Scent of sweat: How to smell good in the club

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever grow out of being a party girl. It might be the most enduring love affair of my life; the ritual of getting ready, the fizzing anticipation as you get to the door, and the endless potential one night can hold. The ephemerality of a night out is what makes it truly sacred, but being able to preserve a memory of that feeling through a scent might be the closest thing to being able to capture the moment. 

From Bar A Bar to Berghain, Boiler Room to NYC Downlow, I undertook a period of in-depth research rooted in personal passion, community service and journalistic integrity. The essential question of my thesis: what sort of perfume would be the best suited for a proper night out? As the adage goes, “the club is pumping, the ladies look good, the alcohol is flowing” and, if this is the case, it can only mean one thing: bodies pressed together in ecstasy, drenched in sweat. 

“I love a scent that blends with your sweat,” Troye Sivan tells me. Not an outlandish comment from a pop superstar who has just come off the SWEAT tour with fellow party girls Charli xcx and Shygirl. Sivan is the creative director of Tsu Lange Yor, a lifestyle brand rooted in an exploration of emotion, refinement and romance. A lover of the club (his breakout dancefloor single “Rush” and the equally evocative music video was inspired by a transformative trip to Berlin), he tells me, “The club is already such an evocative space. I want to smell like me, but with a little extra flavour.” Named by Troye and Charli as the perfume of Sweat Fall, TLY’s Luca is a musky skin scent that’s heavy on the Ambroxan with layers of creamy sandalwood, tingly bergamot and fresh, crisp linen. “Luca came from wanting a scent that feels close and real, like a second skin.”

Good on the skin is one thing, but is it good for a sexy, slippery, sweaty rave? “For sure. Luca’s made to play well with heat and movement. It’s mysterious and deeply sexy. As things get sweatier, those musky and amber notes pop more, making it feel personal and alive.” Tried and tested by yours truly, I can attest to the Luca as a sensual, skin close option that is alluring and refreshing whilst being subtle enough to add a dimension to drenched skin whilst smelling like it might just be you but better. 

You know the girl who can go straight from the afterparty to the shoot and still be the cover star? Mina Galan, Moroccan-Spanish DJ, stylist and founder of Club Stamina, is that girl. She always looks flawless and, after years of leaning to whisper into her ear on dancefloors, I can tell you that she smells just as good. “I carry my perfume everywhere. I’m a professional party girl. I need to be smelling good at all times and I’m going to be reapplying the perfume throughout the night,” she says. Her top tips are moisturising before applying your scent and decanting your perfumes from their bottles into travel atomisers to avoid looking cheap by carrying the samples. Her current favourites are La Fin Du Monde and Putain des Palaces from Etat Libre d’Orange. “Smell is so important. I always want my perfumes to be strong. It’s like my look. When I enter the room you know it’s me.” 

On my journey to find scents that smell good in the club, I stumble upon one inspired by the club. Lightsource is Andrea Maack’s ode to 90s rave culture. When I ask if she was a raver, I’m met with a warm laugh. “Of course I was! I’m a 90s baby. The 90s was a very special time in Reykjavik, we were known for our raves. Björk was here with Goldie, and bands like 808 State.” I conjure up a vision of fishing warehouses with densely packed dance floors and pulsating bodies, the windows running with condensation as snow falls outside. “I think DJs loved playing here because it was quite weird. It’s cold, people were waiting outside in the snow, all dressed up. It was warehouses down by the harbour. There was this light in the street and it felt free.”

Opening with an effervescent blast of citrus before softening slightly into a shimmering mixture of fig, pink pepper and lemon, Lightsource is impossible to pin down, mirroring the shimmering incandescence of being lost in ecstasy on the dancefloor. “Fig is unusual for a party fragrance, but I think it suits the fruity oddness of the Reykjavik rave scene back then. There’s also a special note called Crystal Rose. It’s an icy rose that’s cold and romantic.” Wearing Lightsource out on the previous Saturday, a night out I’d had meagre hopes for transformed completely unexpectedly into one of the best I’d had in months, Lightsource’s spicy, citrusy aura imbuing the atmosphere with something electric. 

Then, of course, there’s Discothéque. “So much of us being best friends comes from the dance floors we’ve been on together across the world,” says founder Jessie Willner and Hanover Booth. When envisioning the concept for their candle and perfume brand, the two were pulled towards an unbridled veneration of iconic clubs and nights from decades gone by, friendships forged in the smoking area and the haven of the dancefloor. “The perfumes are inspired by the layers of what makes a night out – the moment, the feeling, a conversion, a song, the lights, the colours, the lasers.” After interviewing various nightclub misfits, hedonists and icons from all corners of the globe, Discothéque’s perfumes capture the essence of euphoric parties from 80s Ibiza to 2000s Tokyo.

I fall in love with Lola At Coat Check, an homage to 1992 New York that captures an It Girl essence of a fur coat over a barely-there silk dress clinging to skin doused in white chocolate, sandalwood, cardamom, grapefruit, amber and jasmine. As per Willner’s recommendation, I layered it with Sweat, Tears, Paradise – an intoxicating mix of mimosa, sea salt, absinthe and ambroxan that calls to mind a spilt drink on sweaty skin in 1995 Mykonos in the best way possible. I didn’t stop receiving compliments all night and ended up spraying it on everyone else, too. Willner and Booth put every perfume through rigorous trials themselves with hours on the dancefloor before launching.

Whether it’s a sultry skin scent, a citrus amphetamine or a cocktail of notes inspired by legendary nights of decadence and debauchery, fragrances for the club are just as varied as the nights themselves. And if you’re still not sure what to go for, All Night Until First Light seems fitting. As Maack, a true club kid, reminded me, “You dress up to go out, so why would you want to wear something demure? Clubbing should be freedom. It should be fun.”