Summer Perfume

It's that time of year. The time of grilling, mosquitoes and mosquito bites, bees and most of all hot weather. That muggy type of hot, that insufferable type of hot. I got to thinking about perfumes that can work when the heat is insufferable.

A few of my picks are from the Commes des Garcones incense line, specifically Kyoto and Zagorsk. Summer heats doesn't make anything really stick around all that much, maybe 3 or 4 hours at best. Kyoto and Zagorsk are not heavy perfumes and in heat, they are great. Dry but not bone dry, airy but not really. They just seem to work in summer.

Another favorite in summer in Chanel no 19 in EDT form. It's bitey, it's light, slightly bitter but it works in summer. The extrait and EDP don't do the trick in summer, early spring, maybe but not summer. The extrait and EDP just get annoying and seem to be too much in summer. Worth Courtesan is another good one to. It's cheerful, relativity cheap and it's fun. That slightly sweaty pineapple and the barest hint of musk make it a wonderful perfume for the summer.

The last perfume that seems to suit in my collection is En Passant. The lilac, cucumber, wheat and the watery aspect just work in heat, if you use a light hand. Spray with a heavy hand, it might not work.

Frederic Malle's En Passant Review

Did you have one of those times where you want to try something in your unsniffed and unreviewed pile that you hoped where it wouldn't be all that hard to figure out? I was there a couple days ago and I did grab En Passant.

En Passant has been floating around in perfume land since 2000 and I've been a perfume nut since 2007/2008. I am wondering on how En Passant kept falling off my radar. I think that I was wrapped up in smelling other things.

En Passant starts with a huge blast of lilac. I have to do a double take in the beginning because En Passant is very much like the lilac room spray that I had gotten at Bath and Body Works. But the lilac is not as harsh as the lilac room spray. After about 10 to 15 minutes later, the lilac calms down but the lilac is dominant from start to finish. There is a wheat note that I do smell an hour afterwards, I kind of like the wheat bit because it off sets the lilac a little bit and seems to give the whole perfume some kind of anchor. I did notice that En Passant does have a watery element but I think that it keeps the lilac from being overwhelming and the wheat from being yeasty. If you have ever smelled fresh baked bread with too much yeast or bread that spent too much time rising, it gets a really yeasty unappetizing sort of smell to it. I like En Passant very much but I would probably only be wearing my decant in the spring time so right now a full bottle is out.