When looking for a perfume, many people say they want something “sexy” or something “fresh.” Perfume houses are hip to that, and tend to market their wares with smoldering starlets or oceans and dew-tipped garden flowers. (That is, unless they can play both sides and put the starlet on the beach.)

The popular sexy fragrance is easy to define. Start with a friendly fruit note, add amber, vanilla, and maybe patchouli, toss in a shot of jasmine and the obligatory rare jungle orchid, and presto: sexy perfume. A clean fragrance can take a few different approaches. It can be citrusy (many colognes), ocean-like (Issey Miyake Eau d’Issey), fizzing with steamy aldehydes (Narciso Rodriguez Essence), or soapy (take your pick of the Clean line). It can finish with cool wood or vetiver, or — more likely these days, it seems — a wave of laundry musk.

Giorgio Armani has raked in good money selling fresh fragrances. Acqua di Giò, both the feminine and masculine versions, have been best sellers since the mid-1990s. Acqua di Gioia is the brand's latest try for the “fresh” vote, and it plays up both the ocean and laundry musk angles of clean...

L'Artisan Parfumeur is reissuing two fragrances that were formerly in the "Harvest fragrances" series, Iris Pallida (shown above) and Fleur d'Oranger. Both will be limited edition for spring/summer 2011, but they are no longer tied to particular floral harvests, and they are now in the usual L'Artisan packaging at usual L'Artisan prices...

Lancôme will launch Trésor Midnight Rose, a new fragrance for women, in September. Trésor Midnight Rose is a flanker to the 1990 version of Trésor (there is also a 1952 version), and will be fronted by actress Emma Watson...

Lanvin will launch Jeanne La Plume, a new limited edition fruity floral for women. Jeanne La Plume is a flanker to 2008's Jeanne Lanvin, and follows last year's Jeanne La Rose...

Lady Million is Paco Rabanne's newish feminine counterpart to 1 Million, a fragrance that I liked even less than Kevin did — in fact, the only thing I liked about 1 Million was the fun commercial.

The commercial for Lady Million was a little less fun — it was so much like the 1 Million commercial that it seemed like an afterthought — but I like the fragrance a little better. The start is rocky: mega-sweet neon fruit punch over a darkish base, and for a moment or two I thought we were going down the same candied road as Black XS, or any number of the loud fruitcholi perfumes of the past couple years. But it dries down reasonably quickly into your basic ambery-musky woods...

UK designer Orla Kiely will launch her debut perfume in August. According to Kiely, "I’m used to working with colour and pattern but here we have tried to capture the essence of us in a bottle"...

Paco Rabanne will launch Lady Million, the feminine "alter ego" of Paco Rabanne 1 Million, in July. The Lady Million fragrance is a fresh woody floral, and is fronted by model Dree Hemingway...

Cacharel will introduce Amor Amor Delight, the latest limited edition flanker to their popular Amor Amor fragrance for women (see also: Amor Amor Sunshine & Amor Pour Homme Sunshine, Amor Amor Tentation, Amor Amor Sunrise), in April...

Porsche Design Group will launch The Essence Summer Ice, a flanker to 2008's Essence by Porsche Design, this month.

The woody citrus fragrance was designed by perfumer Anne Flipo...

Giorgio Armani will launch Acqua di Gioia, a new fragrance for women, in June:

Water as a source of joy and pleasure.

A joyful thrill...