For many of us, the scent of summer can be defined as the smell of suncream slathered over warm and salty, ocean-sprayed skin. These nine fragrances capture that radiant, beachy aroma perfectly and are ideal on hot, sticky days when you just want to smell like the sun, not an obvious perfume.
After all, when summer rolls around, it's only natural that we want to adjust our beauty arsenal slightly. Whether that's by swapping our full-coverage formulas for lighter foundations with SPF, and our best long-lasting perfumes for those that better reflect the balmy weather. Fruity perfumes are, of course, a classic choice, but for us, our most precious summer memories tend to be accompanied by that creamy, often coconutty, waft of sunscreen.
So, if you want to envelop yourself in that same nostalgic scent year-round, or are looking for something lightweight to accompany you on holiday, these perfumes smell exactly like suncream and will whisk you away to sunnier scenes with just one sniff.
These 9 perfumes smell like suncream but far more luxe
When the summer months arrive, we find ourselves reaching less and less for our stronger, headier scents. Instead, it's solar perfumes we crave, with their musky, sweet and slightly aldehydic notes, and these nine, in particular, smell incredibly reminiscent of freshly applied SPF on sun-warmed skin...
Writer's pick Floral Street Arizona Bloom Eau de Parfum 50ml
RRP: from £29 for 10ml | Notes: Balinese Coconut, Madagascan Black Pepper, oak moss and salted musks
This is by far one of the most deliciously summery scents we've ever smelled. It's delicately sweet and creamy, thanks to the coconut note, but there's also a musky, salty quality that makes it sparkle and emanate warmth. Once sprayed, it melts into the skin and makes you smell as though you've been at the beach all day, in and out of the sea, having just topped up your sun cream.
RRP: from £100 for 50ml | Notes: Sandalwood, jasmine lactone and vanilla
Warm, creamy and skin-like, Sunny Side Up is another fragrance that manages to capture that sun-warmed sun cream quality. It's milky, musky and slightly floral, with sweet hints of vanilla and more complex hints of ambrette, salicylate and iso E super.
RRP: from £53 for 30ml | Notes: Almond milk accord, solar lilac accord and musk
If you love a milk perfume, but want one with a sunny twist, this is the Issey Miyake blend for you. It's beautifully warm and musky, opening with a fresh splash of almond milk, followed by a solar lilac accord. It's airy and powdery, almost like clean laundry bathed in sunlight and billowing gently in the breeze - an ideal pick for those who prefer to smell clean, as opposed to overtly perfume-y.
Nostalgic NIVEA Sun Eau de Toilette
RRP: £29.97 for 30ml | Notes: green, solar and powdery notes
If you're looking for an authentically sun-creamy scent, NIVEA's aptly named Sun eau de toilette is the perfect choice. After all, it was designed to smell like the brand's iconic sun cream range, with its blend of fresh and powdery solar and floral notes. Even the bottle itself feels perfectly summery and ideal for taking on the go with you or packing in your vacation luggage.
Sweet & creamy Estée Lauder Bronze Goddess Eau Fraîche Skinscent
RRP: from £58 for 50ml | Notes: Amber, coconut milk, sandalwood, vanilla, vetiver, myrrh, mandarin, Sicilian Bergamot, lemon, Tiare Flower, jasmine and lavender
If you're a lover of both sweet and fruity fragrances, Bronze Goddess needs to be on your radar. It's creamy and warm, with sparkling hints of lemon and mandarin, though its vanilla, coconut and musky amber notes are what shine through and give this fragrance its 'skin-like' appeal. It's a cult-favourite summer perfume for a reason.
Most affordable Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa 62 Perfume Mist
RRP: from £24 for 90ml | Notes: Pistachio, almond, heliotrope, jasmine petals, vanilla, salted caramel and sandalwood.
Touted as one of the best Sol de Janeiro perfumes and best budget perfumes, in general, Cheriosa 62 is a lovely, versatile option for gourmand and vanilla perfume fans. It's warm, creamy and delightfully decadent and can be as easily layered as it can be worn on its own. It also doubles as a hair mist, for days when you want a more gentle, summery scent.
Radiant & juicy Phlur Golden Rule Eau de Parfum
RRP: £99 for 50ml | Notes: Mandarin, pink pepper, vanilla cream, coconut milk, orange flowers and jasmine
This Phlur perfume, like Floral Street's Arizona Bloom, really nails that sun-bathed, sun cream-covered skin smell that we all attribute to the height of summer. This blend features more of a citrusy edge, though, thanks to its mandarin opening note, which feels initially very fresh, but there's also a skin-like, almost-sweaty quality (but in a really good way, we promise!) that makes it very alluring and beachy.
Salty, sunny & musky Maison Margiela Replica Beach Walk Eau de Toilette
RRP: £60 for 30ml | Notes: Pink pepper, lemon, ylang ylang, coconut milk, heliotrope, musks, cedarwood and benzoin
A bestseller among Maison Margiela's Replica perfume collection, Beach Walk smells exactly like you'd want it to. It's creamy, salty and delicately floral but with that warm and musky base that clings and melts into your skin, making it smell like you...on a beach walk. Like Golden Rule, we would say this has that slightly sweaty (yes, still in a good way), sun cream quality - as if the cream has soaked into your skin and mingled with traces of sea salt and your natural musk. It's versatile, unisex and beautifully lightweight, so it's a great crowd-pleaser.
RRP: £125 for 75ml | Notes: Mandarin, pink and black pepper, pistachio, iris, carrot, tonka, frankincense and amber
Granado's perfumes boast a range of chic and complex scents, but for Digital Beauty Writer Naomi Jamieson, Tropicália always gets her vote: "This scent somehow manages to be both familiar and unusual all at once. From first sniff, you're greeted with a hint of saltiness, followed by that coveted creamy sweetness, by way of notes like pistachio, tonka and amber - but then, that gives way to something slightly more nuanced. You get powdery iris, carrot and hints of spice, which makes this scent a lovely and slightly niche summer signature."
What notes create that suncream-y scent?
Often, body suncreams will boast a very smooth, lactonic sort of scent (that matches their consistency), along with notes of coconut and vanilla. So, if you're looking for a summery perfume, we would start there.
Floral notes, like jasmine, orange blossom and lavender, are also present in many of the aforementioned perfumes, and deliver that fresh, powdery quality. A certain sense of warmth is also key, so yes, look for vanilla notes but also woods like sandalwood and spicier notes like pink and black pepper.
Many of our favourite summer scents also feature salt or aquatic accords, so even if you're not a lover of very gourmand or floral fragrances, you can still achieve that 'sun-warmed skin' sort of effect with a musky or salty number.
