Credit
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Sometime in late May, around the time I replace boots with sandals in my closet, I put away all of my perfumes with notes of incense and amber, tobacco and musk; in their place appear fragrances with coconut and night-blooming flowers.
There’s D.S. & Durga’s Debaser, which was named for a song by the Pixies but smells tropical, with ripe fig and coconut milk, and Olivine Atelier’s Amongst the Waves, which is heavy on gardenia.
And the fragrance that seems to me the most solidly summer, Bronze Goddess from Estée Lauder, smells like sunscreen’s platonic ideal. The name alone makes me feel like Bo Derek rising from the ocean in “10” (minus the cornrows, perhaps).
It was “conceived as an embodiment of summer,” said Karyn Khoury, the senior vice president for corporate fragrance development worldwide at Estée Lauder. “There’s amber at the core for sensuality and warmth. Creamy coconut, sandalwood and vanilla. Mandarin and bergamot for a shimmering sun, and a combination of myrrh and vetiver to represent the sensuality of sun-kissed skin.”
It’s a cult favorite that sells out in three to four weeks from the time it hits the counters, she said.
So what is a summer fragrance beyond a lot of coconut?
For decades, for most women it meant a spritz of something that smelled cool, light and crisp, perhaps reminiscent of citrus or clean laundry. But there is a growing appreciation for over-the-top summer fragrances like mine, ones that would feel inappropriate after Labor Day. In fact, the very notion of a year-round signature scent is fading.
“What we are seeing is that younger consumers are more inclined to a fragrance wardrobe for an event, season or even time of day,” said Brooke Banwart, Sephora’s vice president for fragrance merchandising. “Women used to be known for a signature scent. My grandmother only wore Chanel No. 5. And now, most of the women I know wear a few signature scents.”
The industry has caught on as well. Calvin Klein has summer blends, complete with sunset-inspired packaging, for Eternity (pear, mandarin, watermelon, bamboo leaves) and CK One (watermint, cucumber, moss). And like a vacationer who prefers a mountain hike to a day at the beach, women will find that perfumers are only too ready to offer diverse scent profiles of summer.
Régime des Fleurs’ Nitesurf, with its Day-Glo bottle, has an edge — L.A. noir in perfume form.
“It’s all about Southern California in the summer: neon orange blossoms, surfing Venice Beach with a glow-in-the-dark surfboard,” said Alia Raza, a founder of the company.
Sylvie Ganter, a founder of Atelier Cologne, likes Sud Magnolia, which has a Mediterranean aura that would go well with a nice aperitif and a pair of Chanel espadrilles, with bitter orange from Seville plus some magnolia from Louisiana. She likened it to smelling “like a rose petal dipped in orange marmalade.”
MCMC Fragrances offers Maine, inspired by a trip taken by Anne McClain, the company’s founder, to North Haven in Penobscot Bay. She described the scent as “a dry hay note for grass when it’s so hot it’s almost yellowing, some pine, some seaweed absolute, which is a rare ingredient. The highlight of the fragrance and the day was finding rock roses at the beach.”
The day after Labor Day, I pack it all up. I believe just one sniff of Bronze Goddess during the dark months of standard time would send me spiraling into depression. But I may be in the minority among consumers who want to be transported.
This year, for the first time, Estée Lauder decided to make Bronze Goddess available year round.
“If you think about it,” Ms. Khoury said, “it’s always summer somewhere.”
SOURCE:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/02/fashion/just-for-summer-perfumes.html
