OT5 • Fragrance
What Perfume Do CORTIS Members Wear?
Five members, eleven fragrances, and one perfume house that keeps coming back.
Eleven fragrances have been pinned to CORTIS so far, and four of them come from the same house. Here is the full list, member by member, with what each one actually smells like and what it costs.
The short answer
Martin wears the most: Dior Homme Intense, Jo Malone London Blackberry & Bay, SW19 Midnight and Kiehl’s Original Musk. Juhoon wears Dior Sauvage, Jo Malone London English Pear & Freesia and Maison Francis Kurkdjian Oud Satin Mood. Seonghyeon wears Jo Malone London Silver Birch & Lavender and John Varvatos Artisan Pure. Keonho wears Jo Malone London Earl Grey & Cucumber. James uses W.Dressroom No. 49 Peach Blossom, which is a fabric mist rather than a perfume.
Every CORTIS perfume at a glance
Prices are the United States list prices from the fan compilation this list is based on. They move around, and most of these come in more than one size.
| Member | House | Fragrance | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Martin | Dior | Homme Intense | $173 |
| Martin | Jo Malone London | Blackberry & Bay Cologne | $175 |
| Martin | SW19 | Midnight | $119 |
| Martin | Kiehl’s | Original Musk | $50 |
| Juhoon | Dior | Sauvage | $150 |
| Juhoon | Jo Malone London | English Pear & Freesia Cologne | $175 |
| Juhoon | Maison Francis Kurkdjian | Oud Satin Mood | $340 |
| Seonghyeon | Jo Malone London | Silver Birch & Lavender Cologne | $175 |
| Seonghyeon | John Varvatos | Artisan Pure | $122 |
| Keonho | Jo Malone London | Earl Grey & Cucumber Cologne | $175 |
| James | W.Dressroom | No. 49 Peach Blossom | $15 |
The original list, made by @jeonghanperfect on TikTok, who put it together from interviews, live streams, video fancalls, fan meetings and photos. Everything below is built on their research.
Every CORTIS perfume, member by member
The notes below are the ones the brands themselves publish. What the members have said out loud is much shorter than that, so treat the descriptions as a guide to the bottle, not to how any of them actually smell in a room.
Martin
Four fragrances, and the widest range of the group: one iris, one fruity cologne, one soft musk and one quiet floral.
Dior Homme Intense
Notes lavender, pear, iris, ambrette, vetiver, cedar
This is the famous iris one. It is powdery and a little cosmetic in the best way, the smell of good makeup and clean skin rather than fruit or spice, and it has been the reference point for that style of men’s fragrance for well over a decade. It is also the most grown up thing on this list. If you have ever smelled someone in a tailored coat and wanted to ask what they were wearing, it was probably this.
Jo Malone London Blackberry & Bay Cologne
Notes blackberry, grapefruit, bay leaf, cedarwood
Dark fruit with a green herbal edge, so it never turns into candy. It smells like picking berries with wet leaves still on your hands. Of the four Jo Malones in this article it is the sharpest, and it is the easiest one to wear if you do not like sweet fragrances.
SW19 Midnight
Notes lily of the valley, white lotus, powdery notes, white musk, sandalwood, benzoin
The most unusual pick in the group. SW19 is a small London house named after the Wimbledon postcode, and Midnight is its quiet one: white flowers, powder and a warm woody base, built by perfumer Marianne Nawrocki Sabatier. The bottle itself says it is a scent that changes over time, which is a fair description of how it behaves on skin.
Kiehl’s Original Musk
Notes bergamot, orange blossom, rose, lily, ylang-ylang, neroli, tonka, patchouli, musk
A genuine old formula. Kiehl’s blended it in the 1920s, sold it as an oil, and brought it back in 1963, and it still smells like nothing else on a shelf: soft, slightly soapy, warm rather than loud. It is the cheapest real fragrance on the list by a distance and the one most people could actually justify buying.
Juhoon
Three fragrances that go from the most popular men’s scent in the world to the most expensive bottle in this article.
Dior Sauvage
Notes Calabrian bergamot, Sichuan pepper, ambroxan
The one everybody knows. Bright citrus over a huge mineral, almost salty base, and it projects for hours. There is nothing clever about liking Sauvage and that is rather the point: it is a fragrance designed to be recognised across a room, which makes it a very reasonable thing for someone who spends his life on stages.
Jo Malone London English Pear & Freesia Cologne
Notes pear, freesia, amber, patchouli
Jo Malone’s biggest seller, and the softest thing Juhoon has been linked to. Ripe pear and white flowers on a light woody base, gone in a few hours the way most colognes in this line are. It reads as autumn and as very clean, and it layers well with almost anything, which is what that house builds its fragrances to do.
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Oud Satin Mood
Notes oud, Bulgarian rose, violet, benzoin, vanilla
The splurge. Rose and oud wrapped in vanilla and benzoin until the whole thing goes velvety and heavy, the kind of fragrance that stays on a scarf for days. It is not a summer scent and it is not subtle. If you only ever try one thing from this list in a shop because you will never buy it, make it this one.
Seonghyeon
Two fragrances, both of them fresh, and both of them built around a woody base rather than a sweet one.
Jo Malone London Silver Birch & Lavender Cologne
Notes grapefruit, English lavender, silver birch, roasted oak
A 2020 release from Yann Vasnier, and the most outdoors thing here. Grapefruit at the top, lavender through the middle, and then bark and toasted wood underneath, so it lands somewhere between a herb garden and a cold walk through trees. Of the four Jo Malones it is the one that smells least like a perfume counter.
John Varvatos Artisan Pure
Notes lemon, bergamot, mandarin, clementine, thyme, marjoram, petitgrain, ginger, orris, amber, musk
A citrus and herb fragrance from 2017 by Rodrigo Flores-Roux, inspired by the citrus country around Xalapa in Mexico, and it comes in that woven basket bottle you have definitely seen on a shelf. It is bright and green at the start and settles into something soft and slightly powdery. Easy to wear and hard to dislike.
Keonho
One fragrance, and the most specific one in the group.
Jo Malone London Earl Grey & Cucumber Cologne
Notes bergamot, cucumber, Earl Grey tea, beeswax
Tea and cut cucumber over a soft waxy base. It smells exactly like what it says on the bottle, which is the whole trick of this house, and it is the quietest fragrance on this page: close to the skin, faintly bitter, more like a cold drink than a perfume. It also happens to be the most unisex thing here.
James
One product, and it is not technically a perfume.
W.Dressroom No. 49 Peach Blossom
Notes peach, honey, apple, plum, jasmine, coconut, orris
W.Dressroom makes what Korea calls dress perfume: a mist you spray on clothes, bedding and furniture rather than on skin. No. 49 is the peach one, juicy and a bit creamy, and it is everywhere in Korea because it costs fifteen dollars and it makes a hoodie smell like it was just washed. Worth knowing if you have ever wondered why a lot of idols smell faintly of fruit: often it is the laundry, not the perfume.
Jo Malone is the house CORTIS keeps coming back to
Four of the eleven fragrances are Jo Malone London, spread across four different members, and no two of them picked the same one. Martin has Blackberry & Bay, Juhoon has English Pear & Freesia, Seonghyeon has Silver Birch & Lavender and Keonho has Earl Grey & Cucumber. That is almost the entire group in one house, which is either a very good brand relationship or simply what happens when one member buys a bottle and the rest walk into the same shop.
Dior turns up twice, for Martin and Juhoon. Everything else is a one off.
What the CORTIS perfumes cost
The cheapest is fifteen dollars
W.Dressroom No. 49 Peach Blossom, and it is the only thing on this list most people will buy without thinking about it. Kiehl’s Original Musk at $50 is the cheapest actual fragrance.
The most expensive is three hundred and forty
Maison Francis Kurkdjian Oud Satin Mood, which costs more than double the average of everything else here. MFK sells small sizes and sample sets, so this is a fragrance worth trying before committing.
Buying all eleven
Adding up the list prices above, the whole CORTIS fragrance wardrobe comes to $1,669. Martin’s four alone are $517 and Juhoon’s three are $665, which means two members account for roughly seventy percent of the total.
Which CORTIS perfume should you buy?
If you want something fresh and easy to wear
Jo Malone London Earl Grey & Cucumber or Silver Birch & Lavender. Both stay close to the skin, both are clean without being boring, and neither will bother anyone sitting next to you.
If you want something warm and noticeable
Oud Satin Mood if you have the money, Dior Homme Intense if you want the same seriousness for half the price. Sauvage if you want people to recognise it.
If you are buying a gift
Blackberry & Bay or English Pear & Freesia. Jo Malone boxes well, the colognes suit almost anyone, and the house is built around layering, so a second bottle later never goes to waste.
If you have fifteen dollars
W.Dressroom No. 49 Peach Blossom, honestly. Spray it on a hoodie and you have the cheapest piece of this entire list working for you all day.
Frequently asked questions
What perfume does Martin from CORTIS wear?
Four have been identified: Dior Homme Intense, Jo Malone London Blackberry & Bay, SW19 Midnight and Kiehl’s Original Musk. He has the largest fragrance wardrobe in the group.
What perfume does Juhoon from CORTIS wear?
Dior Sauvage, Jo Malone London English Pear & Freesia and Maison Francis Kurkdjian Oud Satin Mood, the most expensive bottle linked to any member.
What perfume does Keonho from CORTIS wear?
Jo Malone London Earl Grey & Cucumber Cologne, a tea and cucumber scent that stays very close to the skin.
What perfume does Seonghyeon from CORTIS wear?
Jo Malone London Silver Birch & Lavender and John Varvatos Artisan Pure. Both are fresh, woody fragrances rather than sweet ones.
What perfume does James from CORTIS wear?
W.Dressroom No. 49 Peach Blossom, which is a clothing and living mist rather than a skin perfume. It is the only product on this list under twenty dollars.
Do CORTIS members wear the same perfume?
No two members have been linked to the same bottle, but four of the five wear something from Jo Malone London, each one a different cologne.
How much would it cost to buy every CORTIS perfume?
About $1,669 at United States list prices for all eleven fragrances. The cheapest single item is $15 and the most expensive is $340.
Where this list comes from
The fragrance list was compiled by @jeonghanperfect on TikTok, who puts together member item lists from interviews, live streams, video fancalls, fan meetings and photos that fans zoom in on. Credit for the research goes there.
None of this is an official statement from CORTIS, BIGHIT MUSIC or any of the brands. It is fan observation, which means a bottle seen once on a shelf counts, and a member may well have moved on from something on this list. The notes and the history of each fragrance come from the brands themselves, and the prices are United States list prices that change often.
Keep going
More of their world is one click away: what Martin actually wears, the books Juhoon reads, and the whole group’s bookshelf.
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