With darker nights and cooler weather, we’re more than ready for scents we can snuggle up with. This week’s latest launches will comfort like a fragrant hug. Narciso Rodriguez Ambree adds a warm touch to their signature musk whilst Bvlgari La Gemme Kobraa dazzles us with its exotic bottle. Cosiness is au courant and we couldn’t be happier about it.
LOUIS VUITTON
HEURES D’ABSENCE
If ever there were further proof needed that florals have been modernised, it is here, in this pale mauve juice: a profusion of fresh flowers harvested in Grasse, still a hub of perfume creativity, where Vuitton’s Jacques Cavallier Belletrud was born and works today. Add green, powdery mimosa from the Tanneron forest, touches of sandalwood and soft musks, and you have the prettiest of sheer summer scents – contemporary, luminous and understatedly elegant.
£200 for 100ml eau de parfum
louisvuitton.com
NARCISO RODRIGUEZ
AMBREE
Frangipani, ylang ylang, amber and cedar harmonise to enthral in this John Lewis exclusive. Obviously it’s all about the juice, really, but can we take a moment to squeal at the sumptuous peachiness of this bottle? And inside, you’ll find the feminine warmth reverberates with the feeling of sun-kissed skin, their so-loved signature musk accord (feather-light, floating like strands of silk in a summer breeze) surrounded by all the frivolity of a longed-for holiday.
£47 for 30ml eau de parfum
johnlewis.com
SOL DE JANEIRO
CHEIROSA ’62
This positively sambas out of the disco-ball-capped bottle, inspiring fantasies of Brazilian beaches, sun-warmed skin and Rio’s vibrant lifestyle. It captures, so we’re told, ‘the aroma of the brand’s signature Bum Bum Cream’ – which, for the uninitiated, is actually a full-body moisturiser that leaves skin glowing and fragrant. Heliotrope, sandalwood, salted caramel, vanilla and jasmine make for a fabulous loud, cymbal-clash of woodiness, fruitiness and floralcy. One for your inner ‘Girl from Ipanema’.
£78 for 50ml eau de parfum
spacenk.com
VAN CLEEF & ARPELS
OUD BLANC
To wear this as it deserves, we’re dressing in a silken kaftan and straddling a velvet Ottoman cushion in the garden while surrounded by roses and eating dates. Let the neighbours stare! The precious oudh accord is rendered sheer and tenderised with velvety Turkish rose, while vanilla swathes clouds of smoky frankincense; the final dry-down reveals a long-lasting cool caress of aldehydic white musks. Join us in this romantic reverie.
£130 for 75ml eau de parfum
At Selfridges
BVLGARI
LA GEMME KOBRAA
The magnificent Gemme collection continues by conjuring the mystery of Snake Jasper – a precious stone that hails from New Zealand. Used as an antidote for snakebites in ancient times, it symbolises powerful regeneration and life force, here reverberating in a majestically stylish take on oudh. The agarwood thrums low and deep, freshened by the green woody vibrancy of geranium leaf before being subsumed in a cloak of black incense. Spritz and swish around, fearlessly.
£255 for 100ml eau de parfum
bulgari.com
