Orange: Eau d’Orange Verte. Tried Concentré d’Orange Verte as well but it smells less realistic.
Bitter orange: Bigarade Concentrée is obviously the best but too expensive so I need an alternative. Eau de Néroli Doré has a great bitter orange top, perhaps that will have to suffice.
Blood orange: Guerlain Orange Soleia seems to be the best one currently
Mandarin: Hermès Mandarine Ambrée?
I’ve spent time and money trying to find the best in these categories. Hermes’ Mandarine Ambree is awful, avoid. Smells like some sort of vanilla aromachemical, not a fragrance. Avoid. Mandarino di Amalfi by Tom Ford, although not perfect and quite green/soapy/soft and ‘white’ clean is a better option. Eau d’Orange Verte is not good, it is mostly cheap 80s musks and a passionfruit-type fruit juice note with supporting aromatic greenery. The Concentre version adds a fuzzy dry cedar. Neither are very pleasant nor particularly realistic. Orange Sanguine by Atelier is probably the best if you only want the orange scent rather than feel; it is based on quite a thick and oriental-type amber, so eventually becomes very sweet/thick/heavy, rather than fresh and invigorating. Malle’s Bigarade is good but does a similar thing (based on amber, geranium and some other spicy notes, with a sweet rose note) and although not as dense/thick in the base, it’s also not as realistic in the top notes. Given a choice of the two, I’d go with Orange Sanguine, probably.
It’s hard to find a true orange note/fragrance. One of the better ones is Prada’s Mandarine Infusions Iris but it has a fuzzy/caustic laundry powder musk supporting it. It must be someone’s perfect fragrance but it is not what I want a great orange note to be supported with. Most orange aromas are ultimately going to be petitgrain (bitter, green, woody) and neroli-based, which are of course quite different. Orange blossom is different again – Prada make a lovely one, Givenchy have a nice recent and affordable one as well – but doesn’t capture the fruit, which is what we’re talking about. An enjoyable one that is based on petitgrain is Arancia di Capri. It isn’t incredibly realistic but there is a period in the opening where it does capture a lovely true orange aroma – it doesn’t last very long though as it dries down to a bitter/green base.
