7 Best Solid Perfumes To Buy In 2023

By Lottie Winter and Fiona Embleton

Solid perfumes elicit the same degree of excitement as holiday minis. Pocket-size versions of our favourite scents condensed into a small bar, solid perfumes are great for popping in your handbag should you need a top up during the day, or packing on holiday as they are significantly less weighty than a 50ml bottle.

But that's not all. Solid perfumes are often more concentrated so can last longer on the skin. Likewise, they play nicely with dry skin in particular. First off, they don't contain alcohol, which can exacerbate parched skin; instead they rely on a blend of perfume oils with vegetable oils or beeswax.

Perfume can also be clingy by nature and needs something to grip onto if you want to go in for a second, third or sixth sniff during the day. In the same way that you use a primer to extend the lifespan of your fragrance, solid perfumes can also be used as a base coat for your eau de parfum or eau de toilette to amplify the notes and guarantee longevity.

Better still, they're more sustainable than liquid perfumes. Most come in refillable packaging rather than a heavy glass bottle with a pump dispenser that contains plastic and cannot be recycled.

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With so much going in its favour, it's hardly surprising that many brands now offer their hero fragrance in solid form. Take Jo Malone London, which has one of the largest offerings of solid scents, including some of their most loved fragrances like Lime Basil & Mandarin and Pomegranate Noir. It also offers a chic palette container to hold two solid perfumes so you can layer them, or just have the luxury of choice when deciding what to apply.

Then there's Diptyque, which also has a vast array of solid perfumes that come in the most artistic packaging we've seen. Among them are favourites like L'Ombre Dans L'Eau and Eau Rose, and each individual scent has a different case decorated with beautiful colour illustrations.

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And lest we forget, the OG of solid perfumes, Glossier You, which has a vegan formulation and comes in a refillable format to mark the brand's ongoing commitment to being more sustainable.

As for application, solid perfume is designed to be dabbed directly onto the skin with fingertips. For a more fragrant application, apply to your pulse points and where your body gives off the most heat (that's on your wrists, inside your elbows, at the base of your neck, behind your ears and your décolleté).

Glossier You Solid, £24, Glossier

Glossier You Solid has an alcohol-free, water-free vegan wax base that quite literally melts into skin, enveloping you in its signature blend of warm, woody ambrette Seeds and ambrox. The packaging features a removable, recyclable tin tray and a pink enamel compact with the brand's iconic G logo embossed onto the top. Simple swivel the lid, and massage the scent onto skin.

Jo Malone London Fragrance Combining Palette, £26, John Lewis

All of Jo Malone London's fragrances are designed to either be worn alone or layered on top of one another for a bespoke blend, which is what makes this solid perfume palette so genius. Pick and choose your unique combination from an array of all their classics and apply as you wish.

Diptyque 34 Boulevard Saint Germain Refillable Solid Perfume, £50, Net-A-Porter

True to the signature of 34 Boulevard Saint Germain, this scented balm contains a blend of amber and patchouli accord, rose, cinnamon and blackcurrant, making it a warm, sunny and velvety fragrance that's great all year round. Once the balm is finished, simply replace the inner tin with a refill (which come in packs of three for just £31).

Givenchy L'Interdit Solid Perfume, £34.50, Givenchy

This unique solid perfume comes in a lipstick-like bullet for easy, fingerless application. As for the scent? Think jasmine, tuberose and orange blossom combined with patchouli and ginger.

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Shiro White Tea Solid Perfume, £37, Shiro

Multi-tasking at its chicest, the shea butter and beeswax formula is infused with a fresh white tea scent and can also be used to moisturise cuticles and subtly fragrance the ends of your hair.

Aerin Rose de Grasse Joyful Bloom Solid Perfume, £55, Harrods

This is anything but a straight up frilly floral. Rose sidles up to pink pepper for a hint of spice while sandalwood and fresh blackcurrant bud add warmth.

Lush Lust Solid Perfume, £10, Lush

Lush are pioneers of solid beauty products, preferring them for their ability to be sold "naked" (i.e. without packaging). Their solid perfumes do not disappoint – especially Lust, which blends jasmine, rose and ylang ylang for a magnetic and moreish scent.

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