Hadley Freeman gets a whiff of the sexiest summer fragrances

Life is, as Ronan Keating once said so eloquently, a roller coaster. Oh, Ronan, how true. How very true indeed. Kingdoms come and kingdoms fall, EastEnders is good then Coronation Street is better. But in this ocean of transience and oh-so confusing mutability there is one solid guarantee to which we can all cling, anchor-like: when it comes to summer perfumes, it's going to be floral. Truly, some religions have probably been based on less.

But despite the predictability of the theme, that doesn't mean that all of this summer's inevitability floral offerings should be passed by with a sceptical sniff. In fact, this summer is notable for the number of big - and very nice - summer perfume launches. Winners are Stila's Jade Blossom (£36 - which gets bonus points for its very summery painted bottle), Chanel's Chance (£22 - bonus points for making a patchouli-based perfume that doesn't make you smell like a die-hard hippie) and Lulu Guinness' eponymous offering (£22 - bonus points for, well, just for being Lulu Guinness.) If you want florals but don't want to smell like every other carnation scented lovely strolling the streets, you could go down the snob route with Hermes' limited edition Jardin en Mediterranee (£37, available only from Harrods) which in my expert opinion is actually more salty than floral and, if you smell it for too long, is really more erotic than flirty (although perhaps that's just me after inhaling too many perfumes.)

But, hey, perhaps you're the kind of crazy kid who likes to live on the wild side and you don't want a floral scent this summer. Well, this is a welcoming sort of column and that is okay, too. Other popular summer adjectives in the cosmetics business are "sparkling" and "sweet." For the former, there's Mrs Wedding, Vera Wang's first foray into the perfume market, with her own name offering (£15). Gucci's Summer Rush (£37) is a good 'un, but even better is Origins' Spring Fever (£15) which is, quite simply, lovely. As to the latter, personally, I find Anna Sui's Dolly Girl (£20) and Ghost's Summer Moon (£28) a bit too sweet for my liking, but then, I always was a girl who preferred cheese and crackers to pudding.Clinique's Happy Hearts (£29.50) is a lighter but sweeter version of its very popular Happy perfume and is given the thumbs up even by this stilton-loving lady.

Leave it to Alexander McQueen, though, to create a perfume that can only be described as "not exactly summery." It is heady, it is heavy and there are fewer florals than you'd find in London's East End. But McQueen's Kingdom (£31) is fabulous and I think it is very thoughtful of dear old McQueen for confirming that Ronan was right. Sandalwood in summer? Life really is a roller coaster.