Released in 1989 in collaboration with the renowned Spanish perfume house Myrurgia, Only by Julio Iglesias represented an elegant extension of the internationally celebrated singer's image into the world of fragrance. Julio Iglesias had already become one of the most successful recording artists in history by the late 1980s. Born in Madrid in 1943, Iglesias initially pursued a career in professional football before a devastating automobile accident altered the course of his life. During his lengthy recovery, he taught himself to play guitar and began writing songs, eventually rising to become one of the world's best-selling Latin artists. With hundreds of millions of records sold in numerous languages, Iglesias became synonymous with romance, sophistication, and effortless charm. His velvety voice, polished appearance, and reputation as an international heartthrob made him an ideal figure to introduce a fragrance that celebrated femininity while reflecting the refined, cosmopolitan lifestyle he embodied. Partnering with Myrurgia—one of Spain's oldest and most respected fragrance houses—lent the project additional credibility, combining celebrity appeal with genuine perfumery expertise.
The name Only was a remarkably thoughtful choice. The word itself signifies exclusivity, uniqueness, and singular devotion. It suggests that there is one person who stands above all others—the "only" woman, the "only" love, the "only" memory that truly matters. For an artist whose music revolved around love, longing, and intimate emotional connections, the title perfectly echoed the themes that had defined his career for decades. Rather than emphasizing glamour or overt sensuality, Only implied something far more personal and emotionally resonant. It invited the wearer to feel irreplaceable, cherished, and unforgettable.
Emotionally, the word Only evokes warmth, intimacy, devotion, and quiet confidence. It conjures images of candlelit evenings, handwritten love letters, lingering embraces, and meaningful glances exchanged between lovers. There is an understated elegance to the name; it does not demand attention through extravagance but instead whispers exclusivity and emotional closeness. Unlike perfume names that promise fantasy or seduction through exotic imagery, Only speaks to individuality. It suggests that the fragrance becomes uniquely intertwined with the woman who wears it, transforming into something deeply personal rather than simply fashionable.
When interpreted through scent alone, the name Only suggests a fragrance that feels intimate rather than overpowering. One imagines soft florals resting close to the skin, gentle warmth unfolding gradually, and a lingering powdery embrace that feels comforting and familiar. The word implies balance rather than extremes—a perfume that is memorable because of its refinement instead of its volume. Its advertised progression from warm aromatic fruits through a spicy floral bouquet to a long-lasting powdery base reinforces this impression of quiet elegance. The fragrance promises not dramatic theatricality, but lasting presence—the sort of perfume someone remembers long after the wearer has left the room.
The launch of Only came at the close of one of perfumery's most distinctive decades. The late 1980s marked the final years of the exuberant "Power Dressing" era, a period defined by confidence, ambition, and conspicuous luxury. Women's fashion featured sharply tailored jackets with oversized shoulder pads, sculptural silhouettes, bold jewelry, metallic accents, vibrant colors, and luxurious fabrics. Hair was voluminous, makeup emphasized dramatic eyes and sculpted cheeks, and the overall aesthetic celebrated strength alongside glamour. Women were increasingly occupying leadership roles in business and public life, and fashion reflected this growing confidence. Yet beneath the bold exterior remained an appreciation for romance and femininity, creating space for fragrances that balanced sophistication with softness.
Perfumery during this period largely embraced powerful compositions with exceptional longevity. Influential fragrances such as Giorgio Beverly Hills Giorgio Eau de Toilette, Poison by Dior, Ysatis by Givenchy, and Paris by Yves Saint Laurent had popularized bold floral bouquets enriched with spices, woods, amber, musk, and generous doses of aldehydes or rich oriental notes. These fragrances projected confidence and left unmistakable scent trails, reflecting the larger-than-life fashion aesthetic of the decade. Consumers expected perfumes to possess substantial presence, often lingering on clothing well into the following day.
Within this landscape, Only comfortably aligned with prevailing tastes while offering its own subtle personality. Its sweet floral structure, enriched with fruity and spicy facets before settling into a powdery sensual finish, reflected many of the qualities women were seeking in luxury fragrances during the late 1980s. Rather than attempting to revolutionize perfumery with an unconventional accord, it embraced the era's preference for warmth, richness, and lasting performance. The spicy floral heart echoed one of the decade's most fashionable olfactory themes, while the powdery base added an element of timeless femininity that softened the otherwise assertive style of many contemporary perfumes.
For women in 1989, a perfume called Only likely carried deeply romantic implications. While they embraced professional success and personal independence, many also appreciated gestures that acknowledged intimacy and emotional connection. The name suggested being someone's one true love without diminishing one's own individuality. It offered a reassuring message that a woman could be both strong and deeply feminine, sophisticated yet emotionally expressive. Wearing Only became less about commanding a room and more about creating an unforgettable personal impression—one that lingered in memory because of its warmth, elegance, and quiet sensuality.
In retrospect, Only by Julio Iglesias stands as a fragrance very much of its time while avoiding fleeting novelty. It reflected the luxurious floral trends of the late 1980s rather than challenging them, yet its emotionally evocative name and refined concept distinguished it from many celebrity fragrances that would follow in later decades. Instead of relying solely on star power, it sought to translate Julio Iglesias's enduring image of romance into scent, offering women a perfume that celebrated intimacy, elegance, and the enduring appeal of being someone's "only."
Fragrance Composition:
So what does it smell like? Only is classified as a sweet floral fragrance for women. It begins with a fruity spicy top, followed by a spicy floral heart, layered over a powdery, sensual base.
- Top notes: bergamot, orange blossom, plum, pineapple, coriander, pimento, marigold
- Middle notes: honey, orchid, ylang-ylang, rose, carnation, mimosa, jasmine, tuberose and violet
- Base notes: cedar, vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla, benzoin, musk, civet, ambergris, labdanum
Scent Profile:
Only unfolds with the confident richness that defined many of the finest women's fragrances of the late 1980s, yet beneath its fashionable sweetness lies a carefully orchestrated floral composition that moves gracefully from sparkling fruits into an opulent bouquet before settling into an irresistibly soft, powdery embrace. Rather than relying on one dominant note, the perfume layers dozens of complementary facets so that every stage reveals new textures—fresh, honeyed, creamy, spicy, and velvety. The overall effect is one of effortless elegance: a fragrance that feels radiant at first encounter before gradually becoming warm, intimate, and deeply sensual against the skin.
The opening begins with the luminous sparkle of bergamot, one of perfumery's most treasured citrus materials. The world's finest bergamot is cultivated along the sun-drenched coast of Calabria in southern Italy, where the unique combination of mineral-rich soil, Mediterranean breezes, and mild winters produces an essential oil unmatched in refinement. Calabrian bergamot possesses a sparkling freshness that combines juicy lemon, sweet orange, delicate floral petals, and a subtle Earl Grey tea nuance. It immediately lifts the fragrance, bathing everything in brilliant sunlight. Beside it blooms orange blossom, traditionally distilled from the blossoms of bitter orange trees grown throughout Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and southern Spain. Tunisian orange blossom is particularly prized for its creamy sweetness balanced by fresh green facets, while Moroccan blossoms often display richer honeyed undertones. Its aroma is intoxicating—simultaneously citrusy, floral, creamy, and faintly indolic—bridging the freshness of citrus with the richness of white flowers.
A luscious accord of plum quickly softens the citrus brightness. Unlike citrus oils, ripe plum produces virtually no essential oil suitable for perfumery, so its velvety aroma must be recreated using aroma molecules blended with natural fruit extracts. The result captures the sensation of biting into dark purple flesh that is sweet, wine-like, slightly jammy, and tinged with hints of almond from the fruit's pit. Beside it comes juicy pineapple, whose fragrance is likewise recreated almost entirely through skilled perfumery because the fruit yields no practical aromatic oil. Bright fruity esters recreate its sparkling tropical sweetness, adding a succulent, golden quality that feels both refreshing and delicious without becoming sugary.
The fruity notes are immediately enlivened by an unexpected ribbon of spice. Coriander seed, often sourced from Russia, Bulgaria, Morocco, or Eastern Europe, contributes a fascinating dual personality. The essential oil smells surprisingly citrus-like with sparkling lemon facets layered over warm pepper, aromatic herbs, and faint woody sweetness. It adds sophistication rather than culinary spice. Richer still is pimento, also known as allspice, whose finest berries traditionally come from Jamaica, where volcanic soils and tropical conditions create berries exceptionally rich in aromatic compounds. Its essential oil smells like cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, and warm woods all at once, creating remarkable depth from a single natural material. Completing the opening is brilliant marigold (Tagetes), frequently cultivated in Egypt and South Africa, whose essential oil possesses one of perfumery's most unusual floral aromas. Far from smelling simply floral, tagetes combines green herbs, crushed leaves, bitter citrus peel, tropical fruit, and a surprisingly leathery nuance. Its slightly wild character keeps the sweet fruits from becoming overly polished, giving the opening a vibrant, almost sunlit naturalism.
As the fragrance settles, the heart blossoms into an exceptionally luxurious floral bouquet whose richness feels almost couture-like. Golden honey drizzles across every petal. Natural honey itself cannot be distilled into an essential oil, so perfumers recreate its aroma using complex accords built from natural absolutes and carefully chosen aroma chemicals such as phenylacetic acid derivatives, beeswax absolutes, and warm balsamic materials. The result captures sticky amber sweetness with hints of pollen, warm beeswax, dried flowers, and sunlight filtering through a beehive. Rather than smelling sugary, it creates the impression of flowers overflowing with nectar.
At the center blooms elegant orchid, another flower whose delicate petals yield virtually no extractable perfume oil. Every orchid accord is therefore an artistic reconstruction. Rather than imitating a single species, perfumers evoke the imagined scent of orchids through creamy florals, soft vanilla nuances, subtle fruits, and airy musks. The effect is velvety, refined, and quietly luxurious. Beside it unfolds magnificent ylang-ylang, distilled primarily on the Comoros Islands, Madagascar, and the French territory of Mayotte. The volcanic soils and humid tropical climate of these islands produce blossoms exceptionally rich in fragrant oils. Ylang-ylang smells creamy, banana-like, intensely floral, slightly spicy, and almost buttery, lending voluptuous warmth to the bouquet.
Classic rose contributes timeless elegance. The two most celebrated varieties come from Bulgaria's Valley of Roses and Turkey's Isparta region, both producing the legendary Rosa damascena. Bulgarian rose oil is renowned for its remarkable balance of bright citrus freshness, rich petals, honey, and gentle spice, while Turkish rose often carries a deeper, fruitier warmth. Together with the spicy floral sweetness of carnation, the bouquet gains remarkable complexity. Carnation flowers themselves produce no commercial essential oil suitable for perfumery, making their scent another masterful reconstruction built from clove-like eugenol, floral notes, and soft spices. The result is one of perfumery's most recognizable spicy florals, smelling of fresh carnations dusted with clove and cinnamon.
Soft clouds of mimosa lend an unmistakable powdery elegance. Harvested primarily in Grasse, France, during its brief winter flowering season, mimosa absolute possesses a uniquely comforting aroma of fluffy yellow blossoms, almond, violet powder, warm hay, cucumber skin, and delicate honey. It wraps the stronger florals in a velvety haze. Rich jasmine, particularly Jasminum grandiflorum from Grasse, Egypt, and India, provides one of perfumery's most treasured absolutes. Grasse jasmine is especially prized for its extraordinary smoothness and luminous floral richness, while Egyptian jasmine often displays warmer fruity undertones. Its scent is intoxicatingly radiant—sweet, fruity, creamy, green, and faintly indolic—adding remarkable realism and sensuality.
Perhaps the most dramatic flower is tuberose, whose flowers are harvested mainly in India, Mexico, and Grasse. Indian tuberose is especially admired for its extraordinary richness, producing an absolute that smells creamy, narcotic, buttery, coconut-like, green, and intensely floral. Tuberose dominates through sheer presence, lending luxurious opulence to the bouquet. Finally, delicate violet softens everything into powder. Violet blossoms produce almost no extractable fragrance, so perfumers recreate their ethereal aroma using ionones—one of perfumery's most important aroma chemical families. Alpha- and beta-ionones smell like soft violet petals, cosmetic face powder, raspberry, delicate woods, and freshly pressed flowers. These molecules not only recreate violet itself but also add an elegant powdery veil that gently links the floral heart to the warm base.
The drydown gradually reveals an exquisitely constructed foundation of woods, balsams, resins, and sensual animalic notes. Cedarwood, often distilled from Virginia cedar in the United States or Atlas cedar from Morocco, provides clean pencil-shaving dryness with hints of warm resin and forest air. Atlas cedar, in particular, offers greater richness and smoky warmth than its American counterpart. Earthy vetiver, regarded as one of perfumery's noblest roots, is especially prized when grown in Haiti, where the island's mineral-rich soil produces an essential oil that is remarkably smooth, elegant, and refined. Haitian vetiver balances smoky earth, cool roots, citrus peel, and polished woods, while Indonesian vetiver tends to be darker and smokier.
Creamy sandalwood lends remarkable softness. Historically, the finest sandalwood came from Mysore, India, whose centuries-old trees produced an oil of incomparable richness, smelling creamy, milky, buttery, softly woody, and almost silky. Because wild Mysore sandalwood became heavily protected after decades of overharvesting, modern perfumery frequently supplements or replaces it with sustainable Australian sandalwood and beautifully crafted synthetic sandalwood molecules such as Javanol, Ebanol, Polysantol, or Sandalore. These aroma chemicals enhance the natural wood by amplifying its creamy, radiant qualities while greatly improving longevity.
A luscious thread of vanilla wraps around the woods. Genuine vanilla absolute comes primarily from Madagascar, whose Bourbon vanilla beans are considered the world's finest due to their exceptionally rich concentration of natural vanillin and hundreds of supporting aromatic compounds. The aroma is warm, creamy, custard-like, balsamic, and softly spicy. Modern perfumery enhances natural vanilla with synthetic vanillin and ethyl vanillin, which increase sweetness, projection, and longevity while preserving the complexity of the natural extract.
Warm benzoin, harvested from resin-producing Styrax trees in Laos, Thailand, Sumatra, and Indonesia, contributes a rich aroma of vanilla, caramel, almond, cinnamon, and glowing amber. It melts seamlessly into labdanum, a resin collected from the sticky leaves of Mediterranean rockrose shrubs growing chiefly in Spain and southern France. Labdanum smells intensely warm and resinous, combining leather, amber, dried herbs, honey, tobacco, and sun-baked earth. Together they create much of the fragrance's soft amber glow.
The sensuality deepens with musk, civet, and ambergris, three legendary animalic materials that once defined luxury perfumery. Historically, natural musk came from the musk deer, civet from the African civet cat, and ambergris from the sperm whale. Today, ethical and conservation concerns have made natural versions extraordinarily rare or prohibited in virtually all commercial fragrances. Instead, perfumers recreate these materials with sophisticated synthetic molecules. Modern white musks provide a sensation of freshly laundered skin, warm cotton, and gentle sensuality. Synthetic civet recreates the animalic warmth of the original while remaining cleaner and smoother, adding body and remarkable realism to floral notes without smelling overtly animalic. Synthetic ambergris materials—particularly Ambroxide (Ambroxan), Cetalox, and related molecules—capture the salty, mineral, sun-warmed driftwood character of aged ambergris, giving the perfume extraordinary diffusion and longevity while producing the luminous sensation of warm skin kissed by sea air.
Together, these natural treasures and masterfully crafted aroma molecules transform Only into far more than a sweet floral perfume. The brilliant citrus and fruits glow with warmth from exotic spices; sumptuous white flowers drip with honey and nectar before dissolving into clouds of powdery violet and mimosa. Finally, creamy woods, precious balsams, glowing amber resins, and softly animalic musks linger for hours, leaving behind the unmistakable impression of elegant femininity—luxurious, romantic, and quietly unforgettable.
Fate of the Fragrance:
Despite its elegant composition and association with one of the world's most recognizable entertainers, Only was eventually discontinued, although the exact date of its withdrawal from the market has not been documented. Like many celebrity fragrances of the late 1980s, its production likely came to an end as consumer tastes shifted during the 1990s toward lighter, cleaner, and more transparent compositions. Today, surviving bottles have become increasingly difficult to find, making Only a nostalgic reminder of an era when rich floral perfumes, powdery drydowns, and romantic celebrity endorsements were at the height of their popularity.
In 1994, Julio Iglesias and Myrurgia expanded the line with Only Crazy, a companion fragrance that reflected the changing tastes of the early 1990s while maintaining the romantic spirit established by its predecessor. Although the name suggested a more passionate and uninhibited interpretation, Only Crazy remained rooted in classic feminine elegance. It was classified as a rich floral-oriental fragrance for women, built around warm aromatic top notes that unfolded into a luxurious floral heart before settling into the same type of long-lasting powdery finish described in the original promotional literature. The composition embraced the increasingly popular floral-oriental style that dominated many prestige launches of the mid-1990s, balancing opulent florals with sensual warmth and soft oriental richness.
Like the original Only, Only Crazy was ultimately discontinued, and its discontinuation date likewise remains undocumented. With both fragrances no longer in production, they represent a relatively short-lived chapter in Julio Iglesias' fragrance legacy and are now sought after primarily by collectors of vintage perfumes, celebrity fragrances, and Myrurgia memorabilia. Together, they capture the transition between two distinct periods of perfumery—the bold, romantic florals of the late 1980s and the smoother, more refined floral-oriental creations that became increasingly fashionable during the first half of the 1990s.