These 16 Perfumes Feel Like a Never-Ending Vacation—OOO Message Optional

Got your sunscreen, new bikinis, and post-beach dinner outfits packed? Check, check, and check. Before heading to the airport, there’s one thing you’ll need before embarking on your island adventure—and that, my sand-lazing friend, is a good beachy perfume.

There’s something about a beachy scent that’s just so irresistible. I’ll chalk it up to the fact that most sea-inspired scents have whimsical notes like citrus, tropical fruit, and salt—each accord swimming in harmony on a mainsail breeze. Good aquatic scents are somehow both splashy and subtle, alluring without being too sumptuous. In short, these bottles are fitting no matter if you’re headed for the seas or not, because each spray immediately puts you on island time.

Ahead, my 16 favorite scents to spritz at the beach (and the vacation spots they remind me of).

The Best Beachy Perfumes, at a Glance

• Best Overall: Maison Margiela Replica Beach Walk Eau de Toilette
• Best Splurge: Tom Ford Eau de Soleil Blanc Eau de Toilette
• Best Budget: Sol de Janeiro Água Mística Hair and Body Fragrance Mist
• Best Coconut: Heretic Dirty Coconut Eau de Parfum
• Best Salty: Ellis Brooklyn Salt Eau de Parfum

Best Overall: Maison Margiela Replica Beach Walk Eau de Toilette

Best Splurge: Tom Ford Eau de Soleil Blanc Eau de Toilette

Best Budget: Sol de Janeiro Água Mística Hair and Body Fragrance Mist

Best Coconut: Heretic Dirty Coconut Eau de Parfum

Best Salty: Ellis Brooklyn Salt Eau de Parfum

Best Solar: Juliette Has a Gun Lust For Sun Eau De Parfum

Best Marine: Maison Margiela Replica Sailing Day Eau de Toilette

Best Perfume Oil: Orebella Salted Muse Parfum

Best Sunscreen: Vacation Eau de Toilette

Best Luxury: Chanel Paris Riviera Eau de Toilette

Best Sultry: Loewe Paula’s Ibiza Eau de Toilette

Best Floral: Aerin Mediterranean Honeysuckle Eau de Parfum

Best Sweet: Kayali Mini Maui in a Bottle Eau de Parfum

Best Lemon: Armani Beauty Acqua di Gioia Eau de Parfum

Best Citrus: Snif Citrus Circus Eau de Toilette

Best Nostalgic: Bobbi Brown Beach Fragrance

Which Notes Make a Perfume Beachy?

The perfect beachy perfume will smell like something different to everyone—some may associate the hydrangea blooms of the East Coast with summertime, while others might prefer the sunscreen scent that Vacation is famous for. But a few notes made repeat appearances, and you’ll find a handful of them in the list above.

• Coconut: It seems as if no tropical scent is complete without traces of this island fruit. This grounding, slightly sweet note can usually be found in the middle or base notes of your favorite beachy scents, including winners like Maison Margiela Replica’s Beach Walk and Kayali’s Maui in a Bottle.
• Salt: Reminiscent of the sea, salt is a recurring ingredient in many of our favorite beachy fragrances. From the salt skin accord in Sol de Janeiro’s Água Mística to sea salt being, well, the entire point of our Ellis Brooklyn pick, salt takes on many variations in our favorite marine-inspired beach perfumes.
• Citrus: Florals such as ylang-ylang, bergamot, and jasmine and repeat hits within the beach category, but nothing screams “summer” quite like citrus. From just a quick glance you’ll spot notes of grapefruit, neroli, and Sicilian orange littering our picks, with Chanel’s Paris Riviera and Snif’s Citrus Circus being two of the biggest offenders. If fresh scents are your beach jam, then you should look for citrus-forward scents when picking your perfect beach fragrance.

What to Look For

Aside from the right combination of notes, there are a few things you should keep in mind when shopping for your ideal beach vacation perfume.

• Formula: The most common type of “beach” perfume is often followed by the term “eau de toilette.” These fragrances are less potent than eau de parfums, which have a higher ingredient concentration and therefore offer stronger, longer-lasting scents. Another common formula is an oil-based fragrance, much like Orebella’s Salted Muse, which has a higher sillage than your typical spray perfume.
• Size: If you’re shopping for a beach perfume, you likely are about to hop on a plane to get to your sandy destination. (Or if you already live in paradise and are shopping for your new signature scent, well… I’m mad at you.) Before embarking on your sunny adventure, you’ll want to make sure your scent of choice comes in a TSA-friendly bottle, aka anything under 3.4 fluid ounces. Luckily, most of our picks are available in travel, 1 ounce, and 1.7-ounce sizes that comply with air travel regulations.
• Price: Fragrance can get expensive, and quickly—I get it. To appease a wide range of budgets, I pulled together a list of editor- and shopper-loved fragrances that range from $25 to $200 (ahem, Tom Ford Eau de Soleil Blanc), with a median price of $110. However, there’s a handful of top-tier scents in this bunch that fall below the $100 line and smell like they cost triple.

Why Trust Us

Alyssa Brascia is an associate beauty editor at Who What Wear with an extensive background in product testing, a large sector of her beauty collection belonging to her sprawling assortment of perfumes. From coconutty scents to orange-fresh fragrances, Brascia is a routine spritzer of beachy perfumes in futile attempts to take her mentally out of New York City and onto the white sand beaches of Hawaii (or any tropical destination, really—she’s not picky).

For this piece, she took stock of her own collection, using an expert’s nose to decide which are and aren’t worthy of a winning slot, before doing a bit of research and seeing which are the newest, hottest beach perfumes on the scene. Better yet, the ones that people actually like. From there, she decided on the 16 above—appeasing a range of budgets, offering options for different fragrance preferences, and giving suggestions of where to wear each perfume based on the vibe of each scent. (Or if you have a trip coming up for one of these locations, now you know which scent to bring along.)