Daisy Love Marc Jacobs And The Daisy Family, With Airy Florals To Wear Next

In November 1992, Marc Jacobs was twenty-nine years old and sent Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Christy Turlington down the Perry Ellis runway for spring 1993 in Doc Martens and plaid. It was the grunge collection, and Perry Ellis fired him for it. A designer who got the sack for dressing people down is the person behind the daisy. That tells you what this brand thinks about sweetness. It is not precious, and it is a little bit of a rebellion.

Daisy Love, announced by Coty in April 2018, was the first new line in the Daisy family in over four years. Alberto Morillas of Firmenich, who signed the original Daisy in 2007, made it. Coty calls it the first ever radiant gourmand Daisy, with crystallized cloudberries, daisy tree petals, cashmere musks and driftwood. The campaign was shot on film in Rancho Palos Verdes with Kaia Gerber, Aube Jolicoeur and Faith Lynch, and the soundtrack was Sonic Youth's Teen Age Riot. I love that: a sweet floral with a grunge song on top. It is the reason I think Daisy Love Marc Jacobs is more interesting than its bottle suggests.

The trick is to pick your Daisy by mood. The Daisy Love Eau de Toilette, with white florals and driftwood, is the one to start with. Eau So Sweet, with raspberry and musk, is the juicier version, and Daisy Eau So Fresh pairs the same raspberry and musk under a fresher name. Daisy Dream brings blackberry and jasmine, and Daisy Ever So Fresh goes fruity rose with cashmere woods. Daisy Eau So Intense with strawberry and honey is the warm one, and the Murakami Yellow and Pink are the collector bottles, one with strawberry and cedarwood, the other with coconut.

Start with a wardrobe rule: match the fragrance to your outfit's weight. A cotton dress wants Daisy Wild. A leather jacket wants something warmer. It works better than any note pyramid.

Daisy Wild Eau de Parfum, with jasmine, is the easy one, and the Intense version adds banana blossom, jasmine and amber for a deeper trail. Daisy Wild Eau So Extra is the louder sibling. Murakami Green, with banana and jasmine, is the most playful bottle in the range.

Then Perfect, which is a different side of the brand. Perfect Eau de Parfum is the base, Perfect Absolute adds fig and amber, and Perfect Elixir goes woody amber with vanilla. Just Perfect, with strawberry and vanilla, is the sweetest of the four. If Daisy is a field, Perfect is a hotel lobby, which is my way of saying it feels dressier.

A pairing I like: Daisy Wild in the morning and Perfect Absolute in the evening. Same brand, two very different moods.

What I would skip: stacking Perfect Elixir on a hot day. Woody amber with vanilla is a cold weather idea.

One habit worth borrowing: spray airy florals once on the chest and once on the clothes, and stop. The lighter the perfume, the easier it is to overdo it, because you stop smelling it.

Test airy florals the way you would test a lipstick shade, in daylight by a window. Miu Miu's Rosee, with lychee and musk, is the clean, girlish one. Hermès has three quiet, garden-like bottles here: Un Jardin sur le Nil, Le Jardin de Monsieur Li and Eau des Merveilles Bleue, and all three feel more like a thought than a perfume. Maison Margiela's REPLICA Springtime In A Park and Lazy Sunday Morning are the two everyone knows. Jo Malone London's Sakura Cherry Blossom, with rose, and Peony & Blush Suede, with jasmine, are colognes, so they are softer and shorter-lived than a parfum.

A pairing I like: an airy cologne on the neck and a Daisy hair mist. Light on top, a little sweetness underneath, and neither one is asking for attention.

What I would skip: an airy cologne at a long dinner. It will be gone before the entrees. Slip a travel size in your bag for a top-up.

Try this: spray a mist on your hairbrush and run it through dry hair. You get an even, soft trail without a wet patch on your shoulders.

Marc Jacobs' own Daisy Hair and Body Perfume Mist is the natural starting point, since it is the same daisy in a lighter form. NEST New York's Santa Barbara Strawberry and Madagascar Vanilla are simple and easy. Ellis Brooklyn's Marshmallows is the dessert one, LoveShackFancy's Sugar Blush pairs vanilla with passion fruit, and PHLUR's Berry Cream and Vanilla Nectar are the soft, skin-like ones. Ariana Grande's r.e.m. Cherry Eclipse is the fun one for a night out, the mist I would keep in a clutch.

A pairing I like: the Daisy mist on the hair and Daisy Love on the skin. It makes the same scent feel bigger without adding a second one.

What I would skip: two dessert mists in one outfit. Choose one sweet and let everything else stay clean, especially the shoes and the coat. If you want more than one, put the second on your clothes and keep your hair for the first.

I think Daisy Love is the friendliest place to start with Daisy if you find the original a little too classic. It is gently sweet, woody at the edges, and easy to wear on a normal day, which is not something you can say about every perfume with a flower on the cap.

So I would begin with the Eau de Toilette, try Eau So Sweet next to it, and then choose a mist for your hair. Marc Jacobs got fired for dressing people down. You can wear the sweet thing without apology.

Turn the volume up if you like. If you want to keep browsing, I also put together Marc Elrick's Lockdown Project.