There's an old trick in perfumery: if you want to make a blockbuster hit, load the top notes with citrus. In the fragrance world, scents are described in a musical metaphor as having three sets of notes - top notes, middle notes, and basenotes, which reveal themselves over time. As the top notes burn off, the middle notes are exposed, until those burn off too and only the basenotes remain.
Most people, however, make their purchase decisions on the first sniff. These are the top notes, which are assertive, fleeting, and often citrusy. Citrus notes are among the quickest to burn off, so they're the top notes by definition. But perfumers also know to load up on citrus because people associate the scent with cleanliness. There's no real logic to this, of course. Actual citruses, such as oranges, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes, leave behind a sticky residue. But we associate the scent with freshness because it's so prevalent in laundry detergent, dish soap, and other cleaning products.
Even people who say they don't like fragrances will use them a dozen times a day. Fragrances are in our shaving products, lotions, antiperspirants, and shampoos. Those products, in turn, help to create scent memories. Tide can be made to smell like anything, but it's formulated to smell like a combination of citrus, fruits, and flowers. Only Procter & Gamble knows why they choose this accord, but people today associate the scent of citrus with cleanliness, fruits with comfort, and flowers with maternal care. These positive associations are so strong that, according to a Brigham Young University study, people are more virtuous when they're in a room that has been wiped down with citrus-scented Windex. "We wondered if you could regulate moral behavior through cleanliness and decided to look at olfaction and clean scents," says Katie Liljenquist, lead author of the study. "And at some level, it does seem to elevate people's core choices. These clean scents activate moral awareness."
Those same associations are why many fragrance enthusiasts turn their nose up at summer scents. All too often, they smell disappointingly simple, commonplace, and unimaginative. Citrus smells good, it's true. Along with feeling bright and cheery, they release a steady mixture of volatile attractants that are tuned to getting compliments. (If you're looking to get compliments, you can stop reading and buy a bottle of Dior Sauvage, the modern-day version of Coolwater). But these scents are short-lived and evaporate almost as soon as they touch the skin. Unless you're fanatical enough to refresh your scent every hour, which will make you the least popular person in your social circle, they'll float off before you even walk out of the door. Besides, summer citruses are often oceanic, which means you'll smell like that odd lemon freshness that lingers by the pool.
Compared to the originality and complexity of winter perfumes, summer fragrances can feel like a poor second choice to actual running water. If the point of a fragrance is only to make you smell clean, shouldn't you just use soap? As Tania Sanchez writes in her book, Perfumes, scent can be so much more. "Perfume is an art, and the purposes of art have been a topic of discussion at least since the ancient Greeks wondered about it while flirting with each other over cheese courses. These purposes have at various times been thought to be didactic, cathartic, distracting, polluting, elevating, sanctifying, profaning, and for its own sake. [...] For the moment, let's just say that, like all other arts, perfume should engage our attention to a satisfying end, first creating an expectation and then satisfying it in a way different and better than you hoped."
Fragrance can be so much more than exotic flowers, citruses, and weather (e.g., fresh air, spring rain, and so on). But it takes a bit of sampling to find your sense of taste. The good news is that we live in a consumer paradise. In the not-so-distant past, when navy worsteds were still reserved for the city and brown Shetland tweeds for the country, people didn't so much choose a fragrance as marry it. "For the lucky ones, life was simple; a two-ounce bottle of Joy would last longer than the average lover, there were only three or four fragrance firms to worry about, and everyone else appeared to be wearing Violettes de Toulouse," Luca Turin once wrote in his Swiss magazine Folio column. "Things have since got more interesting. There are now 400 new fragrance launches a year, and even the duty-free at Khabarovsk Airport tries to sell you things named after celebrities you've never heard of."
Fortunately, the human talent for classification has not been idle. Once you find a fragrance you like, you can use a classification system, such as Fragrantica or Michel Edwards' Fragrance Wheel, to identity its notes and accords. Then use that to find new fragrances that you may like. This way, you can confidently stride into your local perfumery and ask for something that smells more interesting than a bottle of Palmolive. If you're looking for a new fragrance this summer, here are six categories to consider:
Darker Citrus: Citruses can be so much more than just fresh. Terre d'Hermes is a grapefruit-germanium confection with the earthy rootiness of vetiver. It's too heavy for the warmest days, but it does well in more temperate climes. For something easier to wear, you can also try Tom Ford's Neroli Portofino and Frederic Malle's Cologne Indelebile (George Glasgow Sr. of George Cleverley wears the Tom Ford version, although I find Frederic Malle to be longer-lasting). Both are based on neroli, an essential oil produced from the blossom of the bitter orange tree, and mixed with spices. Lastly, for a crowdpleaser, there's Creed's Aventus, which is absurdly overpriced but undeniably good. Expect to smell like a burnt pineapple.
Gourmands and Orientals: In the fragrance world, oriental refers to the opulent smell of Middle Eastern spice markets. And while I love this class of fragrances in the wintertime, heavy, sticky resins don't always mix well with sweat. At the same time, the scent of vanilla, spices, and herbs don't have to feel suffocating. L'Occitane's Eau de Beaux is a dry, vanillic amber. It's warm, sheer, and has just a touch of incense that makes it feel masculine. There's also Jean-Claude Ellena's Un Jardin Sur Le Nil, which is composed for the French luxury house Hermes. As its name suggests, Un Jardin Sur Le Nil smells like unripened green mangos and blooming lotus flowers growing by the Nile River. Ellena's book, The Diary of a Nose, is about his quest to compose this scent. This fragrance is widely considered to be one of Ellena's masterpieces.
In the summertime, my favorite food-related fragrances deal in figs. DS & Durga's Debaser and Diptyque's Philosykos have a delicious combination of sweet fig, milky coconut, tonka bean, and white cedar. They have an earthy freshness mixed with the bitterness of cracked leaves and sweetness of fruit. I also love Carlen's Butch Femme, which is a very convincing impression of pho. The company lists its notes as being neroli, lemon, basil, black pepper, and sandalwood. But really, it's Vietnamese beef soup with a side of lemon wedges, fresh bean sprouts, and basil leaves. Who wants to smell like pho, you ask? Absolutely me. After all, the delicious soup is a staple in Vietnam, where the weather is always hot.
Soft, Fuzzy Suede: Most leathers have a smokey quality that's too strong for summer. Some perfumers try to dilute the scent with a caldron of sweet milk and pop of delicious fruit. But even gentler leathers can be too heavy for humid weather, so try a softer suede. Helmut Lang Cuiron and Bvlgari Black, for example, have that weird blend of burnt rubber and black tea that smells like the flesh-side of a hide. Osmanthus Yunnan by Hermes is similarly quiet and tannic. It's technically a tea scent with apricot, but there's there' a brush of suede somewhere in there (the smell quickly floats away, which is my only quip). Leather may not seem like a natural choice for summer. But if you're wearing RRL and Visvim, it'll go better with your wardrobe than bright citruses and sweet florals.
Beachy Cocktail: Yes, they can be about as cliche as some citruses, but who doesn't like to enjoy a cold cocktail on a warm summer afternoon? Art de Parfum's Gin & Tonic smells exactly like the drink. The fresh and bitter top notes sparkle with juniper and lime, while there's a cool cucumber underneath that rounds out the salty ambroxan and sharp woods. I also love Bruno Fazzolari's Feu Secret, which is a delicious concoction of cold melon and bitter eucalyptus leaves. It's somehow reminiscent of sitting seaside at the beach. Much of Olfactive Studio's line, such as their Still Life perfume, has the similar transparent effect (that one has yuzu, a Japanese citrus, with pink pepper, star anise, and dark rum). For guys who want something more burly, James Heeley's Sel Marin smells liked the crusty salt on the side of a boat. It's infinitely more interesting than most aquatics (e.g., Acqua Di Gio), but doesn't have that meaty, salami feel of some niche formulations (e.g., Frederic Malle's Lys Mediterranee).
Icy Cold Florals: Frederic Malle has some wonderful unisex florals. En Passant surrounds the note of lilac with freshwater and green cucumber. L'Eau d'Hiver is built around the soft note of heliotrope. Lys Mediterranee and Carnal Flower are also florals, but a bit more pungent than the rest. Frederic Malle describes Lys Mediterranee as "flowers by the Mediterranean Sea," but I think fragrance critic Luca Turin gives a better description: "there is a fleshy, salty, hammy quality to fresh lilies that sets them apart from other white flowers." Strangely enough, Lys Mediterranee smells like a bouquet of white-and-purple lilies with salami. Other great options include Mendittorosa's Alpha and Ormonde Jayne's Frangipani, which have a heady, creamy fusion of white florals with vanilla, musk, and white woods. They're perfect with a camp collar and cool breeze.
Minimalism: If you haven't heard, the latest fragrance trend is Seinfeld. "When Virgil Abloh, the creative director of Off-White (and longtime collaborator with Kanye West), decided to introduce his first perfume, he had only one request: He wanted it to smell like nothing," Rachel Syme wrote of it last year in The New York Times. "Well, almost nothing. Mr. Abloh envisioned a fragrance so delicate that it would exist only in the background, a scent so hushed and unassuming that it was barely detectable to the human nose. He delivered this invisible vision to Ben Gorham, who runs the fragrance house Byredo, and together they produced a scent called Elevator Music."
Elevator Music is hardly the first in scent minimalism. In 2006, the German perfumer Geza Schoen launched the movement when he released Escentric Molecule 01, a cheeky rebuke to the overwrought and overly complex formulations in the fragrance industry. It contains just one note, ISO E Super, which is a barely-there aromachemical that's usually added to other fragrances to boost the other notes. The formulation is so simple, you can buy Iso E Super alone for much cheaper. But people still purchase Escentric Molecule 01 for reasons I don't understand. "With Molecule 01, Mr. Schoen made consumers an irresistible promise: This stuff is like magical, invisible ink - it will amplify, rather than overwhelm, your natural pheromones."
In reality, minimalist fragrances smell like silver coins in your mouth or the faint hint of soft woods. Aether's Ether Oxyde, for example, is ISO E Super and with the salty, aquatic taste of ambroxan. It's synthetic, simple, and transparent, much like the leftovers from hand soap or laundry wash. But the real appeal is in its marketing. "The makers of these new scents, which I have taken to calling 'the New Softies,' are betting that millennials (and the Gen Z-ers slinking up behind them) are averse to pouring on a prepackaged personality. Instead, they simply want a concoction to help them smell like their glorious, unique selves, only better," Syme writes. "Perfume, for decades, was all about tangible effort. If you went through the trouble of spraying on a shellac of sweetness, you wanted people to notice, to inhale deeply during a hug and ask after your elixir. Now the dream question to be asked is: Why do you smell so good? Is it a new soap?" To be frank, I find scent minimalism to be lacking, but if you want to smell like the idea of a deceptively expensive white t-shirt, these are for you.
Note, before buying any fragrance, I recommend trying a sample first. You can purchase samples through Twisted Lily, Luckyscent, and The Perfumed Court. Get the ones in spray atomizers, which are easier to apply than vials. With a bit of effort, you can smell better than a lemon - you can smell like an interesting lemon.
