My friends. My sister. The gaggle of girls sitting at a table in a quaint bakery in Hudson, New York. The woman handing me my coat at coat check. No, this is not just a list of people I’ve seen at various points over the last week. These are people who have stopped me, eyes alight with curiosity, to ask what perfume I’m wearing when they catch a whiff of the subtly spicy scent dancing on my skin, clothes, and hair as of late.
As a beauty editor, I’m no stranger to pricey, dazzling perfumes and the effect that they have on dates, friends, and new acquaintances. “You smell so good!” is a common compliment in my day-to-day (not to brag, this is just the result of owning more than 100 fragrances), but never have I been stopped in stores, shops, and cafés and on the New York City sidewalk to the extent that I have when showered in this perfume. Introducing Merit’s sophomore scent, New Wave L’Extrait de Parfum.
About Merit’s New Wave L’Extrait de Parfum
Key notes: Pink pepper, ylang-ylang, labdanum, musk, tobacco accord
Merit is home to some of Who What Wear beauty editors’ favorite products, hands-down, and one of its newer categories is fragrance. If you’re familiar with Merit’s first scent, Retrospect L’Extrait de Parfum, you can toss everything you think you know about the brand’s burgeoning fragrance identity out the window. The complex skin scent that editors and celebrity guest judges loved so much that it earned a 2025 WWW 100 Beauty Award couldn’t be more different than its sister act—a spicy, warm, androgynous elixir that flirts with florals and was built for cold weather.
Master perfumers Dominique Ropion and Meabh McCurtin were tasked with translating a Merit mood board splashed with “bright colors and lots of movement,” McCurtin tells WWW, into a powerful sensorial experience. While the name is inspired by frenzied movement, the Irish perfumer explains that it has dual meaning. On one hand, the moniker New Wave symbolizes the fragrance’s wavelike progression of notes. “[It] is also an homage to the new wave art movements of the 1970s that experimented with rules of form,” she explains. One look at its statuesque bottle is enough to make you see how art impacted this scent, both on a molecular and sculptural level.
On a paper perfume blotter, your first whiff may include its peppery top notes, touches of orange flower and ylang-ylang, and a delicate, powdery musk—this last note being perhaps the only thread connecting it to its fragrance forebearer. But in Merit’s quest to contrast its debut parfum with this scent, McCurtin and Ropion incorporated a woodier, smokier side that steps proudly to the front when spritzed on the skin versus a paper testing strip. Labdanum, tobacco accord, cedarwood, benzoin, and vanilla bean add an alluring, animalic twist that lovers and friends can’t seem to ignore.
The Wear Test
I tested this perfume for 65 days, observing how the scent transformed under the late-August sun and bloomed when the first chilly fall tendrils snaked around my skin. The scent was amplified by my body heat in the muggy summer air, turning up the warm elements that smelled nice but also slightly out of place on those last warm days. As the weather cooled off, however, the spicy accords sprang forth in an incense haze, clinging to my skin and windblown hair for up to 10 hours of noticeable wear (though it stays firmly on the fibers of your clothes until your next laundry load). This makes sense, seeing as the scent is a more potent version of your typical eau de parfum. “Since it’s an extrait, which is 30% fragrance oil, it is quite concentrated and will last very long on its own,” McCurtin explains. “And [it will]evolve beautifully throughout wear.”
Merit looks at this fragrance as a new take on solar scents—the kind with typically sunny and warm accords, like bright florals such as ylang-ylang and warm woods such as cedarwood. Both notes are present in this fragrance, yet the addition of ambroxan, musk, tonka bean, and more takes it down a smokier path than your typical sun-drenched solar scent. “New Wave feels luminous from the outset while maintaining depth underneath,” McCurtin explains. “It has an inner glow rather than the traditional freshness you find in solar fragrances.”
Final Thoughts
To be honest, I wasn’t sure how I felt about this scent at first. The woody profile smelled a bit domineering after that first whiff on my wrist—though admittedly, it was a hot summer’s day and not when I would typically wear what I categorize as a fall and winter scent. But as I continued to spritz it, I found comfort in its spicy haze. Something about its romantic, androgynous profile felt like the arm of a lover planted firmly around me, and its tobacco- and tonka bean–twisted base gave the scent a speakeasy mystique. Still present is the bright flash of florals at the top and the soft shimmer of sparkling pink pepper—a combination that reminds me of holiday parties and roaring stone fireplaces.
In short, I now reach for this scent almost every day, especially if I have plans on the docket that call for a sophisticated outfit, and I will definitely be wearing it to glitzy city holiday parties come December. Judging by the number of people who stopped me on the way from the bathroom, on the street, or in the office to ask what perfume I was wearing, I suspect many rooms over the next few months will be shrouded in the same spice.
Is Merit’s New Wave L’Extrait de Parfum worth it?
If you are on the hunt for a new fall or winter perfume and are a fan of spicy, woody, and androgynous scents, I highly recommend Merit New Wave. With a full-sized 30-milliliter bottle setting you back $92, New Wave offers a competitive price compared to most extrait de parfums on the market—which can easily soar upward of $300—and a stunning scent profile that smells much more expensive than it actually is.
My friends who never get complimented on their perfume (their words, not mine!) have told me how passersby now go out of their way to ask what scent they are wearing, and strangers have been pleasantly surprised when we tell them it’s under $100. “But it smells so expensive!” one person in a coffee shop recently exclaimed when I told them the price. The bad news was that the scent was still unreleased on that day. But today, they can nab it for themselves.
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