If you've never worn it, wear it on a hot day in direct sunlight. That's the context it was written for, and it argues the case better than any note list.

2. Acqua di Giò Profondo — Giorgio Armani (2020)

Most flankers are a tax on the original's name. This one isn't. Where the 1996 version is airy and sun-bleached, pulls you under the surface — Aquozone (a patented aquatic molecule) and mineral notes give it a cold edge, closer to submerging in clear Mediterranean water than lounging beside it.

It's darker, a shade more intense, and it projects better than the original. If the classic has always read as too faint for you, this is the obvious upgrade, and the better buy of the two if you want to be noticed.

3. L'Eau d'Issey Pour Homme — Issey Miyake (1994)

Two years before Acqua di Giò, someone had already solved the aquatic a different way. by skips the Mediterranean sunset entirely: Jacques Cavallier Belletrud went after water as an idea, mineral and close to sterile, with verbena and lotus threaded through a seamless aquatic-woody base.

It's cool in both senses. The Japanese minimalism hasn't dated, which is rare for an aquatic of its era, and on warm skin the drydown into cedarwood and musk is the best part of the composition. That's also the catch — it rewards slowing down, so it's the wrong pick if you want something that announces itself across a room.

4. Light Blue — Dolce & Gabbana (2001)

The Amalfi Coast in a bottle, and worn widely enough by now to be shorthand for summer itself. by is for people who want citrus above everything else: apple, lemon, cedarwood and bamboo arranged into the sun-bleached terrace, cold drink, boats-on-the-water version of the season.

It's light enough to spray generously without smothering a room, and it carries the accord in a more floral, cedar-forward direction than the Armani flankers. The trade-off is its cheerfulness, which can read as anonymous once you've smelled it on everyone. If you'd rather have slightly sweet than cool and mineral, take it anyway.

5. Beach Walk — Maison Martin Margiela Replica (2012)

The one that isn't trying to smell fresh. by — Replica line, Cavallier Belletrud again — goes for the end of a beach day: coconut, heliotrope, ylang-ylang and a soft musk doing sun-warmed skin, damp hair, salt drying in the early evening.

Warm where the others are cool. Gourmand where the others are mineral. Its base is the most skin-forward of the five, sinking in rather than sitting on top. If you want a summer fragrance that works like memory instead of a weather report, this is the one. Fair warning: coconut and heliotrope is divisive, and the people who don't like it don't budge.

The short version

Lightness isn't the same as simplicity, and that's where most summer picks fall down. Buy one? Make it Profondo — it's the most complete of the five and it doesn't thin out when the heat gets serious. Already own something cool and mineral? Beach Walk is the only one here that adds a register your wardrobe hasn't got.

Pull up and decide whether cold and mineral is the summer you're having — then follow the note page if the warm-skin end of the season sounds more like you.