This experimental summer perfume smells like sunscreen
Called Sunscreen, this new summer perfume from Comme des Garçons and LA streetwear label ERL smells like a beach party in a bottle
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

It is fair to say that Comme des Garçons perfumes are atypical. Past creations have cited as influences the smell of concrete, gasoline, and the velvet seats of a 19th-century theatre. So intrigue abounds when the ultimate brand for experimental perfumes decides to create something as typical as a ‘summer fragrance’. Will its idea of summer perfume smell like a burning flip-flop? A snow cone abandoned in the sand? Flat soda?
Sunscreen, the summer perfume
In actuality, the new fragrance smells, as its name suggests, like sunscreen. It also smells like vanilla ice cream, the ocean, and coconut water all mixed together in one.
That might sound like a sensory overload, but there is a cohesion to these various elements that makes Sunscreen work. Like most Comme des Garçons creations, it is captivating because of its strangeness, not in spite of it.
ERL x Comme des Garçons
Sunscreen has been made in collaboration with Californian fashion label ERL and marks the brand’s first foray into fragrance. ERL is the brainchild of Eli Russell Linnetz who, before he was invited to start a clothing line by Comme des Garçons president Adrian Joffe, was best known as a photographer, music video director, and set designer for some of Los Angeles’ most recognisable residents.
ERL is in many ways an homage to Linnetz’s native city, and Venice Beach in particular, with an emphasis on 1990s skatewear silhouettes rendered in a technicolour palette.
Venice Beach is the main inspiration behind Sunscreen too, making it an addition to a growing range of perfumes inspired by the Californian coast (Louis Vuitton’s On the Beach is the most notable of this genre, along with Byredo’s Sundazed). It is not even the first California beach perfume for Comme des Garçons, following the launch of the brand’s Laguna Beach-themed collaboration with Stüssy earlier this year.
Yet Stüssy’s Laguna Beach fragrance, with its notes of moss, Atlas cedar, and white solar flowers, is a much more aquatic, floral scent in relation to ERL’s.
Sunscreen, rather, is a gourmand fragrance, a sweet, potent blend of lily of the valley, heliotrope (which smells like a mix of vanilla, almond and cinnamon) and peach, along with richer notes of musk and coconut accord. To put it another way, Laguna Beach is the smell of tranquil days spent by the ocean, while Sunscreen is the beach party.
It is a welcome addition to the Comme des Garçons Parfums catalogue in our opinion, a unique type of summer fragrance that successfully walks the line between wearable and experimental.
INFORMATION
comme-des-garcons-parfum.com (opens in new tab)
Mary Cleary is the Beauty & Grooming Editor of Wallpaper*. Having been with the brand since 2017, she became an editor in February 2020 with the launch of the brand’s new beauty & grooming channel. Her work seeks to offer a new perspective on beauty, focusing on the pioneering personalities, product designs, and transformative trends within the industry.
-
Zara launches playful beauty line for kids
Mini Artists by Zara Beauty is a new line of kid-friendly face paints and water-soluble nail polishes designed with Diane Kendal
By Mary Cleary • Published
-
Buckhorn Sculpture Park: inside the art paradise dreamt up by collectors Sherry and Joel Mallin
As legendary art collectors Sherry and Joel Mallin prepare to sell their upstate New York home – and the star-studded collection occupying Buckhorn, its onsite sculpture park – we go behind the scenes of this art treasure trove, and the extraordinary life, work and spirit of the Mallins
By MZ Adnan • Published
-
Extreme Cashmere brings its colourful knits to the slopes of St Moritz
Amsterdam-based brand Extreme Cashmere – known for its extensive all-cashmere wardrobe – arrives in the historic Swiss ski resort with a special pop-up and restaurant takeover
By Jack Moss • Published
-
Reimagining roses: experimental takes on rose perfumes
Rose perfumes – the most traditional of fragrances – are being given an unconventional edge by niche and big-name brands
By Mary Cleary • Published
-
Commes des Garçons teases out the softer side of concrete with its latest fragrance
By Pei-Ru Keh • Last updated
-
Coming up roses: Comme des Garçons creates Grace Coddington perfume
By Pei-Ru Keh • Last updated
-
Rei Kawakubo’s favourite tree inspires new Comme des Garçons perfume
By Christopher Stocks • Last updated
-
Floriental on film: Nick Knight visualises scent for Comme des Garçons
By Tilly Slight • Last updated