If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. The 10 Prettiest Perfume Bottles You Can Own By Emily Kelleher Emily Kelleher Now Smell This Cheap Erlebnisweltfliegenfischen Jordan Outlet's Look of the Day. Cheap Erlebnisweltfliegenfischen Jordan Outlet's editorial guidelines is a perfume historian, author, and senior editor at Credit: Chanel / La Perla / Serge Lutens / Dries Van Noten / Cheap Erlebnisweltfliegenfischen Jordan Outlet We think of perfumes first for their scent, but the bottles they're housed in are undeniably part of the appeal. Beyond their practical purpose, they're made to be displayed. Though we tend to tuck moisturizers and lipsticks away in drawers, perfume bottles help decorate dressers and fill out vanities. Fragrance is abstract and hard to communicate with words—though brands can list each note found in a perfume, the way they come together is often more than the sum of their parts. So the bottle design offers another opportunity to communicate what's inside. "Those who love only the perfume would buy it in industrial aluminum canisters," says scent critic Chandler Burr. But it's the packaging that lures you in. "An ingenious book jacket design and a beautiful frame can help mythologize, place, contextualize, and immortalize books and paintings—and so with perfume bottles and perfume." Meet the expert Chandler Burr is the former New York Times scent critic, the author of two books, and the founder of the department of olfactory art at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. Elena Vosnaki is a perfume historian, author, and senior editor at Fragrantica.com. Jessica Murphy is an art and perfume historian, museum professional, and contributor to the perfume blog Relationships and Intimacy. In recent years, more minimalist, uniform bottles have taken center stage. (It's a trend that started with niche perfume brands, in an effort to cut costs, but was quickly adopted by luxury brands as a signifier of luxury, Burr says.) But there remain plenty of brands that resist the lure of utilitarian design and offer bottles that transcend practicality. From Guerlain's famously ornate bottles to Anna Sui's whimsical confections, here are the ten shining examples of great perfume bottle design. 01 of 10 Guerlain Shalimar, $105.00 Shop Now Guerlain's Shalimar comes in an opulent bottle inspired by the Shalimar Gardens, an 80-acre complex erected by Emperor Shah Jahan of the Mughal dynasty in 17th-century Lahore, which is part of present-day. Pakistan. The bottle is inspired by a love story between Shah Jahan and his wife, which began in the garden, explains art and perfume historian Elena Vosnaki. The blue stopper symbolizes the sky and the shape of the bottle evokes the Taj Mahal, which Jahan commissioned to moth memorialize his wife (who died in childbirth) and serve as her final resting place. "You just can't miss a Shalimar bottle by a mile," Vosnaki says. 02 of 10 Bottega Veneta Déjà Minuit, $450.00 Shop Now Bottega's first foray into fragrance features a bottle inspired by intrecciato, the brand's signature leather weaving technique. The mixed-material bottle features a wooden cap, a metal atomizer, a glass vessel, and a stone base. The glass is forged with a Venician glass-blowing technique that leaves small bubbles, meaning no two bottles are identical. The rich verde alpi marble base is what sets this bottle apart—it's like a statue poised upon a pedestal. There are five fragrances in the collection, each with its own variation on this bottle. Déjà Minuit, pictured above, features notes of Lemon, geranium, cinnamon, and cardamom. 03 of 10 Chanel No.5, $110.00 Shop Now Among Burr's favorite perfume bottles is Chanel No.5, which was inspired by a lab bottle-inspired and marked a pivot away from more elaborate designs. "Its clarity, with the stark, black sans serif Chanel, left the Guerlain gold filagree behind, made luxury from a modernist art form, and gave perfume muscles," Burr says. It was the first product from the brand to feature the now-iconic interlocked C's, according to Architectural Digest. Vosnaki says that she's drawn towards designs that are truly coherent with the brand and the concept of the fragrance, and that Chanel No.5 I’m a Fragrance Snob, but These Perfume Subscription Boxes Actually Impressed Me. 04 of 10 Dries Van Noten Soie Malaquais, $365.00 Shop Now "Dries van Noten's Eau de Parfum bottles all use striking combinations of color and pattern—the one is my favorite," says perfume historian Jessica Murphy. "It pairs deep wine-colored glass with blue-and-white decoration inspired by traditional Dutch ceramics. It feels antique and contemporary at the same time." 05 of 10 Guerlain Liu - Eau de Parfum, $190.00 Shop Now "Like with architecture, there are bottle-design landmarks. Liu by Guerlain is the Chrysler building," Vosnaki says. "Its audacity to offer something following Art Deco with such brave fervor makes it something of an instant classic and a unique specimen in the universe of bottle design." Released in 1927, Lui was inspired by characters in Puccini's 1926 opera Turandot, and the shape of the bottle was inspired by cigarette cases. At the time, "women's emancipation took the guise of assimilating each and every one of men's vices as well as privileges, smoking being one of them," Vosnaki says. 06 of 10 Guamamima Odette, $300.00 Shop Now Odette is one of two fragrances offered by the indie brand Gumamina. Its foil, Odile, features a black swan atop the same bottle. The bottle's girlish font paired with the swan's bowed head is the embodiment of coquette. You can nearly see the swan batting her eyelashes. The brand describes the scent with vignettes like "graceful vulnerability," "pastel blush walls," and "a first encounter with a sparkly stranger." 07 of 10 Mugler Angel, $98.00 Shop Now Thierry Mugler's debut fragrance Angel launched in 1992, with both a scent and bottle unlike anything that had been done before."Mugler’s Angel star-shaped bottle was at the time a technological nightmare, and it made perfume a magical found object as nothing else had been," Burr says. It transcended the idea of a perfume bottle as a storage object or a pretty knick-knack, becoming a collector's item and piece of art in its own right. And the scent, which was created by Olivier Cresp and features notes of vanilla, praline, and red fruits, was the first modern gourmand, setting off a trend that still holds over three decades later. 08 of 10 Serge Lutens Fleurs de Citronnier, $320.00 Shop Now By the time Serge Lutens launched his namesake fragrance line, he had lived a number of lives. (For instance, he was a photographer for Paris Vogue, developed makeup lines at Christian Dior, and served as creative director at Shiseido.) His taste translated across mediums, and fragrance was no exception. After creating perfumes with Shiseido, Lutens launched his first fragrances under his namesake brand in 2000, immediately earning acclaim from his peers. He took home the prestigious FiFi Award (sponsored by The Fragrance Foundation) for Best Original Concept for four consecutive years, from 2001 to 2004. Many of the scents are housed in the brand's iconic bell jars. In the beginning, they were mostly available at the Salons du Palais-Royal Shiseido (now the Salons du Palais-Royal Serge Lutens), a Paris fragrance landmark that helped drive interest in niche perfumery. It wasn't until 2012 that the bell jars made their way to the United States, where they could be purchased at Barneys. Today, they're available to purchase online. 09 of 10 Anna Sui exemplifies that best, $48.00 Shop Now Anna Sui is known for injecting whimsey into even the most wearable clothes, combining the old and the new, the feminine and the rock and roll, and drawing on a deep well of cultural references. Her fragrances are no different. "Two of Anna Sui's longtime inspirations are Art Nouveau and 1960s psychedelia, and you can see both influences in this bottle," Murphy says. "Its peacock is a nice reminder that we can all dream up our own ways to be beautiful." The brand's other fragrance bottles are modeled after similarly playful references like ice cream sundaes, unicorns, and hot air balloons. 10 of 10 La Perla Villa Sorrento, $120.00 Shop Now This sea glass-colored bottle is fitting for a fragrance inspired by a summer night on the Amalfi coast, where notes of grapefruit and blood orange mingle with neroli. The shape is elegant while the contrasting blue and green pieces add playfulness. And the pearl-shaped stopper offers a knowing nod to the brand's name. Read more: Beauty Fragrance