My Go-To Summer Fragrance Is Kinda Weird. That’s Why I Love It

If you want to smell great during the warmer months, look to the fig.

acqua di parma fragrance bottle on a slatted bench

Published July 13, 2024

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While some people prefer to wear one signature scent year-round, an alternative and arguably more appropriate option is to tailor your fragrance to the season.

At the very least, you should probably have one fragrance for fall/winter and another for spring/summer. A winter fragrance should be heavy and warm, traits necessary to cut through the cold. The same scent in the summer, meanwhile, will project farther in the heat and potentially become too strong, cloying and offensive, which is why it’s preferable to wear something light and breezy when it’s hot out.

Many people tend to limit themselves when choosing a summer fragrance. They’ll opt for the old standbys like aquatic and citrus scents (or some combination of the two).

Personally, I don’t want to smell like everyone else. I never want to walk by someone and have them think I smell like cologne. I just want to smell nice. A few years ago, I settled on what I believe to be the perfect summer fragrance to pull this off — specifically because it doesn’t smell like what everyone else is wearing.

In fact, I’d even say it’s a little weird.

Acqua di Parma ‘Blu Mediterraneo’ Fico di Amalfi

$103 at Nordstrom

My summer scent smells like figs

My summer fragrance of choice is Fico di Amalfi, an eau de toilette from Acqua di Parma. Part of the century-old Italian fragrance brand’s Blu Mediterraneo line that’s designed to evoke the Italian Mediterranean, Fico di Amalfi’s main note is fig.

This isn’t the earthy, robust scent you get from dried figs or Fig Newtons. Rather, it’s the smell of fresh figs and fig trees, which is sort of like a mix of honey, fruit and flowers. It’s gently sweet, uplifting and full of life. It’s also undeniably pleasant and inoffensive, meaning you’ll have to try really hard to get anyone to complain about your cologne while wearing this stuff.

acqua di parma fragrance bottle on a slatted bench next to some dried figs — The scent at the heart of Fico di Amalfi is of fresh fig fruits and fig trees rather than the more familiar dried fig you may be thinking of.

The fragrance opens with a burst of juicy sweetness, no doubt a result of its trio of citrus top notes: lemon, bergamot and grapefruit. But despite the strong presence of citrus in the opening, I don’t get a zesty vibe from the scent, and I would not classify Fico di Amalfi as a citrus fragrance.

The citrus does lend some fruity juiciness when you first spray on the cologne, but for me, the intro is still dominated by a delicate floral sweetness with some fresh green notes thrown in. Once the juiciness dissipates and the fragrance settles into its heart notes of fig nectar, pink pepper and jasmine petals, those pleasant and sweet fruity green notes continue in more of a low-key fashion.

Once the fragrance dries down completely, the base notes of fig tree, cedarwood and benzoin resin come into play. These add a little backbone and heaviness to what remains a very light scent, and I love the contrast the pulpy and creamy fig wood provides to the fig nectar.

acqua di parma fragrance bottle being sprayed — The bottle feels very high-quality with a strong and consistent sprayer, which is what I’d expect from a luxury brand such as Acqua di Parma.

Acqua di Parma is a luxury brand, which means Fico di Amalfi isn’t cheap, but it’s not crazy expensive either. Price-wise, it falls somewhere in between designer fragrances you can buy at the mall and pricier niche fragrance brands like Creed.

Since it is a luxury brand, that means you’re getting a high-end experience. The packaging is beautiful, maybe even display-worthy, and the glass bottle has a fantastic sprayer that is consistent and strong. The composition of the juice itself, it goes without saying, is also top-notch. It smells expensive and natural, with no cheap or overly artificial notes to be found.

Now, that’s not to say Fico di Amalfi is perfect or is for everyone. It is a unisex fragrance, but it’s also an EDT — and a weak one at that. It doesn’t project much and will become a skin scent after maybe an hour or so, though it does do a decent job of clinging to my skin once it’s there. I do wish the performance were better, but the scent is so good and so unlike anything else I’ve smelled that I’m willing to let it slide.

Wearing Fico di Amalfi feels like walking through a sunny meadow filled with sweet flowering fruit trees, which honestly ain’t a bad way to feel in the summertime. I’m assuming this is what actual fig trees smell like, and if that’s the case, then I might have to just go out and buy myself a fig tree.