Month: November 2022

Christmas Fragrance Gift Guide (how to choose & who to buy for)

How to buy fragrance at Christmas? Where do you even begin? Well, right here with The Perfume Society‘s everything-one-click-away guide! From nervous noses to designer divas and scented gents or even fussy family or friends.

Christmas is always the most scented season, but present-buying panic can set in (we all know the feeling), so we’ve collated a guide to help you start (and finish!) your shopping right now…

When you’re not sure exactly what scent to get them for Christmas, or are sick of giving loved ones the same old thing, our overwhelming feedback from happy customers suggests a Discovery Box is definitely the way forward. Bursting with luxurious and often hard-to-find mini, try-me size scents and decadents beauty extras, each box is specially curated around a theme or with a particular kind of perfume-lover in mind.

At The Perfume Society, we’ve something to suit everyone, no matter how picky about perfume they are! From designer name divas to scented gents about town, millennials desperate to discover what suits them best and those keen to branch out with something different – see how many gifts you can tick off your shopping list in one fell swoop (and all from the comfort of your sofa/desk/bed…)

 

 

Men’s Must Have Discovery Box: £15 (or £12 for VIPs)

The perfect treat or gift filled with a curated edit of those fragrances we believe men simply must have, this collection of male and unisex fragrances features globally adored best sellers and just launched scents from THoO, Jeroboam, DSquared2, Paco Rabanne, Bentley, Jean Paul Gaultier, Versace & Initio! Those wishing to expand their collection will delve and get ready to be truly addicted to their new favourite fragrance(s)….

 

 

Niche VII Discovery Box: £23 (£19 for VIPs)

Featuring fragrances chosen to make your gift recipient feel truly special (particularly for someone who’s had a tough time and deserves to feel their best again) this box is bursting with newness from Floral Street, Comme des Garçon & Caroline Herrera, plus the incredible artistic beauty of Sarah Baker Parfums. Let them dive into the best scents the fragrance world has to offer (and extra pampering treats for the colder weather from Skinsense and Stories Parfums).

 

 

 

Feel Good Discovery Box: £23 (£19 for VIPs)

Know someone who’s been seriously stressed? (Maybe even YOU deserve a treat?) Recent world events have left us a little off kilter, so here at Perfume Society HQ, we decided to put together the perfect gift box of fragrance to help everyone achieve a better sense of equilibrium. We’ve brought together fragrances that have been purposely designed to induce a sense of calm and help cope with all life has to throw at us, perfumes for grounding us in natural surroundings, and there are also scents for boosting inner strength. Click on the link to discover each item individually…

 

 

 

Platinum Discovery Box: £25 (£21 for VIPs)

For the most suave and chic of your perfume-loving pals, here’s a box that swaggers with charm and sophistication. Filled with fragrances from some of Britain’s finest brands – both classic and utterly contemporary names – to help them find their new fragrant passions. Indulging in these voluptuous, classic scents and new launches all from within the UK will keep them feeling confident (and let them know how much they are loved!) Smart…sexy…elegant – this is a box that has it all, and then some, in scent appeal.

 

Get to Know… Sarah Baker perfumes (now available in our shop!)

Contemporary artist Sarah Baker’s photography, sculpture and films are inspired by ‘fashion, luxury and celebrity’, but little did she know that when she created a fictional fragrance house as part of her artwork, her passion for the project (and the public’s reaction to it) would result in a real-life fragrance house. Still artistically inspired, luckily for us they’re now ready to (actually) wear…

When we speak to founders of fragrance houses, we’re used to hearing them rhapsodise about their childhood memories of exploring their mother’s scents on the dressing table and how they discovered the world (and themselves) through smell, but Sarah Baker chuckles as she recalls growing up avoiding perfume, because for years, ‘I convinced myself I was actually allergic to it, because my sister wore so much of it and I’d be stuck in the car with her on long journeys!’ This early olfactory over-exposure luckily didn’t put her off perfume for life, and teenage Sarah became ‘obsessed’ with The Body Shop’s White musk. ‘My friend Alice and I had a ritual of going to the Body Shop,’ she says, ‘and dousing ourselves with it. I swear it bonded us. I smell it now and think of all the fun times, like sleepovers, laughing together…’

 

 

Gaining a place at Goldsmith’s College, in 2000 Sarah moved from America to live and study in London. The overt opulence and heady glamour of 1980’s movies, soap operas, music and swaggering fashion styles inspired Sarah’s artwork and still very much inspire her today. This maximalist (and Fun with a capital F) ethos inspires her love of fragrance too. The first joining of the artistic and fragrant dots, as it were, occurring when Sarah created a film inspired by the life of Patrizia Reggiani (who was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill her husband, the fashion world figure Maurizio Gucci).

 

 

‘I’m really interested in exploring soap operas in my work and here was a real life one.’ For the project, Sarah invented a fashion company that she named ‘Imperio Rosso’, and, with help from the Arts Council, in 2014 made a deliberately hyperbolic film for the Institute of Art and Olfaction about her fictional fashion moguls’ passionate, fashion and perfume-obsessed lives. It was during the making of the movie that Sarah finally realised she wanted ‘…to enter into the world of commerce and create an actual, real-life scent brand.’ Having become ‘really interested in celebrity perfumes – what are you buying into when you purchase them’, a line of scents ‘based on my love of luxury fabrics’ was the perfect fit.

 

 

Collaborating with other creatives at the top of their game really seems to light Sarah Baker’s fire, so the first collection in 2016 found her working with perfumer Ashley Eden Kessler (who’d originally made the fragrances for the exhibition), and 4160 Tuesday’s perfumer Sarah McCartney. In 2018, Sarah collaborated with fragrance writer Miguel Matos for a limited edition scent called Jungle Jezebel – a limited edition design concept that saw the bottle adorned with drag queen-esque eyelashes. But Sarah’s artistic/fashion dreams really took flight when working with the legendary Donatella Versace and supermodel Helena Christensen as part of the most 80s-tastic spectacular campaign you’re likely to see, for a Jackie Collins-inspired coffee table book entitled Baroness, with Donatella guest-editing the issue and styling the interiors and clothes featured within…

We know you’ve been adoring the samples we’ve included from Sarah Baker in our Discovery Boxes, but now we are thrilled to be able to offer you full sizes to purchase in our shop! Which of them have you fallen for…?

Written by Suzy Nightingale

Diptyque’s new London home: scenting Sloane Street

Sloane Street is smelling extra wonderful this Christmas, thanks to Diptyque’s stylish new flagship London perfume pad, which has arrive just in time for the fragrant festive season. Inspired by exquisite Parisian architecture, but as always showcasing design elements of the original building in their stores; the new boutique is divided into three distinct sections for scent fans to explore…

Devoted to fragrant gifting and the Maison’s scent services, the first area features a beautiful burl wood cash desk with a huge fresco behind it, which was drawn on-site by French artist Claire Basler. A large wooden console with painted table displays invite customers to play and discover the Diptyque collection. The second space fuses the traditional Edwardian mouldings and ceiling roses with a contemporary sculptural table and displays surrounding a large and welcoming fireplace, all framed by ombre finish walls. Finally, an intimately inviting zone of light wood panelling and another stunning work by Basler – this time, a panoramic painting – swathes an exclusive seating area and the Decoration collection.

 

 

Earlier this year, Diptyque opened a Spitalfields store, and now with this very welcome addition to Sloane Street’s shops, Diptyque will doubtless be delighting local residents and visitors alike. ‘We have a thriving community in the Chelsea neighbourhood and are very excited to have found a perfect store in the area,’ says Amanda Morgan, Diptyque’s UK managing director. ‘More than just a luxury contemporary retail space, we want to welcome and take all our guests on a journey of discovery and surprises inside our Diptyque apartment…’

Diptyque, 161 Sloane Street, London, SW1X 9BT

Psst! Longing to return to in-store scent shopping? Look out for our Sniffari guide to some fabulous new fragrant retail spaces in the U.K. within the Christmas edition of The Scented Letter Magazine.

Sign up here to get your FREE copy of this multiple award-winning magazine emailed to you the day it publishes!

Time for Tea?

Tea in a fragrance is almost as refreshing as in a china cup. Notes reminiscent of this favourite, soul-restoring beverage made from the dried leaves of the Camellia Sinensis on plantation slopes – have made their way into an increasing number of compositions over the years

Sometimes, of course, the tea note required is deeper, darker, smoky and more complex, for there are as many types of tea in fragrant form as there are scented brews to sup, and so perfumers can weave these richer layers into their tea fragrances. Whichever strength you choose, the effect is always uplifting and, we find, supremely comforting amidst the current chaos of the world. So, however you take yours, make sure to seek out some of these tea-centric scents this season…

 

 

It’s remained an absolute modern classic since it was first launched in 1999 – but did you know the perfumer was none other than Francis Kurkdjian? It totally makes sense, now, knowing his personal penchant for radiant, spacious scents. Soothingly herbaceous and totally uplifting, refresh your senses with rhubarb, mint and orange-infused green tea above the powdery sophistication of carnation, musk and a lightly glowing base of amber and oakmoss. Always pleasing.

Elizabeth Arden Green Tea £16.99 for 100ml eau de toilette
theperfumeshop.com

 

How many times have you let yourself be well and truly enticed by a fragrance wafting from a cafe terrace?’ asks Jovoy owner and Creative Director, Francois Henin. Not nearly often enough for our liking, so we’re give in to the seductive delights of milky chai tea spiced with cardamom and ginger, as the floral breeze of frangipani flowers drifts towards you on tendrils of sun-warmed airiness.

Jovoy Paris Remember Me £130 for 100ml eau de parfum
Jovoy Mafair

 

 

 

With a rich (and Royal) heritage, Floris marked Her Majesty’s Jubilee year with this fittingly timeless fragrance, now a fond fragrant tribute. Intriguingly melding the cool powder of orris to the comforting note of oats, sparkling blackcurrant and lime add vibrancy atop a perfect bouquet of roses. Amidst the prettiness, verdant violet leaves and herbaceous clary sage bring nature to the fore while black tea, cedar and amber provide a soothing, always stable base to rely on.

Floris Platinum 22 £200 for 100ml eau de parfum
florislondon.com

 

 

An intensified version of the original, patchouli has been invited to the party, a seamless ripple of noir that nuzzles at the silkiness of sandalwood and nutty tonka in the base. Cool cardamom slinks throughout, combined with smoky black tea, Bourbon vetiver, a lick of fig milk and dusting of orris. Wearing this, we know those who’ve been followed around supermarkets, begged to reveal their addictive scent.

BDK Parfums Gris Charnel Extrait £220 for 100ml extrait de parfum
selfridges.com

 

 

 

Celebrating the historic places where the art of perfumery was born, spiriting us to the ‘desert winds and golden amber sands’ of the ancient ‘lost city’ of Petra, Penhaligon’s entice adventurers to continue their fragrant explorations via this vivaciously nostalgic, mystically beguiling composition. Sweet fennel fronds brush bright bergamot, an incense-infused trail of green tea refreshes, while rivulets of liquid myrrh purr in the base.

Penhaligon’s The Legacy of Petra £190 for 100ml eau de parfum
penhaligons.com

 

 

We’ve a partiality toward Lapsang Souchong, and many an issue of the magazine has been powered by its reassuring strength. Carlos Huber developed this tribute with Calice Becker – plumes of aromatic smoke swirling through a forest, merging with temple incense and melding to the dramatic Wuyi Mountains vista. Magnificent! We were fascinated to learn from Arquiste the tea was developed by fleeing monks in 1646, preserving their leafy crops by smoking them over pinewood.

Arquiste Indigo Smoke £170 for 100ml eau de parfum
fiole.co.uk

 

Written by Suzy Nightingale

Bizarre scented snippets from history… (you couldn’t make it up!)

There have been some truly bizarre moments in perfume’s history (who, I’ve always wondered, was the first person to think of adding civet to a scent, or discovering ambergris could add a magical touch to a fragrance?) For your olfactory delectation, we thought we’d pull together a selection of scented snippets, covering fragrance from the dawn of perfumery to more recent history. While seeking to demystify fragrance since we first launched The Perfume Society, it’s sometimes fun simply to look back and wonder. And you truly couldn’t make these fascinating facts up…

 

 

Egyptian priests, and their Pharoahs, were entombed with fragrances – and when those tombs were opened by archaeologists, in 1897, the perfumes were discovered to have retained their original, sweet smells.  Important figures in Egyptian history were buried with scented oils, to ensure their ‘olfactory needs’ were fulfilled.

 

 

Hippocrates – ‘the father of medicine’ – was big on hygiene, prescribing fumigation and the use of perfumes to help prevent disease.  The Greeks embraced aromatherapy, making it practical and scientific rather than mystical.  Both men and women became obsessed with ‘the cult of the body’:  women, at dressing tables in their private quarters (known as the ‘gynaeceum’), men more publicly, anointing themselves at the public baths, after exercise.  (A ritual that endures in today’s gym changing rooms.) 

 

 

Emperor Nero was so crazy about roses, he had silver pipes installed so that his dinner guests could be spritzed with rosewater.  (According to legend, he once shelled out £100,000 for a ‘waterfall’ of rosepetals which actually smothered one guest, killing him.  Quite a way to go.)

 

 

 

When the Crusades kicked off – in the 11th Century – among the treasures brought back to Europe by Crusaders from the Middle and Far East were aromatic materials (and perfumery techniques).  The celebrated Arabian physician Avicinna is said to have been the first person to have mastered the distillery of rose petals, in the 10th Century.

 

 

 

There has always been a natural link between leather and perfume.  As Queen Catherine de Medici’s glovemaker understood, it works brilliantly to disguise the lingering smell of the tannery.  And in 1656 the Corporation of Glovemakers and Perfumers – for the ‘maître-gantiers’ – master glovemakers/perfumers) was formed in France, .  (Note:  at that point, glovemaking was deemed more important.)

 

 

King Louis XIV (1638-1715) took the trend for perfumery to new heights, by commissioning his perfumer to create a new scent for each day of the week. He insisted on having his shirts perfumed with something called ‘Aqua Angeli’, composed of aloes-wood, nutmeg, storax, cloves and benzoin, boiled in rosewater ‘of a quantity as may cover four fingers’. It was simmered for a day and night before jasmine and orange flower water and a few grains of musk were added. Like some kind of early fabric conditioner, it was used to rinse Louis’s shirts.

 

 

Napoleon Bonaparte had a standing order with his perfumer, Chardin, to deliver 50 bottles a month. He loved its cooling qualities and after washing, would drench his shoulders and neck with it. He particularly loved the scent of rosemary, which is a key ingredient in eau de Cologne, because it flourished along the cliffs and rocky scrubland in Corsica, where he was born.

 

 

 

Modern perfumery as we know and love it has its roots in the Victorian era.  It was that century’s clever chemists who came up with breakthrough molecules that took perfumery to a whole new level. The new synthetics were often more reliable and stable – and sometimes enabled a perfumer to capture the smell of a flower whose own scent proves frustratingly elusive to extract naturally.

 

 

 

Chanel’s mother was a laundrywoman and market stall-holder, though when she died, the young Gabrielle was sent to live with Cistercian nuns at Aubazine. When it came to creating her signature scent, though, freshness was all-important. The perfumer Ernest Beaux presented a series of 10 samples to show to ‘Mademoiselle’. They were numbered one to five, and 20 to 24. She picked No. 5 – and yes, the rest is history.

 

 

Until the 50s, fragrance was something women mostly reserved for high days, holidays – and birthdays. Until one very savvy, go-getting New York beauty entrepreneur – by the name of Estée Lauder – had a brainwave. So the game-changing fragrance Youth Dew began as a bath oil (as Estée Lauder herself once told us):

 

‘Back then, a woman waited for her husband to give her perfume on her birthday or anniversary. No woman purchased fragrance for herself. So I decided I wouldn’t call my new launch “perfume”. I’d call it Youth Dew,’ (a name borrowed from one of her successful skin creams)…’

 

Smoky scents to celebrate Bonfire Night

Smoky scents on the breeze, distant drifts of bonfires and hazy wisps of woodsmoke, eldritch mists of morning fields in autumn – as fragrance lovers, these are the sensorial delights of the season that we’re indulging ourselves with right now…

 

 

Whether it’s the whiff of roaring fires, or mellow pipesmoke evoking much-patched tweed jackets and just a hint of damp dog: truly great smoky fragrances are immediately transportive, and not always quite so comforting. In Romeo & Juliette, Shakespeare reminds us that ‘Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs,’ which can resemble the fire in your lover’s eyes, or become a ‘choking gall’. So too can smoky fragrances recall excitement in spent fireworks, waft the  standoffish cigar-tinged sneer of a ‘members only’ club, or cloak you in the sanctified air of a Catholic confessional. They might recall stubbed cigarettes, boozy liasons and yesterday’s eyeliner, suggest the once-furtive fug of illicit substances, appease fickle gods or summon the most lascivious demons.

 

 

It’s hardly surprising there’s many smoke-laden scents, seeing as the word perfume itself arises from the Latin, ‘per fumum‘ – ‘through smoke’ – referring to fragrant materials burned as scented prayers. Perfumers, meanwhile, might choose to combine both naturals and synthetics to acheive their desired level of vapour; from the folksy, dried hay and tobacco or even burned rubber funk of isobutyl quinolone; pitch black tarriness of cade oil, the bitter, leathery slap of birch tar or rich, incense-like resins such as the fruity amber purr of labdanum (from the cistus plant) or the more powdery balsamic musk of opoponax.

Sprayed to rejoice in autumnal splendour or perhaps used to summon something altogether more Mephistophelian – I urge you to seek these out and smoulder forth…

 

Sarah Baker, Bascule
Succulent peach juice sizzles on hot leather, tobacco frottages smouldering hay while soapy lily of the valley and cut grass beckon a bath (following a torrid tumble in the stables). Ruthlessly seductive.

£95 for 50ml eau de parfum
sarahbakerperfumes.com

 

 

Rook, Thurible
Swinging incense trails conjure trembling sooty fingerprints stroked on skin, a low thrum of sticky patchouli cloaking herbaceous freshness; the stolen kisses writhing in a mossy embrace.

£99 for 50ml eau de parfum
rookperfumes.co.uk

 

Initio, Rehab
A more subtle swathe of smokiness for those who prefer to exude sophistication; here flinty lavender swirls oodles of soft tobacco into creamy vanilla, with clouds of hay-like coumarin cushioning the wood.

£220 for 90ml extrait de parfum, selfridges.com

 

 

Moschino, Toy Boy
Utterly beguiling from the get go, a bouquet of roses is tossed on the bonfire; dry clove crackles and peppercorns pop, the heat suddenly sliced through with a cool leather whip, soothed with cashmeran.

From £38.25 for 30ml eau de parfum
escentual.com

 

 

Ruth Mastenbroek, Firedance
Only when you’re ready to ramp it up: scorching leather smooches Damask rose and deepest, darkest oudh. Think billowing bonfire-smoke clinging to your hair and cold lips burned by passionate kisses.

£70 for 30ml eau de parfum
ruthmastenbroek.com

By Suzy Nightingale

Clive Christian – the art of Matsukita – an interview with artist Yukako Sakakura

Taking inspiration from their unique heritage, Clive Christian recently celebrated their beautiful Matsukita fragrance in artful style at an exhibition in Mayfair’s Jovoy perfumery. We were honoured to catch up with the world-famous artist Yukako Sakakura and talk to her about creating the most stunning multi-layered painting directly inspired by smelling the scent…

 

Matsukita was inspired ‘by a fabled Japanese princess who awed the Victorian royal court with her elegance and grace’ and first launched in 1892 by Crown Perfumery, advertised with lavish, hand painted illustrations. Clive Christian have dipped back into this intriguing heritage to recreate some iconic fragrances with a distinctly modern feel – the meeting place of historic references and scents that have a certain classic style, but are thoroughly contemporary in character when you wear them.

With this juxtaposition in mind, today Matsukita ‘has been reimagined to capture this illusive elegance.’ A deliciously woody chypre, there’s an invigorating freshness wafting around the top notes to keep this breezy and simply beautiful. Green bergamot, pink pepper and flecks of nutmeg swoop to the floral, woody heart of Chinese imperial jasmine infused with refined notes of black tea. The smoke dispersing to reveal an amber-rich base swathed in whisper-soft musk add further to the ‘sense of mystery and grace’ they hoped to capture of the original.

  

 

 Further expressing their heritage in modern ways, Clive Christian has long heralded contemporary artists, and they were delighted to partner with artist Yukako for a sensory collaboration around the scent of Matsukita, the experience of smelling which formed the inspiration for her extraordinary painting, ‘You Close Your Eyes to See Our Spring.’ Yukako explains: ‘I’ve always liked painting natural elements, because flowers link with emotions. In Japan we use these natural elements in art a lot, so it therefore feels quite natural for me to use these symbols to express feelings.’

‘I love to use layers within my work, so many I sometimes lose count! It’s usually 50 plus layers, anyway. I finish my flowers first and paint over the whole surface, then I change the shape of the flowers with further layers. If I didn’t have the layers, everything looks too flat to me, it’s not wavy enough! I want to make sure all the flowers are kind of singing the same song, it’s a way of breathing life into the landscape; so, I just paint over and over again until it feels like all the flowers are breathing with the same rhythm. To gauge when it’s finished, I must sit in front of the painting for ages, sometimes five hours (with a cup of coffee), looking closely and making sure everything is doing the right thing.’

 

‘I smelled the fragrance first, and then wore it as I painted, it helped feed my imagination and it’s as though I felt the energy of the scent go down my arm into the paintbrush. I know that might sound strange to some, but I started learning calligraphy at the age of three, and that’s all about imagination, getting to know what kind of brush marks you can make…’

 

 

‘In calligraphy, you learn that before you make a single mark on the page you have to spend time imagining it all in your head, and then you join those energies of thought and process. For my Matsukita painting, it was all about smelling the fragrance and connecting to the emotions it gave me, then translating these into images, and they flow from my brain to the brush. You know, I did all my studying about art in U.K. I’ve not done any art studies in Japan, and I find that when I’m in the mood for 100% concentration, I speak English, even in my head.’

  

 

‘I find I talk to colours [Yukako giggles] and I have changing relationships with them. For instance, I used to hate yellow years ago, and it would creep into my paintings sometimes and I’d get angry with it for spoiling them and tell it to go away, but now I absolutely love yellow! I knew I wanted yellow in this as soon as I smelled Matsukita. I must explain that I don’t talk to the colours out loud. It’s all in my head – it’s part of the way I communicate with the world and translate my feelings to the canvas. Again, while smelling the scent I knew the roses must dance first in the painting. I don’t let anyone in my studio when I’m painting because it’s disrupting to my conversation with the painting itself! My family all think I’m very weird, but it’s the way I work…’

 

 

What an incredible privilege it was to meet this visionary artist and see her work in the flesh – for seeing pictures of the paintings really cannot convey their extraordinary depth of feeling and movement. You really can sense the ‘sway’ and ‘dance’ of the flowers and petals in the breeze, standing in front of the picture itself. And isn’t that the way of fragrance itself, too? Talking about individual notes can only bring you so far – to really know a fragrance and feel its emotional connection, you must wear it on your skin. And we urge you try Matsukita this way, to truly feel the character of the scent yourself…

 Clive Christian Matsukita £350 for 50ml at Jovoy

 Written by Suzy Nightingale