Beauty: Be transported by this summer's loveliest scents
Singularly evocative, perfume can be a passport to a different time and place. Alice Ryan finds fine fragrances to transport you
ROADS Harmattan Parfum, £120 for 50ml, roads.co
Named after the hot Saharan wind which swirls across the desert and out to the West African coast, this beguilingly complex scent is sultry with sun-warmed fruits, flowers, honey, spices and woods. Like all fragrances from ROADS, the Dublin-based brand, it’s genderless and formulated to whisk the wearer away to a foreign land. Wear after dark and/or for acts of seduction. . .
To The Fairest Aubine Eau de Parfum, £85 for 50ml, tothefairest.com
Taking inspiration from “landscapes, literature and love”, Cambridge-born brand To The Fairest is famed for its storytelling scents. Conjuring the dawn of a perfect South-of-France day, sky still hazy with just-heating sun, Aubine layers lush gardenia and frankincense with bright orange blossom. Fiercely feminine, it’s an apt match for its namesake: Aubine, a French girl’s name, means ‘fair’.
Jo Malone London Yellow Hibiscus Cologne, £86 for 50ml, Jo Malone London, Rose Crescent, Cambridge and jomalone.co.uk
The yellow bottle is clue to the sunny nature of this scent, new to Jo Malone London for summer 2024: paying homage to the uplifting beauty of yellow hibiscus blooms, it’s bubbly, outgoing and the ideal travelling companion. Exotic hibiscus and heady rose are sharpened with a generous slice of lime; don’t pack your holiday carry-on without a bottle.
ABEL Laundry Day, £145 for 50ml, Pure Source, Bridge Street, Cambridge and puresourceonline.com
A zesty combination of cut grass, passionfruit, lime and lemony vetiver, the latest scent from ABEL - the New Zealand brand which pioneered 100% natural perfume - evokes that “time of year when windows are flung open to let the outside back in and laundry is once again hung outside”. Bright, breezy and guaranteed to lift spirits, it’s a spring garden bottled.
Lolita Lempicka Le Parfum Eau de Parfum, £85 for 100ml, amazon.co.uk
A glass apple wreathed in golden ivy - adorably, you spritz the scent by depressing its dinky gilt stalk - Lolita Lempicka’s Le Parfum lifts you out of the everyday with its beautiful bottle alone. Released by the French fragrance house in 2021, it’s a fairytale-inspired combination of sugar, spice and all things nice: licorice, violet, musk, cherry, anise, orris root, tonka bean. Also: its staying power is unrivalled.
Miller Harris Celadon Eau de Parfum, £180 for 100ml, millerharris.com
The latest addition to the British brand’s Stories collection, Celadon tells tales of “the Far East under the moonlight”. It’s light and bright - green tomato leaf, herbal mate tea and floral magnolia are the big-hitters - but there’s a seductive warmth to the EDP too, courtesy of cardamom, cedarwood and moss. Pretty without being girlish, it’s pure summer.
L’Occitane Limited Edition Verbena Geranium Eau de Toilette, £60 for 100ml, L’Occitane, Rose Crescent, Cambridge; arc, Bury St Edmunds; and uk.loccitane.com
The lemony fragrance of verbena is synonymous with Provence, where it grows wild along pathways and sells by the bunch on market stalls. A bestseller for the brand since its launch in 1981, L’Occitane’s original Verbena scent has been given a limited edition twist for 2024: pairing the herb’s citrus notes with rosy geranium, it will bring sunshine to even the greyest British summer day.
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Alice Ryan