongside bergamot, which together produce a herbal-spiced citrus that is cooler than typical Lattafa entries.

Zoologist

Moth opens with a dense, almost edible cluster of cinnamon, saffron, and cumin over a bright lemon lift.

Yardley

Five citrus notes — lime, orange, lemon, grapefruit, and bergamot — open together in a bright, slightly sharp spray.

Zoologist Perfumes

Dodo Edition 2020 opens with petitgrain, bergamot, and pink pepper — a crisp, slightly sharp citrus-spice combination with immediate aromatic energy.

Roja Dove

A classical chypre framework carrying a full garden of white florals.

Rochas

Globe (1990) opens with cumin laid over lemon and bergamot — the cumin unmistakable from the first sniff, lending the citrus a warm, faintly skin-scented tilt that the era's masculines often used.