Esxence 2026 Milan innovative exhibitors

Esxence 2026 Milan

My head is full, reviewing the hundreds of conversations shared over blotters at Esxence 2026 Milan June 3-6. It’s taken me a good while to write about out from my experience because at its simplest, Esxence is an absolute overload for the senses. Smells, sights, sounds… for a week in June they’re all amplified. Everything is turned up to 11 by the assembled 400+ brands at the expo in the hope that something grabs your attention and your nose.

In amongst all this flair, bustle and scores of smartly dressed guys wearing loafers without any socks, it turns out that a simple white, plain booth can end up being the most intriguing offering when it’s not actively screaming voids at you. At least, that’s where I found some of the most interesting smelling things, in small unassuming huddles like at Rania J’s stall where her new incredible new  fragrances like Veliahite were presented very simply: a lab filter folded precisely into a glass tumbler. @raniajparis

Esxence MiCo venue 16th edtion

Essentially, this year’s installment, my first, of Esxence was a lot. It’s huge, incredibly well attended (the organisers are reporting over 20k visitors) and an amazing spectacle to experience. But when you’re there it’s hard to know where to start or whether you’ll ever have done enough searching, but regardless, here’s a rundown of the innovative perfumes I discovered during the one afternoon I could really dedicate to the exhibition.

Pills Parfums new London Rain, Supermusk and Mars Oud

The Bauhaus inspired, bold modernist design of Pills Parfums’ booth lured me in early on – although the Super Nintendo activation, padel ball styling and unique presentation of their discovery set (a multivitamin bottle full of atomisers) certainly helped it stand out as it outwardly took itself a little less seriously. The branding matches the perfumes which are modernist and musk forward. London Rain is a mint, chocolate musk, Supermusk is all PVA glue aroma and tenacity but Mars Oud was the standout – one of their forthcoming novelties, it’s a dry oud that they’ve creatively ejected into the cold vacuum of outer space. @pillsparfums

Eliksiro by Jeroboam

Jeroboam’s latest launch from in-house perfumer Vanina Murraciole isn’t exactly a subtle one. Eliksiro is a big oudh, with an ‘h’, where the ‘h’ stands for a huff of raspberry and patchouli. Positioned as a magnetic love potion, this is a smell that will definitely stick around and linger long after you’ve gone, haunting a room like a spicy spectre of a lustful lover just gone. @jeroboamperfumes @verinavanina

Tombstone Sing At My Funeral, a perfume by Yenchi Lin and blotters of Les Indemodables Solaire by Antoine Lie

Thankfully, I finally got my hands on a sample of Tombstone’s Sing At My Funeral, a perfume by Yenchi Lin which has been evading me since I first smelled it at the Niche Show a couple of months back. It’s  an ashen jasmine that’s presented under a hush of cold and dusty wood. It’s an extremely still smell, whose peanut vetiver tones and white flowers chime perfectly with the perfume’s name and the idea of a single voice cutting through a room full of mournful reflection. @tombstone_fragrances @yenchilin0205

As soon as I saw the logo on their booth, I made a beeline for Les Indemodables who were showcasing their new coffee fragrance Cafe Arabesque. As cool and innovative and demure as I recall it – and the raw ingredients – being, Immortelle Solaire stole the show for me, personally. It shuns the recognisable dried spice, curried intensity of immortelle as perfumer Antoine Lie twists it into this plush, chic, candied perfume that was a big and surprising highlight.  (I was so excited I forgot to take photos) @les_indemodables_officiel @antoinelieolfactiveexperience

 Neela Vermeire Creations Neith, the new extrait

Neela Vermeire Creations was quietly launching Neith, a fragrance of resinous resilience that splices myrrh, oud, labdanum, cypriol, opoponax and incense with carnation, rose and black pepper. As always, Neela encouraged me to spray it on skin blind and watched me react carefully, smiling broadly as I smiled in understanding. It’s brooding, complex and intentional and as always, she’s  works with perfumer Betrand Duchaufour to make something incredible. Like all of her perfumes it definitely needs a second (third, fourth and fifth) sniff to understand its complexity. @neelavermeirecreations @bertrand.duchaufour

Mayhap Coeur Metal, Ever Elemental, Heritage Terrestre

Mayhap Perfumes had me at the cap. Their weighty cross section of a death star style crown sits on top of a stark chrome flacon and, honestly I just wanted to feel the weight of the bottle in my hand to relieve my curiosity. This led to a conversation about imagined futures, dystopian scenarios in outer space or AI powered cyborgs running rampant and what all that might smell like. If science-fiction as olfactory inspiration is becoming a little wider spread (see the aforementioned Pills Parfums above or Nos Republic’s Cor Serpentis) it gives perfumers a chance to create something truly otherworldly. For example, Coralie Spicher’s Potion d’Inconnu which blends notes of molten plastic with ginger, ylang-ylang and rare white saffron. On one hand it’s recognisably a lactonic floral, but on the other it’s something else, something uniquely unsettling or foreign, inspired by the idea of “a dreamlike garden where flowers with liquid textures and iridescent colors exhale unique olfactory signatures”. @mayhapfragrances @coraliespicher

Ashar from Sultan Pasha and Shekor Perfumes

After the prolonged cakey onslaught of gourmand perfumery over the last few years, there did seem to be something a return to cleaner auras with new releases like Raphael from Sora Dora, Nitro Musk from Scentologia Wasabi Klub from Room 1015 putting (at least part of) the emphasis on soapy musks. But then, if you look hard enough in a MASSIVE room with some 400+ brands you’ll be sure to find the data you need to back up the idea of any micro trend(s). But I also really liked the musky purity of something like  2025’s  Ashar from Shekor Perfume. Perfumer Sultan Pasha’s made this ode to summer rain in Bangladesh smell like way more than just floralozone with delicate hints of greenery, muget and musk ending up smelling like a hella premium, super luxurious soap. @sora___dora @scentologia_perfumes @room1015fragrances @shekorperfume @sultanpasha78

Reserve Afrique featured Woodoo and Dangerosa

Reserve en Afrique is a brand based in Senegal that I’ve been recommended a lot, so it was great to get to smell the collection and the two new releases, Woodoo and Dangerosa. These new perfumes are both dense and vivid, with Woodoo touting dry and sueded tones of aged whiskey barrels and Dangerosa highlighting a thick and yet tonally complex take on the very concept of a green, rose perfume. @reserve.en.afrique

 Map Of The Heart V:10 Frisson

Australian brand Map of the Heart always  stand out with their anatomically shaped heart bottle, but it was particularly good to be guided through the fragrances which you quickly learn are experimental and exceptional. Their tenth fragrance (launching later in 2026), Frisson is a chromed heart, a big shock of rose oxide and an assembled mass of Givaudan’s captive rose materials on top of akigalawood and incense. Me? I fell for the inky, plum of the brand’s fifth fragrance Valour (formerly Purple Heart by Jacques Huclier) and the unusual woody syrup of their 9th, Wonder. @mapoftheheart

Villa Erbatium Green Grape Beer

Korean brand Villa Erbatium had a lot to discover and although most of the people I was traveling and working with thought it polarizing I was quite taken by the brand’s Green Grape Beer, as an artistic concept. It smells like fruity beer breath or a Haribo powered hangover, depending on how you process it (though the best description was, “it’s like eating apple gummies and drinking Bud Light at the same time”). They also had a perfume called Rice Makgeolli which is a fluffy rice accord enriched with almond and a blotter of their Fig Whiskey came back to the UK in a sealed cellophane envelope because I admired how it meshed notions of fig with such a strong peach note and still managed to smell boozy. @villaerbatium

 I wish I had a sample of: jijide Talea by Tianle Feng

Italian/Chinese brand Jijide were showing a ‘From The Lab’ preview of the forthcoming Talea, a chrysanthemum fragrance from the perfumer behind the Voice From The Sky brand, Tianle Feng.  I noted in my phone during a hastily arranged Uber ride to the airport that it was the best thing I’d smelled in Milan. I was clearly quite jazzed by it… in fact, if I may quote myself here…“the chrysanthemum thing is awesome. The colour on the juice is wild. Purple-y saffron. Tea like. So complex. So moreish. Medicinal. Soothing. The best thing I’ve smelled all week.” @jijide.milano @michaelfengtianle

 Perfumer’s Journey Havana at Night

A last-minute tip from a friend (hi Tom) led me to the Thai brand Perfumer’s Journey who were actually situated adjacent to Jijide. And honestly this little corner of the expo had so much olfactory gold in display. Havana By Night is the tobacco centred fragrance I walked away loving but there were a lot of superbly unique combinations, the oakmossy, black ceylon tea of Tea Industry, the heavily smoked fruity tones of Lamphun Gold and the textural neroli of Cape Andaman… they’ve all stuck in my head and need much further investigation. @perfumersjourney

– Oli Marlow, Editor

Disclaimer: Oli was gifted samples from a few of the brands mentioned, Opinions his own

Photos by Oli©

Read Kristina’s Part 1 report here

Stay tuned for Tamara’s Part 3 and Ermano’s Part  4

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