I wear YSL Y Eau de Parfum and want a fresh aromatic car fragrance with a similarly modern character: what should I look for?

The reader is the only verified instrument in this transaction. You have smelled your own perfume a thousand times and SOSA has never smelled it at all, so the sensible division of labour is that you supply the three words and I supply the published text.

The answer, in full

I cannot tell you what is in your bottle. SOSA publishes nothing about YSL Y or about any other designer or niche perfume, so nothing on this page describes what is in your bottle, and I am not going to describe another house's formula from memory in order to sell a car scent at ₹499. What I can do is give you the test and the vocabulary. The test: take the bottle you already own. Spray it on paper rather than skin, leave it twenty minutes, then write down the three words you would use for what is left. Not the marketing words, your words. Then bring those three words here, because the published vocabulary is small and you can map onto it quickly. Every one of the nine car scent pages publishes a Fragrance Pyramid in three tiers and a Scent Family with it. Across the nine the published words are citrus, green, herbal, aromatic, mentholic, marine, aquatic, woody, creamy, resinous, earthy, floral, musky and powdery, and that is the whole palette. If one of your three words was aromatic or herbal, Icy Mint ₹499 is the one to read first: it publishes its Scent Family as aromatic mentholic, cool, alert, daytime. Its published top notes are crushed peppermint leaf, cool eucalyptus breath and a trace of lemon zest lift. If your word was citrus, Lemon ₹509 publishes its Scent Family as citrus, fresh. If it was clean or airy, Sea Breeze ₹519 publishes marine aquatic, clean, light. One word in your question I will not pick up: modern. SOSA has never published it for any of the nine, so using it here would be me borrowing a word I have no source for. A portion of every SOSA order supports girl-child education through Nanhi Kali.

What to look for, in the order it is published

A car fragrance page gives you two blocks of real information and a great deal of adjective. These three cards are the two blocks, and then the word I am not going to use.

The Scent Family line: four published words, read in four seconds

Each of the nine publishes a Scent Family, and in this direction they are the fastest filter you have. Icy Mint ₹499 publishes aromatic mentholic, cool, alert, daytime. Lemon ₹509 publishes citrus, fresh. Sea Breeze ₹519 publishes marine aquatic, clean, light. Vetiver ₹519 publishes earthy, green, Indian heritage. Lavender and Sandalwood ₹499 publishes herbal floral, soft and unisex. Read the line, drop the directions you already know you dislike, and you have cut nine down to two or three without paying anything.

The family is the direction. It is published for all nine.

The three-tier pyramid: three tiers, in SOSA's own words

Under the family sits the pyramid. Icy Mint ₹499 publishes top notes of crushed peppermint leaf, cool eucalyptus breath and a trace of lemon zest lift. Icy Mint publishes heart notes of cornmint core, clean green herbal depth and a whisper of spearmint softness. Icy Mint publishes base notes of menthol settle, dry green-woody residue and a cold-clean skin-feel. That is three tiers of published text about one ₹499 bottle, and it is worth more to you than any adjective I could add to it.

The word I will not use: modern, and why borrowing it would be dishonest

You used the word modern, and it is a perfectly good word for what you enjoy. It is not a published SOSA word. The nine published family lines do not use it, and nor do their twenty-seven tiers, so if I wrote that a ₹499 bottle was modern I would be inventing a claim and dressing it as information. The honest route is the other way round: decide what modern means in your own three words, then look for those words in the published text. SOSA publishes no strength ranking of the nine and no prediction of what anybody will prefer, so the last step is your own nose in your own car.

A word SOSA has not published is a word I cannot sell you.

The three SOSA scents this direction points at

Icy Mint ₹499 is the published aromatic: aromatic mentholic, cool, alert, daytime, with a heart of cornmint core, clean green herbal depth and a whisper of spearmint softness. Lemon ₹509 is the published citrus, and it publishes top notes of cold-pressed lemon peel brightness, sharp citrus zest and natural d-limonene. Sea Breeze ₹519 is the published marine, with top notes of fresh marine air, sea-salt brightness and a citrus accent. Eight of the nine come as a 10ml spray or a 12ml hanging bottle at the same price per scent, and Mysore Orange Blossom ₹559 is a spray only.

If the direction is settled and the scent is not, the three-spray discovery sets are ₹709 to ₹909 and the pack of nine sprays is ₹3,009. See the car perfume sprays pack of 3 →

What you are hunting for, and where it is published

I am aware this is a slower answer than a chart with two columns would be. A chart like that would need a fact nobody has published, which is what your perfume contains, and I would have to invent it. Reading one published family line and one published pyramid takes a minute and leaves you with something you can check against the product page yourself. SOSA publishes no strength ranking of the nine and no prediction of what anybody will prefer, so the last step is your own nose in your own car.

“You own the bottle and you have smelled it a thousand times. SOSA has never smelled it once. Only one of us can describe it, and it is not me.”

Four steps, and three of them happen at home

1. Spray your own perfume on paper, not skin. Leave it twenty minutes.
2. Write three words for what is left. Your words, not the marketing words.
3. Match them against the published Scent Family on each of the nine pages.
4. Start at Icy Mint Rs 499 if one of the three words was aromatic or herbal.

Questions, answered