The Best Summery Fragrances: Live in the City, But Smell Like The Beach

I don't live here, but I smell like I do

Starting around April, I start wanting to smell like I should be in the above picture.  I live in the city, but I want to smell like the beach.  Bond No. 9 has made a whole business out of fragrances that smell like New York City neighborhoods and streets, but no thanks.  I want to trade in the scents of icy winter streets in New York City with a breeze of coconut, neroli, lime, salt or Coppertone.

I don't want to smell like the streets of New York City

Here's my summer arsenal of frags, which is constantly growing.  I wear them alone or layered and each one is tied to the beach on one way or another.  My husband enjoys them all, too.  He just got Beach Walk for me and I am in love with it.  It's become one of my beach babies in the month that I've owned it.

Here are the ultimate summery beachy scents for men and women, including notes and prices and where to buy.  From left to right...

• Bobbi Brown Beach: This really smells like Coppertone, which is an amazing thing.  Notes:  sand jasmine, sea spray accord, and mandarin. ($67.50 for 50 ml)  (Oh, and if you love Coppertone, CB I Hate Perfume's At The Beach 1966 is similar to Bobbi Brown's Beach, but it's a more nuanced) Beach factor:  Literally at the beach, laying out, wondering if the water's warm enough for a dip.

• Untitled by Maison Martin Margiela:  This is a very green scent, not so obviously beachy, but I can't help but think of summer when I smell it.  Notes:  galbanum, boxwood, jasmine, lentiscus resinoid, incense, bitter orange, cedar and Serenolide musk. 30ml ($80), 50ml ($100) and 75ml ($140) of Eau de Parfum.  Beach factor:  Sticking your face into the flower bushes next to the beach.

• Replica's Beach Walk by Maison Martin Margiela:  At first, you definitely get the Coppertone, but it quickly dries down into tropical flowers.  Notes:  bergamot and lemon, and develops with pink pepper, ylang-ylang, coconut milk, musk and heliotrope.  Beach factor:  Flowers at a barefoot beach wedding  

• Batucada by L'Artisan Parfumeur:  Lime, cachaça accord, spearmint, tiaré, ylang-ylang, coconut, aquatic note, musk. ($100 for 50 ml)  Beach factor:  I'm on the beach in Rio having a Caipirinha, listening to live Samba.

• Sel Marin by Heeley:  Lemon, Sicilian bergamot, sea salt, seaweed, vetiver, birch, cedar ($180 for 100 ml)   Beach factor:  I just spent the whole day at the beach, but now I'm on a boat, having a beautiful drink that I need to Instagram because it is such a beautiful drink.

• Sel de Vetiver (not pictured) by The Different Company:  Grapefruit, patchouli, cardamom, geranium, Haitian vetiver, iris, ylang ylang ($150 for 50 ml, $220 for 90 ml)  Beach factor:  You're on a yacht with salt drying on the skin in the sun after being spritzed with some grapefruit.  

Then, there are my oils.  I often use these, which are all pretty tropically, in place of lotion after a shower and then I layer on whatever frag I feel like or just wear them alone as your fragrance.  All of the perfumes I've mentioned and these oils work well together layered for me.  The first two on the left are Tiaré flower/monoi oils.  Then there's Tom Ford's Neroli Portofino oil, Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse Multi-Usage Dry Oil (face, body, hair), and Estée Lauder's Bronze Goddess.  I love them all a lot! 

Do you have any favorite beachy scents?  What am I missing from my collection?