Does a fragrance have a season?

People say there are summer fragrances and winter fragrances. The rule is true, but it is not a rule about fragrances. It is a rule about temperature.

A fragrance does not change formula in July. What changes is the speed at which it leaves your skin — and that speed is enough to turn an enveloping fragrance into an invasive one.

What does heat do to a fragrance?

It speeds up evaporation. A liquid turns to vapour faster the warmer it is, and fragrance does not escape that law. The consequence has two sides, and generally only one is remembered.

First side: the fragrance lasts less long. What was going to evaporate in eight hours evaporates in four.

Second side, the forgotten one: at every instant, more of it leaves. The same spray releases more material into the air at 32 °C than at 15 °C. A fragrance that felt right to you in December becomes too much in July, without a single molecule having changed.

Why does citrus collapse in summer?

Because it is already made of the lightest molecules in the composition. Citrus notes — lemon, bergamot, grapefruit, orange — occupy the top notes precisely because they evaporate fast. Heat only accentuates a movement already under way.

A citrus on its own, in full sun, therefore lasts very little. That is why successful summer fragrances are almost never citrus alone: they place the brightness on top, then anchor it on a heavier material. Nice Bergamote by Essential Parfums, composed by Antoine Maisondieu, closes its Calabrian bergamot on a Haitian vetiver. The vetiver does not refresh: it holds.

Why do ambers smother in summer?

For the opposite reason. An amber is built on heavy materials — resins, balsams, vanillas, musks — whose slow evaporation is the whole of its quality in winter. Wear the same bottle at 32 °C and that slowness becomes a sustained flow that never lets up.

The fragrance has not become bad. It has become too present for the situation. The difference matters, because it points to the solution: reduce the dose before changing fragrance.

Does the rule have exceptions?

It is full of them, and our own product pages show it.

Of the 201 fragrances in the catalogue, all thirteen citrus fragrances are recommended for spring or summer — twelve explicitly, the thirteenth for all seasons. Of the 101 ambers, 88 are recommended for winter. The trend is clear. (Survey of 30 August 2026.)

Then come the cases that contradict it, and they are instructive.

• Van Sea by Lorenzo Pazzaglia is a gourmand amber, and its page recommends summer only. Marine notes, Madagascar vanilla, sandalwood: the saline note keeps the amber in check and stops it thickening.
• Lemon Tart by Theodoros Kalotinis is a citrus, and its page recommends all four seasons. The lemon zest is set on a vanilla cream and a shortcrust pastry, which stop it collapsing.
• Sun Gria, by the same perfumer, is an extrait — the most concentrated term — recommended for summer alone. Blood orange, black tea, Madagascar vanilla.

What those three have in common: it is not the olfactory family that decides the season, it is the construction. An amber held by salt is worn in July. A citrus anchored on a creamy base gets through December.

Should you wear fragrance before going out in the sun?

No, and this recommendation is not a matter of comfort.

Some expressed citrus oils contain furocoumarins, among them bergapten, which are photosensitising. The trade has framed their use for a long time: the IFRA standard on citrus oils limits bergapten concentration to 15 ppm in leave-on products, and a recommendation on bergamot essence has existed since 1974 for sun-exposed areas. Perfumers also have essences stripped of these compounds.

A fragrance sold today therefore respects those limits. The common-sense rule holds all the same: spray on clothing, in the hair, or on a covered area, rather than on a neckline that is going to spend the afternoon in the sun.

So do you need one fragrance per season?

Not necessarily. The question to ask is not “is this a summer fragrance” but “at what dose is this fragrance right today”. Two sprays of an amber in August are often worth more than one more purchase.

The season shown on our pages is a wearing recommendation, established from the composition. It gives you a direction. Your thermometer and the people around you decide.

— BH