Life

Making scents of summer

From your perfume, to products that scent your skin and hair, summer scents should be fun, fresh and fruity, writes Katrina Doran

Fun

PERFUMES formulated for summer tend to be lighter and fresher, perfect for summer heat and humidity. Vivienne Westwood's limited-edition Flirty Alice (£45 for 75ml) is a great scent for this time of year. The design of the bottle itself is always important with perfume as it sits on your dressing table. This one is pale purple with a gold top, a modern take on a vintage perfume-bottle style. Created to unveil a new side to 'Alice's' personality - playful, mischievous and seductive - Flirty Alice will especially appeal to redheads as it has a red head as its character, albeit just a cute cartoon. On first sniff this fragrance really does have a flirty feel to it - top notes of citrus and bergamot balanced with a fresh hint of green tea. The heart of this scent is utterly feminine and sweet, with rose buds topped with vanilla and blonde woods as the base.

Fresh

Roberto Cavalli Acqua (£48 for 50ml) is a sensational summer scent. If you love a fragrance that is a bit different to typical feminine scents then you'll love this. The best way to describe this perfume is to say that if the colour cerulean blue had a smell, this is what it would smell like. It has quite a masculine edge as it does smell a little like Davidoff Cool Water but with a definite feminine edge.

Super-fresh, this is the perfume to wear when you're on holiday and you need something refreshing to cool you down. The bottle is simply stunning - turquoise glass with elaborate gold-coloured features, the Roberto Cavalli logo and a cute trim of animal print. Acqua was created to be a fresher, more luminous version of the original Roberto Cavalli eau de Parfum. Top notes include aquatic jasmine and a citrus feel from lily of the valley and orange flower. The base note of musk leaves a sexy scent on the skin.

Fruity

Shiseisdo are famed for their skincare products but they also produce some stunning scents. Their summer launch Shiseido Zen Sun (£59 for 100ml) is a limited-edition Eau De Toilette which has been created by Master Perfumer Michel Almairac. The fragrance pitches itself as an invitation

to experience the radiance of the sun. The bottle is chunky glass with a cherry-blossom-pink ombre tone filtering down the glass bottle. Very simple shape but super-pretty colour, giving an ultra modern feel. The top notes are citrusy bergamot essence blended with mango for a pop of sunny tropical fruit. Heart notes include delicate and dewy floral with a base note of solar must for a warm skin scent. The limited edition comes with a free luxury Zen Sun soap.

Let your beauty blossom

If you're not a fan of spritzing yourself with fragrance but like to scent your skin in a more subtle way, Field of Flowers by Philosophy is a gorgeous option. Multi-use as a shampoo or shower gel in Wildflower Blossom or Waterlily Blossom (£14 480ml), this concentrated product doesn't foam up on the skin like typical shower gels but the scented gel gently cleanses skin and hair while leaving a subtle scent.