Giorgio by Giorgio Beverly Hills

This was the perfect perfume to introduce the 80s with. Big and bold with a touch of unrelenting greed! If I were a rich and fabulous soap opera star of the decade this would obviously be my signature scent. Alternatively, if you want to smell like an oil tycoon’s mistress then look no further. Let me take you back in time to a little shop called Giorgio Beverly Hills—the first luxury boutique on Rodeo Drive in the early 60s. After the success of the store it was decided that it needed to add a signature fragrance to up the aspirational ante—thus Giorgio was born in 1981. And my god did it enter the world screaming.

Some have called it’s ever-present aura the “toxic splash zone,” and it was one you truly could not escape for most of this indulgent decade. The brilliant advertising campaign brought it into every magazine and mall in America. People wanted it because it was branded as a rarefied nectar. The promise of exclusivity worked and our Ozone layer will never be the same due this scent and Aquanet. There’s a reason our noses needed to recover from the trauma of shoulder pads and powder bombs into the soft embrace of 90s minimalism.

Notes include orange blossom, peach, bergamot, ylang-ylang, tuberose, gardenia, jasmine, rose, orchid, sandalwood, patchouli, amber, oakmoss and musk. In real life you will smell like potpourri resting above a solid gold toilet—both luxurious and insufferable. Good luck getting this off once applied.