Pierre Guillaume is back with the White Collection, a new range of fragrances dedicated to the light and the sun. It might sound like a cliche, but these scents are perfect summer wears.

Listed notes

Kumquat, ginger, sandalwood, lemon, lemon blossom.

Top notes

Think summer and what springs to mind? Beach holidays bathed in sunlight and warmth? Sun cream? Sea-kissed skin? Relaxation? If any of those appeal then you’re in for a treat with Sunsuality from Pierre Guillaume’s White Collection.

Sunsuality opens with a delicate white floral note, bolstered with a smooth citrus undertone. It doesn’t really matter if it is lemon blossom, or lemon and blossoms, either way the scent opens light, breezy, and expansive. It’s a transparent scent that conjures up images of white muslin curtains billowing in a Mediterranean breeze, all gauzy and floaty. The floral nuances are sweet, delicate, almost naive, whilst the lemon is sharper, sourer but never very aggressive.

There’s a dreamy fairytale quality about the start of Sunsuality which is really delightful. It’s a soft lemon mousse, it’s delicate cakes cooling on a window sill, it’s colours bleached by years of hot sunshine, it’s Greece by day and the South of France by night. It’s a whisper and a promise.

Heart notes

The citrus slowly ebbs away as the perfume unfolds, like the tide gently going out on one of those beaches that goes on forever, all pale fawn sand hot under salty toes. A slightly fleshier fruitiness is left behind on the tide, but this isn’t a perfume that you sniff and immediately think ‘fruity!’ Instead, to inhale it is to be transported into the beach holiday of your mind’s eye, it’s to step inside those TV adverts which promise empty white beaches, sun hats and cotton shirts, and a lover beside you who’s attractiveness is only matched by their devotion to you. This is what Sunsuality gives us, it conjures up a vision that transcends and surpasses just a list of notes.

An aquatic accord peeps through here and there, almost when you aren’t looking, and there is something about the way that this chimes with the residual citrusy notes which evokes salty, sea-kissed skin. It’s clean skin, sun-tanned skin, skin which is thrilling to trail your fingers across.

Base notes

The base of Sunsuality really ramps up the creamy sandalwood, and whilst the marketing text for this scent talks about it being silky, there was something warm cotton about it for us. It evokes a clean, white t-shirt slipping over a tanned torso. You can practically smell the sunlight baked into the skin, the suncream, the salt from the waves and it is all set against a backdrop of that angular Mediterranean light that makes the buildings SO white and the sky SO blue.

Wearing Sunsuality is like sinking into a deck chair. You can practically feel your muscles unknotting as it’s sunny vibe envelopes your being. It’s languid, relaxing, calm and chilled out. It’s one of the best invocations of summer in a scent we have experienced, the sort of scent that makes you want to live inside the images it calls to mind.

The other stuff

Sunsuality goes on so airy and transparent that you would be more than forgiven for assuming that this stuff wouldn’t have staying power, but you would be so wrong. This scent lasts wonderfully, leaving you with a sun-kissed glow which will surround you all day. We could still smell it in the evening following an early morning application and it is the sort of scent which you can still smell on your t-shirt when you finally pick it up to sling to towards the laundry hamper the next day. You may expect light, but you will get staying power.

We felt that Sunsuality projected to just under handshake distance away from the body when it was worn. It isn’t the most loud or shouty fragrance, but we felt that this was perfect for the character of the scent. It’s the sort of fragrance which is best experienced by you and your lover when the sun finally dips below the horizon and he or she snuggles up close.

Sunsuality is described as a ‘gender fluid’ fragrance and we did feel that it could easily be worn by any gender, however, we felt that it sat perhaps slightly more towards the feminine end of the continuum. As always, wear what you like though.

This fragrance is most definitely and unapologetically a summer scent. Wear it and revel in sunny days, wear it to remind yourself of holidays, wear it when you need to relax.

We felt that if you liked Sunsuality, you may also enjoy the holiday vibes of Sydney Rock Pool by Arquiste.

The brand

The Pierre Guillaume brand is one of our favourites here at The Sniff. The reasons being three-fold:

• Ease of wear and accessibility
• Quality of craftsmanship
• Pricing

Anyone who is interested in niche fragrance should have at least one Pierre Guillaume in their collection. Their range is vast but they are such friendly scents, warm and easy to get into. We love them and hope that more people will discover something in their line to fall in love with.

We’ve previously reviewed PG 9.1 Komorebi, PG 03 Cuir Venenum, PG 04 Musc Maori, PG 5.1 Suede Osmanthe, PG 16 Jardins de Kerylos and the exceptional Bois Naufrage. Also by Pierre Guillaume we’ve looked at Superlady, Sucre d’Ebene, Shermine, Aqaysos, Jangala and Tonkamande.

With the sale of their toilet freshener products, we really questioned if this brand had lost their way, however, the White Collection has shown us that they are firmly back on the right track again.

Buy it

Sunsuality is available from Bloom Perfumery London, where it is priced at £132 for 100ml EdP, and £88 for 50ml.

It is also available from the Pierre Guillaume web boutique.

We were gifted a sample of Sunsuality by Pierre Guillaume at Esxence 2019. We’d like to thank Pierre for his generosity.

Photo by Lance Asper on Unsplash.