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5 perfumes: (great) new wave summer colognes

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grapefruits

Earlier this week I talked about old school summer colognes. Today’s focus: the modern equivalent. These fragrances aren’t classic Eau de Colognes, but they function in much the same way: they’re light, they’re citrus-y, they’re refreshing in the worst dog days of summer. Bonus: some of the newer models last a bit longer on skin than the classics.

I’ve listed my picks in order of release date. Do add your own picks in the comments!

Guerlain Mandarine Basilic ~ From 2007, this lovely sparkling orange with plenty of herbal bite is the oldest fragrance on today’s list…

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Top 10 Summer Fragrances 2015

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Japanese Garden, Portland

Instead of returning to my weary perfume cabinet for a rundown of summer favorites (I already hear longtime readers thinking, Is she going to bring up that blasted bottle of Jean Naté in her refrigerator again? Yawn), this year I got smart. I asked André Gooren from Portland’s fabled The Perfume House to share ten of his summer favorites.

André was up to the challenge. During a Saturday morning, between helping a bearded Australian opera singer (Caron Nocturnes, two bottles), a charming older woman (4711), a Romanian couple (Robert Piguet Jeunesse), and a booming-voiced regular (Pino Sylvestre and Comme des Garçons Avignon), he laid out ten sophisticated and sometimes quirky choices…

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Summer is the time

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Sanders, meanwhile, is of the mind that the best summer perfume should be casual. “It makes sense,” she says. “Do you really wear your most serious clothing in summer? Summer is the time to take Fridays off, stay up late and wear cheap sandals. Summer perfumes reflect that feeling.”

— Our own Angie, quoted in How to wear perfume in summer: what to cherish, what to avoid and why at The Guardian. Columnist Sady Doyle also talked to Victoria of Bois de Jasmin and Alyssa Harad of Coming to My Senses.

Parfums de Nicolai L’Eau Corail ~ fragrance review

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Parfums de Nicolaï L’Eau Corail

Longtime fans of French niche line Parfums de Nicolaï know she generally does a new Eau Fraîche most summers, and some of you may remember her two mango entries: Eau Exotique (2005) and Eau Turquoise (2008). I think most people preferred Turquoise, but I preferred Exotique, and that is the one I own. In a reversal of the usual trajectory with older perfumes, the top notes have improved with age but the base has gone a bit off. If it was still for sale, I’d replace it in a heartbeat — it had all the sparkle that’s missing from most modern summer limited editions, which tend to smell fresh but flat.

L’Eau Corail, the latest in the series, returns to the subject of mango…

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