It’s still officially summer, but – dare we say it? – there feels like a an autumnal touch to the air of late. Some may sigh and bemoan the lack of a proper summer, but really, when was the British summer ever a given? We say: grab some of these scents to try, and make the most of what’s left – they beautifully bridge the seasons, and provide sunlit warmth while welcoming an olfactory change…
Molton Brown Sunlit Clementine & Vetiver
Celebrating lazy, hazy days of endless summer (we wish!), Molton Brown sets the perfume bar high, yet again proving that fresh and citrussy needn’t be a fleeting, linear experience. Perfumer Julie Massé brings a long-lasting smile of sunshine with sophisticated, lightly smoky vetiver in the base – patches of dabbled shade offering a hint of mellow woodland leaves in a breeze. Creamy fig leaf and the delicious drift of roasted hazelnut add to the so-chic trail. Feel-better, bottled!
£140 for 100ml eau de parfum moltonbrown.co.uk
Ormonde Jayne Vanille Afrique Intensivo
Oh yes, it’s a vanilla – being filled to maximum strength with a superbly smooth Madagascan vanilla absolute – but the orris butter entwines so well with the aphrodisiac qualities it becomes a scent to enrapture with ‘…a level of comfort and quiet contemplation,’ they say. Spray this when you need to remember to love yourself, to entice the senses of all who come near, and to dream of balmy summer sunsets and billowing breezes.
£295 for 88ml parfum ormondejayne.com
Thameen Chords
Two cultural inspirations reverberate through this celebratory scent: British-German composer Handel’s London residency at 25 Brook Street (did you know?) and the gloriously swelling score used for the 1975 (rambunctious, 18thC-set) film, Barry Lyndon. Picture whispers and scandals within wood-panelled rooms, the soft spread of candlelight illuminating honey-drizzled, summer-plucked orange blossom with the flickering brightness of neroli. Meanwhile, plumes of tobacco smoke hazily settle on everything within Nathalie Lorson’s virtuoso performance. A welcome bridge between scented seasons, we feel. Encore!
£250 for 100ml Cologne elixir selfridges.com
Sarah Baker Peach’s Revenge
This ain’t no innocent prissy summer peach perfume, that’s for sure. Describing it as a ‘Viciously juicy peach for Renaissance power plays,’ perfumer Chris Maurice leans into the ripe summer fruitiness, which veritably drips deception, being laced with amaretto and hiding a sizzle of ginger and cinnamon in the flesh. Imagining ‘A handsome villain [strutting] out of the orchard trumpeting an exuberance of salacious fruit,’ the creamy caramel builds a delicious throb of anticipation.
£145 for 50ml extrait de parfum sarahbakerperfumes.com
Maison Crivelli Tubéreuse Astrale
Developed in collaboration with perfumer Quentin Bisch, this is tuberose, but not a summer white floral as we know it. For any of you naysayers who steer away from the heady bloom lest is screeches: relax. Inspired as this is by breathing in the scent of tuberoses while gazing in rapture at the night sky; expect tingling twinkles of cinnamon atop this creamy, dreamy white floral; all nuzzled in the most softly draped peach-y osmanthus leather. Perfect for summer star-gazers and rapturous reveries of warmer days through to autumn.
£205 for 50ml extrait harveynichols.com
Written by Suzy Nightingale