Like the season itself, summer scent has multiple personalities. One minute it's all sparkling citrus and bracing marine notes, the next it's suggesting something decidedly less innocent as evenings turn golden and night begins.
In part, this is due to the fact that summer gives scent room to perform. Heat amplifies notes, skin becomes part of the composition, and whilst tradition may dictate that this makes the season more ideally suited to lighter fragrances (innocent florals, zesty citrus and juicy tropical fruits) I’d argue that there can be real intention in opting for the headier, more intoxicating notes to ramp up your summer fragrance wardrobe. I like to think of mine in terms of line-dried cotton for daylight, changing into silk slipping across sun-warmed skin as vivid pinks and purples streak the sky as the sun goes down...
I’m starting off with a classic, and one which doesn’t fall straightforwardly into the category of fragrance. First launched in 1987, Clarins Eau Dynamisante is neither a perfume nor a body treatment but a hybrid of the two, a treatment fragrance combining energising plant aromas with skincare benefits to create something that smells delicious and feels genuinely invigorating. It also remains one of the great mood-lifters with its bursts of citrus, herbs and feelgood: like a shot of pure sunshine.
Writing about fragrance gives me the privilege of access to the new and the niche, and this is neither. However, I was loitering around the Duty-Free beauty aisles earlier this summer and the familiar ruby red oval bottle caught my eye. Plus, it has to be acknowledged, it is also priced for impulsive purchase (allbeauty.com).
Another gamechanger which launched just five years after Eau Dynamisante was the pioneering L’Eau d’Issey by Japanese fashion designer, Issey Miyake. It’s been credited as defining oceanic, watery fragrances and its appeal still holds today. However, as a category, marine has moved on. In Miller Harris’ Hydra Figue sea salt meets the green goodness of fig leaf with great effect to evoke summer on a Greek island. Salt in fragrance acts much like salt in food; it seasons it, bringing out the aroma, enhancing the effect. Home fragrance brand, La Bougie, have introduced a range of body products to their lineup, included in which is Honeysuckle & Sea Salt which marries the glorious English country garden favourite with the breezy mineral qualities of sea grass (labougie.co.uk).
Nida by Gallivant is a fragrance which is inspired by the sea but leans more toward the coastline. Inspired by the Lithuanian coastal retreat of Nida on the Curonian Spit – a UNESCO-protected sliver of land suspended between lagoon and Baltic Sea. Rather than fresh or bracing, the effect conjures wind moving through grasses, pine forests edged by sand dunes, and the fossilised amber for which the area is famous.
The actual fragrance opens on a luminous note with sweet mandarin, warming cardamom, soft florals and tea notes drying down into a base which blends that amber with warm, deep notes including moss, cedar and patchouli. Rather than marine as an accord, the sea comes across in the feel of this fragrance; green notes mingling with aromatic herbs and warmed woods (gallivant-perfumes.com).
Parterre is a Bath-based fragrance house who cultivate their botanical ingredients on a 50-acre estate in Dorset to create a collection of limited editions (parterrefragrances.com). Each multi-faceted creation speaks to nature as its source, but Root of All Goodness digs deeper to revel in the earthiness beneath the blooms. Green, herbaceous, vegetal and grounded, it feels like the aromatic equivalent of nose-to-tail cookery; from the depths of the soil to the tip of the green leaf.
It’s beautifully constructed, with the top, heart and base perfectly harmonising with each other: hyssop at the heart complementing the citrus top notes of bergamot, lemon and ginger, ciste labdanum enhancing the amber at the base, where it is joined with animalic leather and finally the grounding woodiness of vetiver, the root of the tropical grass, grown by Parterre at their Keyneston Mill Estate, which forms the essence of this textured, sunlit scent.
From the verdant greenery of an English field to the dry heat of the riad. Marrakesh is one of the most recent releases from Contes de Parfums who work in conjunction with esteemed perfumers to distil a sense of place into their popular Cities collection. Created by Nelly Hachem-Ruiz, in common with its stablemates, it seeks to capture an atmosphere rather serve up a cliché.
Marrakesh glows with warm spices, dry woods and sun-baked terracotta but instead of a heat-soaked, languorous fugue state, it has a sprightliness and a sense of excitement and discovery. When I spray it on my wrist and I am instantly transported from overcast Oxfordshire to a bustling Moroccan market; stalls laden with exotic spices across the spectrum from the honeyed sweetness of cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg to the more savoury, arresting notes of cumin and saffron. As it dries down, the vanilla base pervades to lip-licking effect making it flirty and filled with promise (gloriousbeauty.co.uk) and at the new Fragrance Bar in John Bell & Croydon.
This leads us to Oud Liaisons by Ormonde Jayne. Oud can be daunting in the heat of the summer months. If it were a fabric, it would be a luxurious silk velvet and as such, it can feel a bit overdressed if the mood is more cocktails on the beach. However, this fragrance harnesses the dark oil of the agarwood tree with an assured elegance and restraint. Unlike some fragrances with oud at their heart, this doesn’t shout or demand the room but instead draws on the romance and refinement of rose to intrigue the senses before revealing its smoky, sultry base. While many ouds can feel too intense for warmer weather, Oud Liaisons manages to maintain a remarkable lightness.
Sweet but not syrupy, intoxicating but not overwhelming, polished yet never overpowering Oud Liaisons is described as ‘a study in contrasts’ and perhaps this is why it captures the interest so successfully, and maintains its appeal throughout its lingering wear as it settles on the skin and promises to stay the night (ormondejayne.com).
From sparkling to sultry, the perfect summer fragrance isn't one scent but a tapestry of moods and moments, places and passions – bottled.
