20 Best Perfumes to Wear Summer 2023

Like the floating bloom that inspired it, Jo Malone Waterlily has a dewy, aquatic quality that makes it seem weightless, even while a wash of musk makes it feel like a second skin. The perfect sheer floral for a hot summer day.

Grapefruit and ginger notes make for a bright olfactive surprise, like the flash of gold in a tiger’s eye gemstone (which inspired both the fragrance and the bottle-top design). Citrusy, spicy, and woody, Tygar is a scent that will get you noticed for all the right reasons.

Orange flower lovers, this one’s for you. Sparkling
Tunisian orange blossom is heightened by a dash of bright green Lebanese neroli and fresh Italian bergamot. As transportive and uplifting as walking through the midst of a blooming orange tree grove.

Go on, spritz a flower shop on your wrist. This bouquet of tuberose petals with Italian bergamot, golden gardenia, honeysuckle and jasmine is as sweet and joyful as its bold pink bottle.

The Queen is dead; long live the Queen. Remember Her Majesty with this gorgeous scent, created by British heritage house Floris for Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee and inspired by the flowers blooming in the royal gardens. Don’t expect prim and dainty, though—like the regent herself, this is both stealthily strong and surprisingly modern, with notes of earthy orris, green violet leaf, and comforting black tea.

Another sensational orris-forward fragrance that’s still airy enough to wear in high summer, Santa Maria Novella’s L’Iris is a magnificent, powdery-but-radiant homage to the iconic Florentine flower.

A geranium leaf crushed in your fingers gives off a smell unlike any other—simultaneously zingy, herbaceous, green, floral, and earthy. Modeled specifically after the scent of pelargonium tomentosum (a minty variety), Sisley’s L’Eau Revee d’Hubert captures this garden-fresh aroma perfectly, while also rendering it—with painterly accents of cedar and patchouli—effortlessly wearable.

Sunshine in a bottle. This citrusy new riff on Aerin’s wildly popular (and rightly so) Mediterranean Honeysuckle is about as fresh and summer-vacation-ready as it gets.

Arizona Bloom is true solar scent, whisking you into the gleaming sunbeams of open, blue-sky desert with a single spritz. With coconut, fig, musks, and wood, this is a shape-shifting, can’t-put-your-finger-on-it fragrance for the free-spirited. And who wouldn’t want this bottle?

A perfume based on a perfumed sunscreen? It’s all a bit meta, but suffice to say that the scent devised by Arquiste founder Carlos Huber and perfumer Rodrigo Flores-Roux for Vacation is basically every happy memory of days spent by the pool you’ve ever had, captured in a spritz. Think: floating around on an inflatable lounge chair, sipping a pina colada, the sun on your (SPF-protected) face.

So radiant you can practically see it shimmer. A sheer veil of citrus, magnolia and waterlily, with a dreamy marine accord drydown, this is a gorgeous, easy, go-anywhere spritz.

You think you don’t want to smell like paper? Yes, you do. Especially as imagined by Diptyque, with notes of nutty sesame and rice giving way to a lovely floral wash of honeyed mimosa softened with musk.

Inspired by the Korean word jambi, which means an unexpected cloudburst that allows harvesters to have a moment of rest, this lovely scent evokes the fleeting freshness of raindrops on flowers and green leaves.

Hot girl summer? It starts here. This sensual swirl of orange blossom, honey, vanilla and incense is sweet, warm, and seriously addictive.

Take a trip to Calabria without flashing your passport. Vivid neroli is wrapped in a juicy fig accord and smoothed out with warm vetiver and Tonka bean. This is one you will definitely be stealing from your partner, and vice versa.

Summering in the city? This will break the heat. The latest from Baccarat Rouge creator Francis Kurkdjian is like sunrise reflecting off of a metal-and-glass skyscraper—airy, modern, and bright.

Close your eyes and dream of Bali, immersed in the scent of coconut, tropical tiare blossom, and salted musk. Bonus: this natural coconut extraction, mixed with baobab oil, melts into skin and leaves it feeling silky and hydrated (in addition to smelling amazing).