This week’s latest launches are certain to captivate. YSL Black Opium Storm Illusion offers bold glamour and a glittering flacon, while Byredo tempts with the ruby coloured juice of Tobacco Mandarin. Connock London, Jo Malone and Paco Rabanne offer glamorous bottles and irresistible scents. Which ones will you choose…?
BYREDO
TOBACCO MANDARIN
Part of the Night Veils collection, you’ll be hurrying to disrobe and drape yourself in this interplay of citrus and spice. Sparkling mandarin’s immediately shot through with the deeper sizzle of cumin and coriander. This particular combination always puts us in mind of skin that’s slightly sweaty from salacious shenanigans, enhanced by the creamy leather that swathes the heart. Then tobacco and labdanum swirl the base in a smoky hit that seals the deal…
£235 for 50ml extrait de parfum
byredo.com
CONNOCK LONDON
KUKUI NOIR
At last, a long-awaited follow-up fragrance from British brand Connock London, whose original bestselling Kukui, with its whisk-you-to-the-tropics white floralcy, has long been a favourite of ours. If Kukui is sun-drenched days, this is steamy nights: an elegant encounter with notes of rose, sandalwood, jasmine and patchouli, skin-warmed to reveal notes of oudh and black amber. They recommend it ‘anytime you want to up the glamour level a little.’ Which is most of the time, these days.
£45 for 30ml eau de parfum
connocklondon.co.uk
JO MALONE LONDON
MIDNIGHT MUSK & AMBER
Especially for Christmas 2020, Jo Malone London bring us a dazzling, crystalline bottle containing a seasonal fragrance in which warm, sensual amber slow-dances with a sexy midnight musk accord. It actually opens with a fast-tempo green accord of juicy mandarin, but develops a smoochy second-skin warmth as the soft, powdery musks and amber pulse on your skin. And oh, that luminous, faceted, dressing table-worthy bottle – pure Roaring Twenties glamour.
£105 for 100ml Cologne
jomalone.co.uk
YSL
BLACK OPIUM STORM ILLUSION
Black Opium is clearly going for collector status here, with this flacon for the seductive ‘rock couture’ fragrance. The coffee-powered eau de parfum is unchanged, but emblazoned here with a shimmering lightning bolt of black, pink and silver that will get the party started – even if it’s just you, a cocktail or two, and the fragrance’s caffeinated jolt of black coffee, bergamot, orange blossom, jasmine sambac, vanilla and white musk. Grab the limited edition while you can.
£78 for 50ml eau de parfum
yslbeauty.co.uk 
PACO RABANNE
INVICTUS ONYX COLLECTOR
We’re absolutely loving the limited-edition bottle – a stunning black stone effect shot through with metal, looking for all the (under)world like something that deserves a place on the mantlepiece, never mind the bathroom shelf. It truly reflects the juice, too – the marine accord, laurel leaf, ambergris and grapefruit zest echoing the slivered glints of silver amidst a darkly glowering guaiac wood patchouli base that positively pulses with power. Becomingly seductive and fascinatingly sinister, in turn.
£69 for 100ml eau de toilette
pacorabanne.com
