Summer Scents in the City

What to Wear When it's Hotter than Hades...

We just don’t DO heat very well, here in the U.K. Especially in urban areas. It silently scuttles up behind you and breathes down your neck like a creepy uncle at a claustrophobic wedding reception. Literally, one week you can be wandering about, teeth chattering, in a jumper and debating putting the bloody heating on again. The next, it’s a sea of pasty flesh rapidly reddening as temperatures (and tempers) soar. Apart from about five ‘Goldilocks’ days a year, nothing is quite right.

This is why we Brits constantly whinge about the weather.

Partly it’s our infrastructure, of course. No air-con in most people’s homes, and public transport is either a scene from Dante’s most hideous nightmares, or simply melts into obsolescence like a chocolate teapot.

[I genuinely once heard this extraordinary announcement at my local train station, explaining all trains were either cancelled or running extremely late that day; “…because the sun is in the wrong place for our drivers’ eyes.” I mean.]

My particular existential crisis is WHAT FRAGRANCE TO WEAR during such ‘cor blimey, it’s a scorcher’ headline weather. A year-round predilection for smoky, resinous-rich ambers and (as

Sali Hughes

once marvellously termed them) “bitchy chypres”, suddenly seems as unwelcome as a mohair onesie.

You might suppose that I hate summer, having read thus far, but you’d be wrong. I just can’t abide that humid, muzzy-headed migraine-triggering mugginess.

So, what perfumes to reach for that, instead, make you feel like you’re wearing a long, quenching drink of ice-cold bubbles, the cool side of the pillow, a bracing sea breeze, or that shady spot in the heart of an ancient forest; yet have more backbone and olfactive oomph about them than a general ‘citrus-y fresh’ Cologne?

(I’ve nothing against traditional Colognes. Indeed, I adore many of them. I just need something with a little bit more get up and go about it to hold me upright, lest I wilt).

Okay. Well here’s what I’ve been wearing on repeat, and if you’re similarly suffering with stuffy days and sleepless nights, THESE all need to be on your must-sniff list, for sure…

Acqua di Parma Mirto Di Panarea La Riserva

I’m overjoyed that Acqua Di Parma have now released intensified versions of a trio of their beloved fragrances from the Blu Mediterranio collection, and genuinely love all three. This, to my nose, is the one that most effectively slices its way through that uncomfortably thick air which hangs heavy like warm, wet velvet and presages a thunderstorm.

Paying homage to the rugged landscape of Panarea's volcanic fields, it’s crisp with cedrat (which smells like a just-zested green lemon) and head-clearing sage-y herbaceous notes. The lavender is peppery, and pops of aromatic juniper berries crown the cool king of the notes: a minty / fruity eucalyptus-esque myrtle. As it dries, an airily sheer patchouli and the sweet, slightly leathery, liquid amber scent of labdanum provide a satisfying, sigh-worthy trail.

£143 for 50ml eau de parfum acquadiparma.com

Eau de Boujee Verdant

I do not overstate matters by saying that the various stages of pandemic lockdown would have been intolerable without this in my life. It only existed at first as a candle - which I lit like an instant walk-in-the-garden ritual anytime I felt the walls closing in around me. Now, to spritz this eau de parfum interpretation feels like flinging the windows wide and letting the wildness of the great outdoors in. Sap-laden and dewy, it conjures images of towering plant life (think Honey I Shrank the Kids), crushed tomato leaves, and the mineralic / petrichor scent of terracotta potted plants having been freshly watered on concrete paving stones. Life-enhancingly great.

From £30 for 7.5ml eau de parfum travel spray eaudeboujee.com