Why your perfume fades faster in summer—a fragrance expert explains how heat changes scent
Heat, humidity, water-based perfumes, oud and the myths surrounding summer fragrance, explained through the science of scent
Why does your favourite perfume seem to vanish faster in summer? In this first instalment of a series of conversations with fragrance expert, beauty director, editor and journalist Marco Martello, we explore how heat truly affects fragrance, whether “summer perfumes” are a genuine category or merely a marketing invention, and why everything from water-based scents to classic colognes—and even oud—deserves a fresh perspective.
As summer sets in, many of us instinctively swap rich, long-lasting fragrances for lighter citrus, aquatic, and floral compositions. But how much of that instinct is backed by science, and how much is just tradition? Martello helps separate fragrance fact from fragrance myth.
Why We Still Believe in Summer Perfumes
Now more than ever, as the heat of high summer settles over everything, we reach for fresh, light fragrances—citrus and aquatic notes like lemon, bergamot, and peach, as well as airy florals—and set aside the deep, lingering compositions built on vanilla and amber. Even the advertising adapts: every campaign seems to promise a cool breeze.
Some people go further still, assigning a unique fragrance to each season. Spring, for instance, calls for scents of renewal, with rose, lily of the valley and jasmine, blooming in step with the gardens outside.
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Why Perfume Fades Faster in Summer
But first: does climate really change how long a perfume lasts? And does perfume linger longer in cold weather than in summer? These are questions worth asking, so I did some digging, and the short answer is yes: there’s a real relationship between temperature and how a scent behaves on the skin.
Heat accelerates evaporation, resulting in an intense opening and a bright initial trail, but a shorter lifespan overall. Cold does the opposite, allowing a scent to unfold slowly and cling for longer. High humidity, meanwhile, amplifies projection but shortens longevity—moisture in the air and on your skin causes the scent to diffuse strongly, then fade more quickly. That is precisely why light, airy fragrances are best suited to the season.
To go beyond my own googling, I asked Marco Martello how many of our seasonal assumptions actually hold up.
Do Summer Fragrances Really Exist?
Do summer fragrances and winter perfumes really exist? According to Martello, they do—at least in part—but not as a rule. He’s cautious about making absolute statements. “More than hard rules, I believe in common sense,” he explains.
For example, at a wedding, he wouldn’t wear an overpowering fragrance, just as he wouldn’t arrive in an outfit built to draw every eye, like a white suit. It’s a subtle point, but it reframes the whole question.
Like the clothes we choose, perfume is a way we communicate with the people around us, even when we don’t realise it.
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Why Water-Based Perfumes Make More Sense in Hot Weather
Martello confirms there’s a genuine connection between the season and the texture of what you wear. For the beach and strong sun, he recommends skipping classic alcohol-based fragrances in favour of water-based formulas or scented oils, which are gentler on skin and less likely to cause irritation or reactions after a day in the heat.
Even as a self-confessed amateur, I get flooded every summer by people online showing off perfumed waters in the most unexpected notes, hopping from one brand to the next.
Is Oud Really Too Heavy for Summer?
A persistent cliché claims that certain notes become oppressive in the heat and should be shelved until autumn.
Oud is the usual suspect, but Martello points out the contradiction: oud is a raw material that actually performs beautifully in hot weather—which makes sense given its origins in hot, humid countries.
It’s a neat reminder that much of the so-called fragrance “wisdom” is repeated by those outside the field, often nudging us toward the wrong choices.
The Summer Fragrances Fragrance Experts Recommend
So which brands do fragrance experts actually love in summer? As Marco Martello kept reminding us, low-alcohol scents can still offer impressive longevity: the key is simply choosing the right ones.
One of his go-to names for alcohol-free summer scents is Officine Universelle Buly, known for its “triple-water” Eau Triple line. These perfumes are water-based and alcohol-free, yet they perform remarkably well and retain complexity. While some worry that such scents won’t last, Martello explains that a shorter lifespan usually means a simpler pyramid, not a weaker fragrance.
He’s also a champion of the humble cologne. Several fragrance houses now offer higher-concentration versions than the classic formula—usually labelled “extrait de cologne”—that hold up impressively on skin. “One I particularly love is Nishane’s Safran Colognise,” he says: a classic cologne laced with saffron, a nod to the Turkish tradition of greeting guests at the door with a towel scented with lemon peel and saffron (Nishane is itself a Turkish house).
Think of all that craft poured into a single bottle. A perfume, after all, is often built to capture a sensation, an experience, a precise and sometimes wholly imaginary setting—one that doesn’t exist anywhere in nature.
Why Summer Perfume Campaigns Always Feel Familiar
And the advertising? It’s impossible not to picture those idyllic, sun-struck seascapes—and the fresh, almost edible imagery, ice cream and all, that signals “summer” before you’ve even read the name on the bottle.
Everyone thinks of the famous Dolce&Gabbana Light Blue campaign, but Martello’s own favourite is Calvin Klein’s CK One. A true classic—its marketing inevitably leans on water and sea, but the scent carries that effortless, genderless, unmistakably ‘90s summer mood.
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Can You Trust PerfumeTok?
Did you find it on TikTok? This is a question I often catch myself asking friends, since I’ll admit I use the app to hunt down trends myself, including to find which fragrances fit which occasion or season.
There’s a whole corner of the app, #Perfumetok, where fragrance influencers have gained enormous followings among Gen Z and Gen Alpha. We asked Marco Martello what concerns him about this trend, and what he actually finds valuable about it.
The upside is real, he says: social media and its influencers can draw far more people into a world they might otherwise only circle from the outside, turning vague curiosity into genuine interest. As a way to reach a vast audience, it’s hard to beat.
The downside is the flattening. Storytelling can become superficial, and much gets lost in the process—both the technical and compositional details of a fragrance and its emotional, narrative layers.
How to Learn About Fragrance Beyond Social Media
So how do you approach all of this without getting caught up in the hype along the way? Marco Martello points to two books.
The first, more sociological and psychological, is Annick Le Guérer’s I poteri dell’odore (The Powers of Smell)—Le Guérer is one of the foremost anthropologists of scent.
The second is Matteo Fumagalli’s recent Le immagini del profumo, which he loves for the synaesthetic game it plays between sight and smell. Since we tend to think so visually, Fumagalli sorts a selection of fragrances into eight “worlds,” each built around the images those scents conjured in him.
Now that you know a bit more, you’re ready to make a sharper, more conscious choice for this summer. Whatever’s in the bottle, wear the one that feels most like you.
