8 Summer Fragrances For When Your A/C Stops Working

Spritzing on a warm, heady fragrance in the summer feels like wearing tight black jeans and a turtleneck to the beach in the middle of July: stifling, sweltering, deeply and profoundly wrong. Strong woody notes stew in the hot sun; musks start to smell less like having hot sex on clean sheets and more like the sweaty balls they're named for.

Summer calls for light, breezy fragrances that won't suffocate you, or anyone who happens to be sitting near you in the stagnant air of your office, for that matter. These are perfumes that smell pleasant but not obvious, are easy to wear but not boring, that make their presence known but also somehow don't? It's complicated — but where words fail, your olfactory glands won't.