I’m sharing the absolute best clean perfumes for summer and warm weather that I wear nonstop. The best nontoxic perfumes are made with plant-based goodness and are free from chemical fragrance, synthetics, parabens, phthalates and questionable ingredients.

This is a highly curated list of my top nontoxic perfume picks for hot months with something for everyone – tropical, fruity, fresh, clean skin, aquatic, floral, and options for work, vacations and everyday wear. I also have a full guide to non toxic fragrance.

Best Clean Skin Perfume: NOYZ Rinse Cycle and Dedcool Mineral Milk

NOYZ makes a genderless, clean fragrance that’s certified vegan, cruelty free and free of parabens, phthalates, synthetic dyes, and animal byproducts.

NOYZ Rinse Cycle: This is a clean skin scent that’s perfect for everyday wear and wearing to work. It reminds me of fresh, clean sheets but with a feminine layer thanks to florals like Cherry Blossom, Musk Flower and Pink Waterlily. This dries down to barely there skin scent. If you want to smell crisp and clean, I recommend checking this one out.

Type: Musk / Fresh / Floral
Vibe: Fresh clean skin scent

Dedcool Mineral Milk: DedCool is a very cool Los Angeles fragrance brand that makes vegan, cruelty-free, and non-toxic scents free from phthalates and parabens. They’re actually known for their musky skin scents. If NOYZ Rinse Cycle smells like clean sheets, Dedcool’s Mineral Milk smells like salty air, skin and ice cream. Mineral Milk is lighter and crisper than NOYZ’s Rinse Cycle or Sh**ty Day.

Mineral Milk has notes of Nectar, Passionfruit, Salt, Lavender, Milk, Amber, Australian Sandalwood, Virginia Cedar. For me, the salt and milk notes dominate and it dries down to a true skin scent laced with woodsiness. Also great for everyday wear and I never get sick of it. I talk about Mochi Milk further below, which leans sweeter and fruitier to me.

Type: Aquatic / Woody
Vibe: Fresh salty air skin scent

By Rosie Jane Rosie: Rosie is an OG clean scent that’s a true skin scent with just a barely there hint of rose. It’s basically your body’s natural musk enhanced with some floral.

Type: Musk / Floral
Vibe: Clean skin floral scent

Clean Reserve Skin: Clean Reserve is another fantastic clean perfume brand that does true skin scents really well. Their Skin perfume is basically your skin but better and musk forward. It basically smells like freshly showered skin with no other layers to its scent profile. By Rosie Jane’s Rosie was actually inspired by Clean Reserve Skin. If you want to smell like fresh laundry straight out of the dryer, Warm Cotton is a more complex scent that has a fresh floral-musk profile with a cotton flower accord, marine notes and musky amber base.

Type: Musk
Vibe: True skin scent

NOYZ Sh**ty Day: When I’m craving something that smells fresh and clean with a gourmand facet, I also love NOYZ’s Sh**ty Day. It captures that fresh, salty-air with the freshness of cucumber and clary sage and warmth of fig, Venezuelan tonka bean, amber and woods. This is a fresh, clean skin with a yumminess that’s light and airy for summer. It settles into such a beautiful, sheer skin scent. I’m surprised this is technically categorized as an aquatic perfume because it basically smells like yummy skin to me.

Type: Fresh / Aquatic / Gourmand
Vibe: clean skin gourmand scent

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Best Aquatic Perfume: The Nue Co Water Therapy

The Nue Co’s Water Therapy is the perfect aquatic clean perfume for summer. They make unisex functional fragrances that help de-stress and are formulated without any any parabens, phthalates, hexanes, or nitro/polycyclic musks. I’ve tried three of Nue Co’s perfumes and their blue marine scent Water Therapy is my favorite. It’s inspired by the idea that being near water calms the nervous system (which is so true for me!) and genuinely captures that with notes of seaweed, marine salt, clary sage, cardamom, and rose. This is a watery, fresh, salty skin scent that’s light and clean with a warm undercurrent. It’s subdued and soft, and I honestly do feel like it has a calming effect on me.

Type: Aquatic / Marine
Vibe: watery clean skin scent

Best Tropical Perfumes

I actually have three favorite tropical perfumes for summer and it’s impossible for me to pick just one. There’s so many good ones in the clean perfume space!

Maison Louis Marie No 13 Nouvelle Vague

Nouvelle Vague is a creamy coconut scent with woodsy amber undertones that epitomizes tropical sophistication. This one reminds me of my trip to Puglia, Italy with its opening of citrus mixed with soft florals from muguet (aka lily of the valley) and heart of creamy coconut and Tuscan fig. The vetiver really grounds this scent overall and gives it an earthy facet.The vanilla, amber, and santal gives Nouvelle Vague a strong warm, yummy undercurrent that dries down to a softly sweet skin scent. I even have Maison Louis Marie’s Nouvelle Vague Reed Diffuser so my home smells the same.

Type: Tropical / Woody
Vibe: Woodsy coconut amber scent

Ellis Brooklyn: SALT

Ellis Brooklyn’s SALT is my OG fave tropical perfume without coconut. True to its name, SALT absolutely delivers on being a tropical perfume with a salty facet. The underlying Amber, sandalwood and musk rounds it out with warmth while Jasmine and Magnolia makes this beautifully feminine.

Type: Tropical / Floral / Salty
Vibe: Salty coconut floral scent

Floral Street: Arizona Bloom

I cannot rave about Arizona Bloom enough and feel like this brand is slept on. If you want a really good, sophisticated tropical floral scent, it’s Arizona Bloom. It’s a fresh, clean, creamy and grown floral coconut scent that wears like a second skin. This has notes of Coconut, Jasmine, Amber, Salted Musks.

Type: Tropical / Floral
Vibe: Floral coconut amber scent

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Best Sunscreen Perfume for Beach Vacations: Phlur Beach Skin and By Rosie Jane Madie

Phlur Beach Skin: This is technically a body mist but the longevity is so fantastic (I get at least 5 hours) that it lasts longer than most 100% natural perfumes. It’s a fresh solar floral that smells like sunscreen and sun-warmed skin at first, evolving into a softer, sweeter white floral laced with coconut and vanilla. If you like Maison Margiela’s Beach Walk, Phlur’s Beach Skin is a more affordable dupe. It’s got opening notes of Bergamot, salted tiare flower, pink pepper, middle notes of Coconut milk and lily of the valley, and a base of sandalwood, vanilla, musk.

Type: Solar / Floral / Fresh
Vibe: Fresh sunscreen scent

By Rosie Jane Madie: BRJ is a clean, vegan, and cruelty-free fragrance brand completely free of parabens, sulfates, and phthalates, while fully disclosing any synthetics they use for transparency. By Rosie Jane Madie absolutely nails that I-just-spent-the-entire-day-at-the-beach feeling of sunscreen drenched salty skin.

Madie has an ozonic, salty sea-spray opening and a jasmine and coconut heart with a touch of vanilla underneath to soften the whole profile. It’s got great projection and longevity, especially compared to their Rosie perfume, but isn’t overpowering. If you’re someone who loves that “just came from the beach” scent memory but wants it in a clean, wearable formula, Madie delivers it better than anything else I’ve tried.

Type: Sunscreen / Floral / Fresh
Vibe: Sunscreen floral scent

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Best Fruity Fragrance: Wit & West Yuzu Pop and By Rosie Jane Leila Lou

Wit & West is one of the only two fully 100% natural perfume brands on this list that’s vegan, cruelty free and uses no synthetics of any kind. Every fragrance is made using essential oils, absolutes, CO2 extracts, natural isolates, and even custom tinctures and enfleurage extraits (some pulled straight from ingredients in her own garden).

Wit & West Yuzu Pop: Yuzu Pop is technically a male cologne that’s floral but I personally love it. It opens with bright, zesty Japanese and Korean yuzu and coriander seed, settles into a narcotic jasmine sambac and orange blossom heart, and dries down into a warm, earthy base of frankincense and sandalwood. I love that this perfume is made from real citrus and real resins rather than lab-made aroma molecules. It doesn’t last as long as traditional fragrance, but has decent longevity for an all natural perfume.

Type: Citrus Floral
Vibe: grounding citrus floral scent

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By Rosie Jane Leila Lou: This was the first fragrance ever launched By Rosie Jane and I think it’s one of their best summer fragrances, alongside Madie. It’s a very sweet pear fragrance with notes of vanilla, grass and jasmine. I find it very bright, sweet and girly, but not cloying.

Type: Fruity Floral
Vibe: Bright juicy pear scent

By Rosie Jane Matilda: I recently tried By Rosie Jane’s new Matilda perfume and find it to be extremely bright, sweet and fruity. This is an ultra juicy scent with notes of passionfruit, aldehydes, finger lime, mango, and meringue and a base of milk and sandalwood. It’s a fruit meringue tart in the form of a perfume.

Type: Fruity / Floral / Gourmand
Vibe: Bright fruity gourmand scent

Dedcool Mochi Milk: If you want a fruity perfume that’s not strongly fruity and more gourmand, Dedcool’s Mochi Milk is a creamy marshmallow vanilla scent with a peach presence. It’s sweet and fruity at first, but the peach nectar fades in the background as the dominant gourmand notes of Sweet Rice Milk, Vanilla Bean, Australian Sandalwood, and Amber take over. This is a great clean skin dupe to Kayali Yum Boujee Marshmallow.

Type: Fruity / Gourmand
Vibe: Fruity milky clean skin scent

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Dime Beauty I Love Your Smell Baby

This is new to my summer collection and Dime’s I Love Your Smell Baby might be one of their best perfumes yet. Half of all the notes are berries like Pomegranate, Raspberries, and Cranberries in a creamy vanilla musk base. The zest of lemon in the opening adds a bright freshness. Dime doesn’t last as long as the other brands above (I would say around 2 hours), but they’re almost half the price.

Type: Fruity / Gourmand
Vibe: Fruity vanilla scent

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Best Summer Floral Perfumes

Leahlani Pua Lei: Leahlani wins hands down for making the best 100% natural Hawaiian perfumes on their home island of Kauai. Pua Lei is a gorgeous Hawaiian floral scent with Leahlani’s propriety blend of tropical florals, puakenikeni flowers and sweet tuberose. If I could wear only one perfume that reminds me of Hawaii and transports me back, it would be Pua Lei. Pamplemousse is another bestseller of theirs that’s a creamy citrus vanilla scent.

Type: Floral
Vibe: Hawaiian lei scent

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Anyone who love natural perfumes know of Rhode Island-based Providence Perfume Co. They use the finest botanical ingredients from around the world, have their own perfume bar in Rhode Island, and never contain: synthetics, petrochemicals, fragrance oils, dyes, parabens, pthathlates or chemical fragrances

Providence Perfume Co Sweet Jasmine Brown: I’ve tried all of their 100% plant perfume oils and my top favorite floral is Sweet Jasmine Brown. This is a floral gourmand scent that’s got jasmine, vanilla, pink pepper, tonka, and musk. It’s warm, creamy and delectable. Note that this is a perfume oil and not a spray. I spoke with founder Charna Ethier and she explained perfume oils:

Oil based perfumes should last longer on the skin because oil evaporates off the skin at a slower rate than alcohol. That being said, oil based perfumes have very little sillage or scent projection. Alcohol based fragrances have much more “scent throw” than oil based fragrances. It’s very hard for natural perfumes to rival the potency of perfumes made with petrochemicals and aroma chemicals. Natural essences are softer and dissipate faster than chemicals.

Type: Floral / Gourmand
Vibe: floral vanilla scent

Wit & West Caldera Flower: Their new scent Caldera Flower is a heady floral that’s stunning. It’s inspired by Panama’s lush tropical landscapes and blends bergamot, neroli, ginger, gardenia absolute, magnolia, ylang ylang, sandalwood, an in-house Tahitian vanilla tincture, and ambrette seed. I love the unique bright ginger opening and the heady mix of white florals like gardenia, neroli, magnolia and beautiful ylang ylang. Sandalwood and vanilla softens it a touch.

Type: Floral
Vibe: white floral scent

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Havyn Co Grace: Havyn Co specifically formulates their perfumes for people with fragrance sensitivities or allergies avoiding the 80 fragrance allergens flagged by the EU. They’re safe enough to wear around young children while still smelling like a proper fine fragrance. Grace smells like a fresh dewy fruity garden to me with a bright opening of fresh rain, morning dew, and green apple and a heart of white florals. It’s fresh and clean yet also very bright and floral.

Type: Floral / fresh / fruity
Vibe: fresh white floral scent

Strange Invisible Fair Verona: Strange Invisible is a more advanced natural perfume house for niche perfumeheads with their own shop in Venice Beach, California. Fair Verona is a green floral perfume that’s ideal for hot summer days with a verdant opening of green myrtle and bergamot and indolic, rich jasmine heart. It’s narcotic, sparkling and bright with the sandalwood rounding out the sharper edges. Compared to the other scents I’ve tried by Strange Invisible, which get even more niche, this is an easy and wearable perfume.

Best Fresh Perfume: 5 Sens Twin Flame and Providence Perfume Co Ivy Tower

5 Sens Twin Flame: 5 Sens is a fantastic option for affordable clean perfumes that are Vegan, Leaping Bunny-certified and cruelty-free. When I want to smell like clean, sophisticated cucumber, my go-to is 5 Sens Twin Flame. This is a musky, clean cucumber perfume with a woodsy edge. It’s soft and sheer, yet fresh and woodsy with a present cucumber note that dries down to musky skin scent. This is a great everyday summer perfume to wear during the day and at the office or school.

Type: Fresh / Woodsy
Vibe: woody cucumber scent

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Providence Perfume Co Ivy Tower: Ivy Tower is an incredible green scent and the one that stood out most to me out of Providence Perfume’s perfume oils. It’s got geranium and ivy accord, white floral and rare essences of narcissus, mimosa and jasmine. It’s so verdant, yet sweet and redolent.

Type: Green / Fresh / Floral
Vibe: floral green garden scent

Best Summer Night Perfume: Maison Louis Marie No 14 Icila

Most of these perfumes are perfect for summer days, but for something that’s appropriate for night, Maison Louis Marie No 14 Icila is my top pick and recommendation. What makes it great for summer nights is the sophisticated, rich rose and wine-like plum heart and powdery musky base of patchouli, vanilla and cherry blossom. Thanks to the bright juicy opening and the rich warmth of the dry down, Icila is a highly versatile perfume that works best in spring and balmy summer evenings.

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