With Summer finally opening its warm embrace and enveloping all in its sunny golden glow - everyone and everything suddenly seems just seems that little bit better. Boosting our natural sense of well-being these bright sunny days reinvigorate the soul and recharge the body. The dark clothes are packed away and our summer wardrobe back in all its colourful glory.
Complete that summer feel with the perfect summer scent. Let Les Senteurs guide you through our exclusive range of exquisite fragrances ideal for this time of year.
1. Work with the weather
These are the hot humid days when perfume smells richer, fuller and stronger. This is the season when every facet of a fragrance is revealed, unfurling like a flower and enhanced by warm skin. So remember, balance your scent with the atmospheric pressure: work with the weather! And as always, trust your instinct!
2. Make it yours
Everyone associates summer with crisp cool citrus and pale floral scents and for good reason - these always work well. The summer citrus is like your favourite little black dress; invaluable; essential, always to be relied upon. Tom Daxon's Sicilian Wood or Parle Moi De Parfum's Tomboy Neroli nail it every time. But if you're looking for more adventure this summer have you tried layering and thus personalising your fragrances? There's a thoroughly up-to-the-minute bold sea-salt note in Heeley's Note de Yuzu; and there's salt spliced with mint and lemon in Daxon's Laconia. Try adding a spritz of these to the ice-box orange-sorbet quality of Malle's Bigarade Concentre; or to give an extra kick to a pale delicate floral such as Villoresi's Ipoborea! It's creative and exciting! Don't be sweet, be salty!
3. Layers last longer!
Layering is practical, too! Your perfume will simply last much longer. Apply a scented lotion, cream or hair mist in addition to your signature scent and revel in the extra depth and richness. Alternatively, use body products only, for a subtly different perception of your favourite perfume. See the Frederic Malle range for a wide range of sumptuous accessories including hair and body oils.
4. Don't follow the crowd
Dare to be different! Heavy heady perfumes can work wonderfully well on sultry summer evenings, for intense heat re-kindles and reflects the produce and atmosphere of the lands where incense trees flower, oranges glow in the darkness and tuberoses bloom. Amber and ylang ylang can be great under a July moon, as can gardenias, jasmine and magnolias. So can spicy woody fragrances. I adore Sylvaine Delacourte's Virgile for example - vanilla with fragrant dry herbs such as sweet rosemary; or Dusita's Melodie de L'Amour - L'Amour - a great velvet bouquet of tropical flowers. Other examples are: Isabey's Gardenia or Fleur Nocturne or Lys Noir.
Don't get beguiled by stereotyped outmoded assumptions: for instance, once-derided patchouli - now undergoing a perfume renaissance - is wonderfully fresh, reviving and invigorating in the heat. We have some cracking examples on our shelves from Andy Tauer's Patchouli Flash to Villoresi's classic Patchouli eau de toilette. Make a dramatic statement, too, with one of the new fragrances that draw their inspiration from the desert and the wilderness: Les Indemodables' creamy Musc des Sables; or Mona di Orio's recreation of the rose-red rocks of Petra - Santal Nabatea.
5. Go lighter for the summer
Contrary-wise - for nothing in perfume is fixed or certain! - less is often more. As with clothing, so with scent. Whatever type of scent you choose, trying spraying a little less. It can be incredibly effective to merely suggest a delicious fragrance is emanating from you: is it real or a dream? Likewise, choose a lighter summer version of your usual signature - Love in White For Summer maybe or the glittering new Aventus Cologne.
And, mysteriously, the more sparing you are in the application the more your nose and brain will have to chase the scent. Consequently, you will be able to smell it for much longer.
6. Spray your clothes
Natural summer fabrics - cotton, linen, and silk - can be wonderful conductors of fragrance. When the weather is hot try spraying your garments with scent. Do as our forefathers did: wear perfume on fabric, never on the skin! Remember to do a small patch test first - and again, do not douse or soak in scent: a light spritz is perfect! Spray into the air and walk through a haze of perfume.
7. Treat yourself to some permanent holiday mood
For total escapism - when you feel totally out of it with mad-dog-heat - go to our two well-beloved tropical island scents - coconut palms and white sand:- Coccobello by Heeley and Virgin Island Water by Creed. And remember, natural tuberose contains a molecule very reminiscent of coconut - so you can conjure up that island smell with a wacky winner like Heeley's Bubblegum Chic, too! Slightly crazy scents can be great in surreal hot weather...
You might just need the whiff of a cocktail on a sunny terrace - Tudo Azul by Anima Vinci ... - or the smell of sun-baked terracotta tiles splashed by a terraced fountain in Eau d'Italie. Nearer to home, just lie back in a deckchair on the Cornish Riviera relaxing with Heeley's Sel Marin: sea breeze, fresh air and fun!
Still want more? Then pop into Les Senteurs and let us find the perfect summer scent for you.
