If you’ve sniffed a cool kid recently, there’s a big chance they smelled like D.S. & Durga. Which scent, exactly? Well, that cool kid probably wouldn’t tell you. Luckily, we sniffed our way through nearly the whole inventory of the brand’s fragrances and found the best D.S. & Durga scents for every nose.
Founded in Brooklyn almost two decades ago, D.S. & Durga was founded by the husband-and-wife duo of David Seth Moltz and Kavi Ahuja Moltz. Seth Moltz is a self-taught perfumer, who crafts every scent from scratch before Ahuja Moltz designs the label and helps to craft the story behind the new fragrance. In a crowded market filled with luxury fashion houses that churn out EDPs like they’re bottled water, D.S. & Durga shows that indie fragrance brands can carve out a space with niche scents that strike emotion.
“We’re like a band that writes its own songs,” Seth Moltz says. “We are fascinated by the unexpected, the mythical, and the mundane. We are just as likely to make a fragrance about a weed growing in Brooklyn as we are a flower blooming on a tropical island. Our perfumes are immersive stories complete with music, words, and visuals.”
With dozens of scents in its inventory, D.S. & Durga scent selection is best done having smelled a few of the options yourself. You could go for the brand’s Discovery Set, where you choose four scents to try for yourself at home, or you can take our advice and choose for one of the seven of the best D.S. & Durga scents below, as chosen by us.
The Best D.S. & Durga Scents, According to GQ
Best D.S. & Durga Scent Overall: Debaser
Debaser smells a lot like teen spirit. (Wait, wrong band reference.) Named after the Pixies song, Debaser is “smoky, a little sweet, and extremely titillating,” as one GQ writer noted in her ode to the fragrance. It’s sweet and a little woodsy, kind of like evening excursions through the forest at sleepaway camp while it’s 8 p.m. but still light out. While the TikTok virality of this scent has evaporated, it’s forever staying in rotation for a lot of us at GQ.
Best Bergamot D.S. & Durga Scent: I Don’t Know What
If you don’t know what scent to wear, well, spray this on. It’s meant to act as a fragrance enhancer so you layer it with whatever scent you choose, leaving a longer impression and highlighting certain notes. Worn on its own, I Don’t Know What is clean and fresh thanks to bergamot, and it’s even better once you play matchmaker with your other fragrances.
Best Woody D.S. & Durga Scent: Radio Bombay
What do radio waves smell like? We can’t be entirely sure, but Radio Bombay is meant to evoke a hypothetical smell, as if a radio were playing out in the streets of Bombay. For this scent, sandalwood, cedar, and balsam fir shine through the note, while a sweetness comes through that’s reminiscent of the waft you’d smell after pouring a glass of a dark liquor (more rum than whiskey).
Best Leather D.S. & Durga Scent: Cowboy Grass
Everyone’s dressing like a cowboy these days, but back in 2008, everyone was smelling like one. Quite possibly the scent that put D.S. & Durga on the map, Cowboy Grass is an ingenious concoction that evokes notes of the cracked leather of a horse’s saddle to the landscape of florals and herbs that a cowboy would traverse in the American West. It’s a great scent for day or night, able to run the spectrum of both sweet and savory fragrance notes.
Best Sweet D.S. & Durga Scent: Pistachio
This once-limited scent made such a lasting impression that it’s now a permanent offering from the brand. Pistachio smells like the first blast of aroma you get when you enter a gelato shop, which then narrows in scope, as if you’re sniffing a scoop of pistachio on a waffle cone. It’s a bit on the sweet side, but perfect for those who want to smell like a walking dessert.
Best Floral D.S. & Durga Scent: Durga
Durga is part of the brand’s more premium fragrances, and this one is a favorite of Ahuja Moltz. It has a strong floral scent, which is balanced out by the savoriness of mushroom just to avoid the feeling that you’ve entered The Home Depot’s flower department. There’s something “wet” about the scent, almost like the smell of the outdoors after it’s rained, and there’s also a hint of sweetness that’s reminiscent of melon. The gold hue of the fragrance reflects its concentrated formulation, and it definitely leaves a lasting impression for hours and hours.
Best Nighttime D.S. & Durga Scent: Black Magenta
Black Magenta smells like an all-inclusive resort. You’re first hit with tropical fruit notes, most notably pineapple, while tobacco lingers in the back like a devil on the shoulder. It’s a warm scent that works great no matter the time of the year, and it’s amplified by a bit of spicy black pepper.
Shop more fragrances based on notes: bergamot, neroli, oud, tonka, woody
