Elie Saab Perfumes & Colognes

A Beirut couturier whose fragrances are considerably better than the celebrity-red-carpet reputation suggests.

Beirut, at eighteen

Elie Saab opened his atelier in Lebanon in 1982, at eighteen, in the middle of a civil war. He built a house on embroidered, beaded evening wear, became the designer Hollywood went to when it wanted to be photographed, and in 2003 dressed the first Arab woman to win an Academy Award.

He remains one of very few designers from outside the European capitals to be admitted into Paris haute couture.

Le Parfum, 2011

His first fragrance was composed by Francis Kurkdjian and is a serious piece of work: orange blossom over jasmine and honeyed cedar, bright and white and deliberately luminous rather than sweet. It won awards and, more usefully, it still smells modern.

The flankers that followed — Girl of Now, Le Parfum Royal and others — stayed in the same white-floral territory with varying degrees of gourmand sweetness added.

Best worn in heat

Someone who wants a white floral that reads as expensive without being heavy. Wear it in warm weather; orange blossom and jasmine open up in heat rather than collapsing.

The perfumer’s own house is on this site too: Maison Francis Kurkdjian. For the same polished floral register, see Carolina Herrera.