When I was young, I cherished my DKNY Be Delicious perfume. The juicy, green-apple-spiked scent was tart, saccharine, and loaded with lavish flowers. To me at the time, the fruity floral felt like a perfect escape: I was too young for the powdery rose perfumes that dominated the department store but was rapidly aging out of the simple one-note spritzes you'd find at the drugstore. And this perfume felt bold, adventurous, and appropriately evocative. 

As I got older, my tastes evolved from what was popular during the early aughts, and so did my love for the ripe scent. In its place came roving fragrance affairs with white floral-rich designer bottles, niche musky numbers, complicated gourmand perfumes, and clean, sophisticated airy scents. As my fragrance wardrobe grew, it always lacked one very specific fragrance category type: fruity florals. 

But the popular trends of my youth seem to be rearing back in fashion (which makes me feel unfathomably ancient—I certainly can't be old enough to experience the cyclical nature of trends firsthand?).

And with it, of course comes a piqued interest in the once-forgotten juicy floral. Of course I was skeptical, until I smelled Ellis Brooklyn's Sun Fruit Eau de Parfum. This clean blend smacks of summer fun while somehow feeling sophisticated. 

Sun Fruit features a creamy and pleasantly surprising blend of fresh fig, bergamot, hand-picked jasmine, and vanilla. The bergamot is a bright, sunny citrus that instantly inspires images of driving a two-seater, top down, along winding roads on the Italian coast. Jasmine fills out the fragrance with its unmistakable sweet and musky floral scent. Jasmine is known for being equal parts sexy and sweet, and it brings that appeal to this perfume. Finally, the fig and vanilla add some warmth and depth, giving the scent some thickness. When I smell it, I have visions of warming my skin on terracotta bricks, soft morning sunshine, and coastal blooms filling the air.

I got my hands on the bottle just before a long weekend, the official mark of the start of summer. (How appropriate!) And with my first spray, I felt summer had started. I wore it all weekend, occasionally catching soft whiffs of its lingering spray. Each time, it felt like a reminder that we were out of the cold and ready to sink into warm, sun-soaked fun.

But even before I first smelled the perfume, I was drawn to this scent for the simple fact that it comes from Ellis Brooklyn, a clean-designed fragrance and personal brand founded by Bee Shapiro. Shapiro is a beauty writer and editor who is most famous for her beauty column in the New York Times. Her knowledge of the beauty industry is extensive, and her taste is exquisite—a combination that usually results in top-quality products. 

Additionally, the brand is clean and sustainably minded. The fragrance industry is often vilified in the clean beauty space since the ingredient lists are often hidden and perhaps contain less-than-ideal things like endocrine disrupters or carcinogens. But Shapiro holds her brand to high standards and worked closely with her world-renowned perfumers to craft safe, responsible scents. While she started with traditional perfumes, she's moved into home and body care products. And when entering those new categories, she took just as much care and attention as she did with her first fine fragrances. 

Ellis Brooklyn's Sun Fruit is a juicy floral that is far more mature than those you might remember from your youth. It's dreamy and aspirational, like a summer vacation you've waited all year for. And as with the summer sun, don't let it slip away.