Fragrance

Summer Scent Roundup

Our top 10 fragrances for summer transport you to destinations near and far.

As the world rediscovers the joy of travel, we decided to curate our summer sample pack with fragrances that not only are perfect for warmer weather, but also transport us to fascinating destinations around the world.

Whether evoking the coconut, vanilla and wild gardenias of the Seychelles, the coniferous mountain forests of Alberta, the yuzu-studded steam baths of Kyoto or the Victorian violet gardens of the United Kingdom, our picks for summer scents are a gateway to fragrant frontiers near and far, while also serving as the perfect scent pairings for sunny summer fun. 

Hiram Green
VIVACIOUS

Destination: Isle of Wright, United Kingdom

Violet purples. Lime green leaves. Sherbet oranges. Taffy pinks. Inspired by the candy-coloured gardens of the Victorians, for whom the violet was a particular treasure, this all-natural masterpiece swirls and dances with the indescribable, sweet and sour ecstasy of real flowers billowing in symphony on a seaside wind. 

Take a sniff and be transported to the Isle of Wight, an island off the southern coast of England where Queen Victoria built her summer residence, Osborne House. Walk the gorgeously manicured gardens of topiary and peak into the antique greenhouses, where fragrant rows of parma violets still grow.
Meleg
ARASHIYAMA

Destination: Kyoto, Japan

The air is thick with cool humidity as you stroll through the endless rows of a bamboo forest. Clad in wood and stone, a secluded “ryokan” inn beckons with the pleasures of an onsen; a volcanic steam bath of teal grey, misty water teeming with fragrant minerals. 

A remarkable scent illusion: a serene, deeply refreshing trip to the traditional hot springs of Kyoto’s Arashiyama Mountain, where whole yuzu fruit are tossed into the waters for an extra touch of citrus oil festivity. Notes of magnolia, tea and the most delicate cedar incense imaginable immerse you in gentle clouds of invisible steam. 
Monsillage
ROUTE DU QUAI

Destination: Rivière-Ouelle, Quebec

Named from an Algonquin word meaning “where rushes grown on the water’s edge”, the Kamouraska region of Quebec is an idyllic expanse of salt marshes, fishing villages, lush farmland and panoramic sky. Montreal-based perfumer Isabelle Michaud spent the summers of her youth here, and named this perfume after the road that led to her cottage. 

A marine freshness permeates the air, with a breezy blend of wild local herbs and grasses adding a deeply textured sense of place. Abstract facets of transparent flowers add the crucial emotional element: the giddy anticipation of a childhood summer about to begin. 
Vilhelm Parfumerie
BASILICO & FELLINI

Destination: Rome, Italy

 The Italians so closely associated love with basil that, in days gone by, a sprig of the herb placed on a woman’s balcony was a symbolic invitation to her suitor. Years later, the carnivalesque entanglements of Roman romance were bottled, still fizzing, in the films of Federico Fellini, who invited viewers on deeply personal joyrides around his chaotic, glamourous city. 

Smell this pastoral dream sequence pulled direct from a Fellini film. The fruity, leafy enchantment of fresh figs and savoury green basil blends airy innocence and urban sophistication, the rustic scents of the Italian countryside infused with the urgent zest of life in an ancient metropolis.
Imaginary Authors
THE SOFT LAWN

Destination: New Haven, Connecticut

If you’ve ever seen “Gilmore Girls”, you can smell how the verdant combo of quaint Americana, witty banter and upper-class anxiety turns the minutiae of small-town life into an endless epic. People in this part of the world seem to live submerged in oceans of power, history and tweed, determined to carve out their own slice of destiny. 

A trip to picturesque New Haven, an affluent city on Long Island Sound which brims with the seaside charms of New England and plays host to Yale University, is an invitation into this forbidden world. Smell the tart linden blossoms and ivy-covered stone as you walk between museums, as locals exude crisp vetiver and the mossy scent of the tennis court. 
Libertine Fragrance
SOFT WOODS

Destination: Jasper, Alberta

In Jasper National Park, the terrain is a soaring architecture of geology and light. Framed by simulation-perfect mountains patterned in abstract colour-fields of “wilderness”, each sun-dappled valley and canyon seems to contain more air than should fit between the water and the sky.

From this textural network of plant life and landscape: the smell of the subalpine forest in summer. Alberta perfumer Josh Smith magically transcribes it, with impressionistic touches of luminous rose to capture all that light, spirit, and spatial complexity. A chorus of juniper, balsam fir, and the trillion-fold factories of plant oil carpeting the so-called “Hall of the Gods”.
Gallivant
LOS ANGELES

Destination: Los Angeles, California

Like almost any massive city, Los Angeles is an electric clash of energies; of histories exalted and forgotten. Smell the hypnotic sheen of Hollywood, gleaming in the glow of vintage neon and sepia California sunlight; wild Pacific coastlines studded with aromatic sagebrush; desert-dwelling New Age millionaires shrouded in pacifying incense. 

Then there are the fragrant outposts of more enduring cultures that have collected in this place: Mexican neighbourhoods perfumed by garlands of intoxicating tuberose, honeyed narcissus and skewers of juicy pineapple. The soul of Los Angeles is a smooth and carefree cocktail, breezy and addictive. 
Heeley
COCCOBELLO

Destination: La Digue, Seychelles

A little archipelago scattered across the Indian Ocean, the Seychelles were seemingly tailor-made for maximum island beachiness. The famous beaches of La Digue island, like Anse Source-D’Argent, are flanked by undulating rock formations eroded into waveforms that mimic the cyan sea, and punctuated with palm tree exclamation marks. 

After brunch at the resort, you might take a trip to the L’Union Estate vanilla farm, before hiking past bushes of the rare and highly fragrant Wright’s Gardenia on your way to lounge lazily in the coconut-studded sand. One sniff of this cheeky cocktail brings all these heady, creamy, cartoon-coloured beach vibes sailing in on a warming breeze.
Goldfield & Banks
VELVET SPLENDOUR

Destination: Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, South Australia

For one thing, there’s the slang. We all know at least one nugget of endearing Aussie shorthand, playfully reinforcing its status as a quirky upside-down-land at the bottom of the earth. And so encountering a flower with a name like a TV puppet, we are disarmed, unprepared for the sultry, summery, cinematic plushness of the scent of the Wattle Flower. 

A type of mimosa, they grow wild on Flinders Ranges, a rugged, sweeping mountain range in South Australia. Delicate yellow clouds, they’re softly powdery and almost sweet, the blossom-y aroma polished into freshness by the raging sun. How Australian they are: innocent puffs of joy thriving on the knife-edge of a wild and unknown world. 
Tauer
COLOGNE DU MAGHREB

Destination: Tangier, Morocco

Created in Germany in 1709 by an Italian perfumer inspired by the citrus groves of his homeland, the original “eau de cologne” began as a poetic intersection of place. Perfect for applying after a cold shower before venturing into the summer heat, these feather-light formulations suspend botanical beauty in fleeting waves on the skin.  

Centuries later, a Swiss perfumer uses the frame of a “cologne” to capture the warm glow of a Tangier sunrise, merging European and North African influences as the city does itself. A seamless blend of aromatics, 100% natural, pools like liquid sunshine: citrus oil flowing over bundles of aromatic herbs on a rocky landscape of cedar, vetiver and blooming Moroccan flowers.

FRAGRANT DESTINATIONS | Summer Sample Pack

Try our 10-scent itinerary and embark on a journey of fragrant discovery. Features 0.7ml samples of our top 10 scents for summer.

Seahorse from Zoologist launches at Etiket!
Fragrance

Zoologist’s New Fragrance Takes Us Under the Sea

Zoologist's new fragrance has landed at Etiket. It's an inspired voyage below the ocean surface. Let's dive in...

If you’ve never encountered the fragrances of Toronto-based Zoologist, you’re in for a wild ride. Each extrait de parfum is inspired by a different animal, invoking its personality and even, in the case of Hyrax, actual (humanely harvested) aromatics from the titular creature. But no animal, humans included, exists in isolation. They’re but one part of the web of flora and fauna which collaborate on the unknowable art project that is their respective habitat. This is why, at least to me, Zoologist perfumes aren’t really about animals as much as the scent of wild landscapes. Panda evokes a misty bamboo forest; Chameleon a tropical island fantasy. Now, with their newest scent, Zoologist turns its attention to a world under the sea. 

When Pixar was developing “Finding Nemo”, the production team took scuba lessons to learn more about the look and feel of being underwater. They soon realized that even the clearest, cleanest water is filled with textures; little floating organisms, plant matter, bits of coral and sand floating by, glittering in the shafts of wobbly sunlight. Hours of painstaking animation ensued to add multitudinous sea stuff to each shot. This proved to be the elusive ingredient in making the underwater world feel real. 

Zoologist’s new fragrance Seahorse is filled to the brim with “Finding Nemo” textures. You can smell the colours of a richly animated oceanic ecosystem, pulsating like a garden of algae and alien wildflowers. Blue orange blossoms sway in the airless breeze, tides sluice around glossy grass, and all sound goes underwater quiet. In fact, in my opinion, this stillness is key to the uniqueness of this fragrance. Many aquatic scents take the constant churning motion of waves as inspiration, evoking sea spray on the shore where humans can greedily inhale its vapour. But there is something more serene and grounded about Seahorse — still playful but meditative, lapping instead of crashing, like touring the palatial gardens of an undersea empire. This scent doesn’t just take you to an oceanside view, it invites you to be fully submerged.

On the skin, the scent can feel like bioluminescence, the green notes waxing and waning, a foamy floral warmth anchoring all that freshness. Transparent tuberose adds touches of neon coral, and vetiver and ambergris conjure a sheer vegetal earthiness, evoking the sandy sea floor at the base of everything. Those for whom aquatic scents are solely for the heat of summer, take note: the lifelike nature photography in this scent gives it enough depth to wear all year round. If each Zoologist scent is conceived as a voyage into an unknown world of unspoiled nature, Seahorse might be one of their most fully realized. It’s a transportive fragrance, thrillingly foreign and, perhaps from the films of our childhoods, also strangely familiar.

Can Perfumes Have Textures?
Fragrance

Can Perfumes Have Textures?

When speaking about perfume, we often use words borrowed from other senses. To me, an important sense to invoke in our understanding of perfume is touch. Obviously, smells don’t have physical textures or temperatures. But thinking about the tactile qualities of a perfume can be a gateway to their emotional heart.

When speaking about perfume, we often use words borrowed from other senses. Ingredients become “notes”, like ones you might play on a piano (which is why a perfumer’s desk is referred to as an “organ”). A fragrance can be too “light” for us, and while it’s sometimes unclear whether we’re describing physical weight or colour, our noses can’t truly perceive either. Scent is steeped in sensory metaphor.

To me, an important sense to invoke in our understanding of perfume is touch. Obviously, smells don’t have physical textures or temperatures. But thinking about the tactile qualities of a perfume can be a gateway to their emotional heart. 

Perfumers thinking texturally has led to breakthroughs in the world of fragrance. It often requires a metaphoric leap in the mind of each nose; if one forgets about what an ingredient actually is, what might it make you think of? Perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena uses a signature green tea effect to create a luminous quality, like transparent flowing water, which made hits of fragrances like Bvlgari’s Thé Vert and Hermes’ Un Jardin en Méditerranée (you can sample his work at Etiket in Dia Woman and L’Eau D’Ambre Extrême). Similarly, Olivia Giacobetti pioneered the use of fig and other fresh effects to make fragrances that seem airy and subtly cool to the touch, as she does in Premier Figuier and Passage D’Enfer

On the other side of the spectrum, perfumer Sophia Grojsman’s work often feels fuzzy and thick because of her trademark “hug me accord”: an abstract blend of synthetic jasmine, violet, musk and cedar molecules which makes her fragrances seem cozy and warm (like in Lancome’s classic Tresor). And Andy Tauer has created a rabid cult following with his unapologetic waves of hot spice, which add a dry crackling heat to scents like L’Air du Désert Marocain and Cologne du Maghreb. Composed with care, a perfume can imply closeness or distance; glass, cloth, paper, powder or liquid; warm or cool; movement or stillness. 

The fragrances of Maison Crivelli make brilliant use of texture, and they do so in a modern way. Many of them have what I call a “holographic” texture: lifelike, shimmery, and light-reflecting. Creating fragrances with this effect allows the rich amber notes of Lys Sølaberg to feel approachable and relaxed. It allows bold ingredients like woods and spices to seem almost weightless in Santal Volcanique and Bois Datchaï. And it gives rose, which can smell surprisingly thick, even jammy in isolation, a new, breezy lifein Rose Saltifolia, as if the scent were dancing across your perception on a seaside summer wind.

Maison Crivelli fragrances also use textural elements to evoke extremes of temperature, which form surprising contrasts with classic ingredients. A sparkling, icy freshness makes the lavender, juniper and musk in Absinthe Boréale seem enrobed in a delicate frost. The juicy heat of chili and the earthy depth of vetiver makes the orange and bergamot inside Citrus Batikanga sizzle in the bustling heat of a tropical market. 

If all this sounds a bit far-fetched, like those sommeliers who tell you you must be able to taste butter in your chardonnay, don’t worry. The ultimate truism of fragrance is that all scent is subjective. But asking yourself which textures, colours or temperatures you sense when you smell a perfume, regardless of what you come up with, can help make sense of a fragrance’s energy, which will, in turn, hint at what it might feel like to wear it. For example, while everybody’s skin is different, a cool, airy or watery fragrance might leave a more casual impression on your skin than something dark, syrupy, sandy or hot. 

Finally, looking for textures is a way to rediscover ingredients or scent families you thought you knew. If you love earthy and smoky notes, but you can’t imagine wearing them to the office, you could step away from the hottest, driest Tauer scents, for example, and towards a more liquid and transparent scent like Smoke Show. If light floral perfumes often feel aggressive and headache-inducing, but you love the scent of real flowers, you could try finding scents that are less cool, bright and sharp and more velvety and warm. And if you thought you hated powdery fragrances because they always feel too “classic”, meet Crivelli’s Papyrus Moléculaire or Iris Malikhan, which both take the concept of powder in richer, darker, edgier, and more contemporary directions. 

David, Director of Fragrance at Etiket

Stay in the Know
Sign up for our newsletter and enjoy 10% off your first purchase from the Etiket Shop
Stay in the Know
Sign up for our newsletter and enjoy 10% off your first purchase from the Etiket Shop
Gardons le contact!
Inscrivez-vous à l'infolettre d'Etiket et obtenez 10% sur votre premier achat sur Etiket.ca.
Gardons le contact!
Inscrivez-vous à l'infolettre d'Etiket et obtenez 10% sur votre premier achat sur Etiket.ca.