I find summer difficult to stomach, still harder on the nose. As a child, I would loll on my swing, eyes firm shut against the blaze, attempting to fend off the funk of dust, grass, sugar and sweat, limbs grubby with the stench of ladybird trails and the seepings of sluttish blooms. Only after dark was the scent of dank British normality restored.
Then, come the dog days of August, that glorious catch in the air. It was a tang that heralded the traumas of school, but also a return to better, steadier smells - wood, smoke, leather - and the reassurance that the whole giddy carnival was over."Don't be ridiculous," chastens Guerlain's "nose" Thierry Wasser, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Monsieur Bertillon in my old French textbook. "In summer, everything is ripe: juicy, outside, shouting. Time to express yourself; time to shoot downhill on a bike and scream."
Posted in: Colognes,Summer colognes
