Taste buds change, and clearly our olfactory preferences do too.
We’ve covered how Gen Z and Millennials are increasingly swapping sweet for savory, salty, and even bitter flavours in desserts, but it seems something similar is happening in perfume. One of the key takeaways from Mintel’s UK Fragrance Report 2026 is the translation of food and drink trends into the next generation of perfumes, while Sephora identified at the beginning of the year that gourmand scents are finally “growing up,” with the reign of sickly-sweet smells finally coming to an end.
And what could be more mature than replacing the ever-favorite vanilla and oversugared cupcake fragrances with, errr… vegetables?
Tomato leaf, cucumber, carrot, beetroot, and even cauliflower are all making appearances in our favorite perfumes. Used alongside spices, woods, florals, and musks, these unexpected notes can be fresh, earthy, green, spicy, or even surprisingly sensual. In other words, the vegetable garden may have rather more to offer perfumery than we gave it credit for.
Why vegetable perfumes are trending
The scent of tomato plants in a greenhouse, freshly watered earth, or herbs crushed between your fingers can be surprisingly nostalgic, like a childhood summer spent in the countryside. Unlike a conventional floral accord, these smells feel lived-in and deeply personal.
That sense of familiarity is something fragrance houses are increasingly exploring. Miller Harris' Celadon, for example, takes inspiration from the 18th-century Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, evoking a rain-soaked garden with green, vegetal facets. Meanwhile, Officine Universelle Buly 1803's Les Jardins Français collection looks to the botanical history of French gardens, drawing inspiration from a collection of 19th-century seeds and seedlings.
Crucially, many of these fragrances are marketed as unisex. Vegetable and green notes don't arrive with quite the same gendered associations as traditional florals or sugary gourmands, making them appealing to a wider category of consumers intent on finding their signature scent. As the aforementioned Milet report states, our preference is no longer necessarily smelling conventionally beautiful but more about finding
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Vegetables can be sexy?
If the idea of smelling like a vegetable patch sounds more wholesome than seductive, consider this your correction. The best vegetable fragrances don't necessarily smell as though you've been rummaging around the crisper drawer. Instead, carrot, beetroot, tomato, and rhubarb can add spice, earthiness, and bitterness to a composition. Vegetable notes can provide the same depth and sensuality as woods, spices, and musks, particularly when they are used as part of a more complex formula. Heretic's Fourteen Carrots, for instance, takes the humble root vegetable into warmer, spicier territory, while Comme des Garçons' Rouge uses beetroot alongside a more complex composition that feels far removed from a salad. It also makes these fragrances particularly suited to layering. A crisp green scent can cut through something creamy and sweet; a spicy root can make a floral feel earthier; a tart rhubarb can bring brightness to woods and musks.
Beyond the veg patch
Herbal scents such as coriander, basil, fennel, and shiso are also among the botanical notes finding new life in modern perfumery, bringing with them a particularly tactile quality. There is something especially evocative about the smell of basil released between your fingers or coriander leaves after rain.
Officine Universelle Buly's approach captures this particularly well. Its founder, Victoire de Taillac, has described gardening as an experience that awakens all the senses, noting that while we know the tastes of vegetables, “we forget their fragrances”.
Ultimately, this may be what makes vegetable and herb perfumes so appealing. They aren't trying to smell strange for the sake of it. They are taking scents we have encountered countless times – on our hands, in gardens, on walks, and around the dinner table – and asking us to experience them differently.
