Have y'all seen those fragantica TikToks that choose notes for different moments in anime characters' lives? Luckily for me, I love both anime boys and also fragrance (side-eyeing my perfume collection now), so I've been eating GOOD lately.
The downside, unfortunately, is that people choose the notes more for the *vibe* and less for the actual scent, which is good storytelling but terrible perfume creation. So I took matters into my own hands, even though nobody asked.
Here is what I would create as perfumes if I were put in charge of a KnB generation of miracles + Kagami high-end perfume collaboration.
Kuroko asks the elusive question of "what does *nothing* smell like?", and I think I figured it out. Most of his notes are super light, fresh, and barely there. There's a certain sharpness to the light notes, so you know you're smelling *something*, but you shouldn't be able to put your finger on exactly what it is. The smoke is probably the only part that really makes you know that it's there, and even then, it's nothing more than a disappearing act. This would be great if you love airy smells that are a little synthetic and barely there.
Kagami is categorized as "just a guy" in my head; he's a bit of a meathead, he's not got a lot going on in his noggin, and he's here for basketball and only basketball. There are three key traits that I tried to capture here: dude smell, the warmth of being Kuroko's light, and his angry, hot-headed nature. I took a lot of inspiration from Clue's perfume Warm Light Bulb. It should smell warm with a little bit of anger from the spices, and then the very base layer underneath should smell like Axe body spray. This would be great if you like warm smells or traditionally masculine smells.
My ultimate goal for Kise's scent was to find a balance among basketball player, it-boy model, and mannequin. He's still a basketball boy, so he does still smell like sweat and skin musk, but he's got the notes of tonic water, lemon, cashmeran, and vanilla to really lean into the high life. Plastic, powder, and minerals should give that sort of fake feel I was going for. I would expect this to smell smooth and luxurious, with just a bit of bite underneath to keep it interesting. This would be good if you like powdery or traditionally more feminine scents.
Midorima is probably tied for the second most complex smell on this list. This mixture should smell lucky and green and a little earthy in a grounded kind of way. I started with sweat (spoiler: they all have sweat), clover for four-leaf clovers, and gold for good luck. The clay, paper, and benzoin would give it an earthy quality that almost smells dry without smelling dirty, and then the green leaves, bergamot, and green tea flower should brighten it back up with a little earthy citrus. This would be good if you like really green smells, maybe things with matcha or green citrus in them.
I wanted Aomine's perfume to smell dirty without being unpleasant. Like, yes, there's dirt and sweat and salt and musk; he's going to smell like a true working man. However, there are also these clean wood smells, these creamy lactones, and this bright, citrusy, and interesting yuzu. The choice to include lactones was partly inspired by the incredibly controversial perfume Seminalis by Orto Parisi. People tend to really, really hate the smell, but I wanted Aomine to smell a little...scandalous? Salty and milky and dirty...idk, you get what I mean.
MY MAN, MY MAN, MY MAN! The goal of this scent was to capture the smell of eating snacks in the bed you've been rotting in all day. It's sweet with the bubble gum, cotton candy, raspberry, and popsicle. It smells like a warm bed with the sweat, musk, linen, and skin. The soda bubbles and the ozonic notes should balance out the hyper-sweetness of it while also nodding to his snack addiction and his excessive height. Unfortunately for me, I don't love gourmand sweet smells, but if you like things that are a little fruity and heavy on the candy but want more than just one note, this would be good.
When I sat down to make Akashi's, I wanted to go with notes that were what an emperor may smell like. There's a lot of tea, incense, and flowery notes that smell expensive, a little powdery, and a little older. It's like rich antiques and unbridled power, and it would likely lean a little east asian in the scent profile for obvious reasons. Amber and vanilla would ground it and make it a little more masculine and modern to the point of being wearable. The piece de resistance, though, would naturally be the absinthe note, which would give it that dangerous and sharp feel that matches his personality. This would be good if you like flowery or tea smells, or if you really like black licorice, I guess.
Hopefully, this was fascinating or interesting to you at all. Let me know if you think I should do this for other shows. I just finished watching The Summer Hikaru Died, and I'm thinking I might be able to pick 2-3 doomed yaoi couples to create perfumes for.
{P.S. Also, more fics are coming soon, I promise!}
