Smell is a powerful trigger for memories of years past. Just a whiff of a particular blend of coffee or a certain carpet cleaner can transport you back to a cozy evening with an old flame. You can feel the butterflies in your stomach, the warmth in your chest…

The intensity of olfactory memory is why we find a person’s choice in fragrance to be so significant. That fragrance is the essence of everyone else’s recollection of them; the link between a person and a memory. Sometimes, though, a smell doesn’t bring to mind a single person or moment. A scent once frequent in your life can bring back an entire era.

If scents can evoke a period of time, maybe they can also give us an idea of a whole year in general. Though the scent isn’t necessarily our own memory, the more popular products can at least tell us what consumers wanted to buy, and perfumers wanted to create.

Here are the most popular new releases of the last decade. Let’s take it year by year so we can get a reminder of the past, and maybe even get a look at what may come.

2009: Versace Versense

Versace’s Versense is a bright, sophisticated scent meant to evoke the feeling of freedom, movement, and authenticity. It’s an apt vibe for the year that could be said to have started a new era.

The fragrance enters the air with Mediterranean fruit and citrus top notes; a refreshing beginning, not unlike January’s swearing-in of Barack Obama, America’s first person of color to serve as president. At its heart, the scent energizes with soft lily and rejuvenating jasmine.

This was the year of astronomical excitement when NASA launched the first U.S. lunar mission in over a decade. And just as the fragrance spices things up with tantalizingly mysterious cardamom, the Earth saw its longest total solar eclipse of the century, while out in space the Kepler telescope began its search for other Earth-like planets in the Milky Way (in the end, it detected 2,682).

The fragrance’s sturdy base is woody and musky, with a niche note of olive trees. Speaking of olive branches, the United Nations launched its World Digital Library, aiming to promote intercultural understanding by introducing a greater variety of non-English, non-western content online. As of August 2019, they’ve narrowed the digital divide with content representing 193 countries and 145 languages.

2010: Chanel Chance Eau Tendre

Named a best seller by the NPD Group, Chanel’s Chance Eau Tendre brought a bit of breezy romance to a notable year. The pink fragrance was a new take on the brand’s popular fragrance Chance, released only a day before another innovation: when Apple released the first iPad.  

The new interpretation introduces itself with a chaste kiss of grapefruit and quince, glowing with kindness and alacrity like the remarkable atmosphere surrounding the Winter Olympics held in Vancouver, Canada. The scent’s middle notes wrap you in tender arms of jasmine and rose, followed up with a soft white musk base. It’s romantic, sweet—and maybe the whispered sweet nothings can distract you from that whole WikiLeaks ordeal.

2011: Trussardi Donna

Donna was released as a celebration of Trussardi’s hundredth anniversary and is a favorite of Priyanka Chopra. The eastern-influenced fragrance brings about peaceful, sophisticated breaths of yuzu and water fruits, with a floral heart of orange blossoms, lotus, and jasmine tea.

This composition brings about the image of serenity in nature, a poetic vision as Japan began their recovery efforts after the massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Pacific coast. And just like the fragrance’s lingering base of sandalwood, white patchouli, and vanilla, the nation was able to bravely pull itself together and move towards recovery.

2012: Miss Dior

In 2012, Dior’s already-reformulated Miss Dior Cherie line was replaced with the now-iconic Miss Dior, which is not at all similar or related to the original Miss Dior from 1947. A bit of a confusingly detoured development, but also a refreshing, playful scent—not unlike the year itself. Though it felt like a fiasco at the time, in retrospect, 2012 was a year filled with incredible developments in every way, shape, and form.

The internet and social media became widely recognized as a tool for unification. Online communities got increasingly involved in the U.S. presidential election, as politicians for the first time recognized the web as an essential part of their campaigns.

It was online that we began the rally for gun reform after the Sandy Hook tragedy, and together we cheered as NASA’s Curiosity rover landed on Mars. As we looked to the future, sci-fi dominated the big screen (a trend that wouldn’t end anytime soon), while The Avengers sparked a new fervor for superhero and comic book films.

Though these developments may not instantly strike a comparison to Italian mandarin, white florals, roses, and warm spicy musk, there is something to say as far as imagery goes. Because like the seductive, free-spirited, romantic spontaneity of Miss Dior’s character, 2012 was the year we all began dreaming again.

2013: Giorgio Armani Sì

Si by Giorgio Armani was formulated for the modern woman: feminine, chic, but strong and charismatic (its face was Cate Blanchett, and that probably says enough). After the hectic developments of the previous year, Si came along with a blackcurrant nectar kiss on the cheek, and a caress of heart of freesia and Rose of Mai.

This year brought us a new pope, a new royal baby, and the wide celebration as France legalized same-sex marriage—not to mention the advances in tech, with the Playstation 4 and Xbox One as well as Google’s augmented-reality prototypes. Intense, voluptuous, and charismatic were certainly a mood for the year, and the sophisticated musky blond wood base wraps it up beautifully.

2014: Cartier La Panthère

Though most widely known as one of the most prestigious jewelers in the world, Cartier has a toe in more than one pool. This year, they released their elegantly powerful women’s fragrance La Panthere, formulated for the independent, graceful rebel.

This was the year that Black Lives Matter (which began online in the previous year) took to the streets, and we can’t imagine a more suitable fragrance to the movement than La Panthère. Radiant gardenia is the core of this composition, its delicacy offset with a velvety musk base. Glass planes within the bottle sculpt the face of a panther, elegant and powerful, much like the iconic photos of brave women standing for justice.

As quoted from the perfumer, Mathilde Laurent, “Every woman has a feline side and every flower has a hidden animal essence.”

2015: Chanel No 5 Eau Premiere

The classic Chanel No5 was reborn in 2015, a year of ideas both refreshed and new. Eau Premier is a younger, more modern version of the timeless fragrance—with an airier, fluffier scent and lighter shade to the liquid.

Luminous, sunny aldehydes brighten up the same floral notes of the original No5—ylang-ylang, neroli, jasmine, and rose absolute—all resting on a fine creamy base of sandalwood, vanilla, and vetiver. This was the year that Chanel No5 was given new life, just as TV personality and Olympic gold winner Caitlyn Jenner refreshed her own life by coming out as a trans woman.

On a more political note, Cuba and the U.S. reestablished diplomatic relations after 54 years, while nations signed the Paris Agreement to work to save the Earth. On other planets, NASA’s New Horizons paid the first-ever visit to our old friend Pluto, and liquid water was found on Mars. It was a year of new beginnings and an exciting future.

2016: Narciso Rodriguez Narciso Poudrée

With Narciso Poudrée, Narciso Rodriguez took its previous scent, Narciso, and built on it. By taking the heart of powdery musk and perfecting its jasmine-rose top notes, wrapping it all up with woody notes of vetiver and black and white cedar, the composition finds a deeper meaning for itself. What was once only sexy and head-turning now has other dimensions; a natural, mature femininity.

Just as Narciso Poudrée learned from the past, 2016 left us with a similar message. After the shocking U.S. presidential election that left the world reeling, all we had left was a lesson to learn regarding how we present ourselves and engage in the new political age. 

Meanwhile, on a positive note, we found ourselves with the most diverse American congress yet, while U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan after fifteen harrowing years. And somehow, in a strange turn of events, the release of mobile game Pokémon Go managed to bring us all together in a bizarre and beautiful way.

2017: Gucci Bloom

We call every previous year “a year like no other,” but 2017 really took the cake on that one. This year, Gucci released its first new fragrance under new creative director Alessandro Michele. It certainly made an impression: white florals and heady tuberose meet woody orris root accents, with a unique twist of Rangoon creeper (also known as Chinese honeysuckle), a red flowering vine native to India.

Likewise, the rest of the year was… well, unique is a word for it. Aside from the unprecedented happenings in the U.S. government, civil tensions in the country rose to new heights with the continuing growth of social movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too, plus the shocking rise of neo-nazism. The Women’s March became the largest single-day protest in the nation’s history. Perhaps some interesting symbolism, a total solar eclipse was visible across the U.S. for the first time since 1918.

2018: Marc Jacobs Daisy Love

Daisy Love is a fresh, floral fragrance, with a cloudberry opening, iconic daisy heart, and a driftwood and cashmere musk base. The fragrance was intended for the new generation of youth, and this year, the youth truly took charge.

After the horrors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the youngest generations found their righteous fury and motivation to make a change. Thousands of high school students across the country organized and pulled off a protest called the National School Walkout, and have continued to mobilize for gun reform since.

2019: Giorgio Armani Sì Fiori (and beyond)

In a follow up to 2013’s Sì comes 2019’s Armani Sì Fiori. The fragrance is a message of encouragement for self-expression and confidence, and a reinterpretation of the previous idea of a modern woman. Oakmoss and green mandarin are introduced to the original composition to bring us back to earth. The modern woman doesn’t have to be chic, elegant, or charismatic—the modern woman is whoever she wants to be, so long as she’s being authentic to herself.

Maybe, like 2013, this year can be a bit of a breather. Now that we’re approaching the end of the year, it feels a bit like things are winding down, as the new upcoming election has Americans looking forward to how we can improve the future rather than dwelling on the past. Movements are being made around the world toward a better tomorrow. So let’s all just take a moment to smell the roses.

Get your style stocked for the future

Strolling down memory lane can be a mixed bag. Even so, the past is valuable. It’s times past, lessons learned; it helps us value the present and look forward to what’s to come.

So what will 2020 smell like? Something bright, full of optimism and alacrity? Or will it inspire confidence, the ferocity to stand and fight? Or maybe it’ll be something sultry, a velvety sense of introspection.Whatever it may be, ScentBox’s monthly subscription box will have you ready for next year and years to come. Get designer perfumes delivered to your door every month, with the freedom to cancel at any time. With monthly samples throughout the year, some of them are bound to be best sellers! We don’t know what next year will bring, but we’re here to help you get ready for it.