Peruse my perfume collection, and you will realise I am a creature of habit.
You’ll always find a rose scent which I turn to when I want to feel a softer; a little less hardened Londoner in jeans and boots and a little more lace-clad Austen heroine, long hair tumbling down my back.
You’ll definitely find a perfume leaning heavily on citrus notes somewhere on my shelf for when I need a kick up the backside, and I deploy the sharp, sourness liberally to make me less sluggish of mind and body.
Invariably there will also be something more complex, more 1980s, more Joan Collins-holding-a-cigarette-drinking-champagne. This big scent is there strictly to be paired with big hair and worn to big parties.
Come summer though, all my usual preferences fly out the window for two reasons. First, the season invites experimentation, a romance with a scent less usual. I think of it as an olfactory bad boy boyfriend: fun for a few months, but not something I want in my life year-round.
The second reason for my straying from my shelf: summer is all about travel and if like me you don’t ever do quite as much country-hopping as you’d like, it’s worth a scent journey, inviting whispers of exotic climes and varied market stalls into your life via a hint of incense or dash of thyme.
Here are the perfumes I will be cheating on my stalwarts with over the coming months. Who knows, maybe I’ll fall in love with one of them and it’ll stick around. I’ll report back…
MEMO Paris Sintra
Perfumer extraordinaire Philippe Paparella-Parisis is behind this warm scent that feels faintly nostalgic, thanks to the bouquet of flowers (orange blossom, bergamot, jasmine, rose) all underpinned by a milkiness, the warmth of cinnamon, the childhood thrill of marshmallows toasting on a fire.
It is heaped with back-in-the-day happiness, sends me to a world of pastel pink houses, washing drying in the heat of summer sun, foot-shaped ice creams melting far too quickly, sweet trails making their way down my wrist.
Buy now £235.00, MEMO Paris
L'Artisan Parfumeur À Fleur de Pêche
As the name suggests, there’s a lot of peach going on here. But then there’s something else — it’s a peach out of the oven served up with a peppery spicy something running through the sweet nectar. It’s the perfect companion if you love a fruit scent but are after something sophisticated and positively hate the idea of smelling like you’ve just been spritzed with the sickly stuff that abounds in airport duty free perfume shops.
Buy now, Liberty London
Parfums de Marly Cassili Eau de Parfum
Inspired by 18th century France and the attendant royal excess of the era, everything about Parfums de Marly from the weighty lids to the embossed bottles to the sumptuous scents says more, more, more.
This scent is quietly noble, with mimosa and frangipani pairing with rose and red currants to sparkle off your skin, and any potential showiness is tempered by vanilla and sandalwood. This will be the one I turn to when fancy events come my way and I need to elevate my efforts.
Buy now, John Lewis
Victoria Beckham Beauty Suite 302 Eau de Parfum
I may be the only woman in London who doesn’t understand the allure of David Beckham, but this perfume inspired by Victoria’s trysts with him in, you guessed it, Suite 302 of The Ritz in Paris, is sexiness distilled. Think of a boozy night out with someone you really properly fancy, where the whole thing is speeding by, and then you (finally) arrive back at the hotel. This perfume is that moment, the standing on the precipice of a really good night with someone, all leather and tobacco leaf and black cherry.
Buy now £170.00, Victoria Beckham Beauty
Hermès H24 Herbes Vives Eau de Parfum
This is a big handful of shivering herbs after rain has fallen and the scent leaps off the skin in a riot of moss and sage. It’s nearly, just nearly, bitter — but pulls back right before things get too sharp. Hermès made this as a scent for men, but I consider that a technicality as scents are all genderless now, and putting this on when I get out the shower makes me feel like I’m somewhere more verdant than dusty old London.
Buy now £114.00, Look Fantastic
Dolce & Gabbana Blue Jasmine Eau de Parfum
Early in freezing February, I sat in a room in Milan while the notes of this forthcoming fragrance were passed around. Fig. Jasmine Sambac. Cedarwood. Together, they smelled hopeful, summer cocking its eyebrow at we beauty editors, telling us that impossible though it seemed, heat would soon wash through Europe and the sun would paint the skies bright blue. That is this scent: youthful optimism, the promise that something good is around the corner.
Buy now £74.00, Dolce & Gabbana
Diptyque Philosykos Eau de Toilette
If someone asked me what pure summer smells like, this would be the one I’d pull out. It’s fig but it’s also a little aquatic, like sunbathing in a luscious garden just a stone’s throw from the body of water you fully intend on taking a dip in when you’re hot enough.
Buy now £129.00, Space NK
Trudon Isla Eau de Parfum
The joy of this lies in its lack of complexity. That isn’t a veiled insult — a straightforward scent done well is one of life’s great joys, a perfume version of eating a perfectly ripe fruit. In this case, the centrepiece is bergamot, a citrusy orange/lemon hybrid, slightly sweet, slightly sharp, wholly delicious.
Buy now £210.00, Trudon
Sisley Izia Eau de Parfum
I can already tell you that this isn’t a short flirt for me — actually, in truth I’ve been into Izia since it launched in 2017, though I always lean into it more heavily during the summer, when the fizzy, effervescent rose feels precisely like the tonic to long, hot days.
Buy now £92.00, Sephora
Grace de Monaco Promenade Sur Le Rocher
Created by the legendary Olivier Cresp, this one positively begs to be worn on sun kissed skin paired with a crisp white shirt. Or at the very least something linen. It is a brand, after all, that takes all its inspiration from Grace Kelly, and this mix of ylang ylang, rose, jasmine, and bergamot is about as Grace-Kelly-wafting-through-a-sunlit-palace as it is possible for a scent to be.
Buy now £220.00, Harrods
Initio Narcotic Delight Eau de Parfum
Think of the most decadent pudding you can conjure up. Surely black cherries are involved. Maybe some alcohol. Definitely vanilla. Take all of that, and sprinkle some pepper on it. There it is, this scent. A lot, admittedly, but paired with a deep red lip and some heels, it is another element that takes you from tired to sparkling and energised.
Buy now £245.00, Selfridges
Veronique Gabai Délices des Bois
Veronique wanted this scent to centre around fig - and she’s done just that, creating something that’s bursting with that sense of succulent, ripe sweetness. But this isn’t a one trick pony; underpinning that juicy fig is some sandalwood and a note of jasmine. The result is captivating - and undeniably sexy (which is one of Veronique’s things, btw, making scents call people to you, want to get closer).
Buy now, Harrods
BIBBI Swimming Pool Parfum
The idea of a perfume that smells of swimming pools could be a disaster - kids splashing around on floats in a chlorine-filled tank of water inside a leisure centre isn’t my idea of olfactory bliss - but this is a swimming pool that’s rather more rarified than the sort you might do some laps in after work. It is the brightest blue water. It is sun dappled. It is flanked by herbs - to my mind basil and mint - and populated by chic people. Few of them, mind; as I said, this is not your overcrowded sort of pool but rather the one you slice into, icy water stealing heat from your skin, before reclining once more.
Buy now, Liberty London
