Parterre have lovingly offered our readers an EXCLUSIVE 25% off discount for Valentine’s Day, and we are of course smitten…
You may have got your hands on one of the adorable 10ml Parterre Perfume Baubles at Christmas, well now is your chance to get the real thing! Get 25% off any 50ml & 100ml bottle of your favourite Parterre fragrance. To take advantage of this offer visit parterrefragrances.com – and enter the code valentine25 when prompted at the checkout.
The HOUR of DUSK & GOLD
Persian wild carrot seed and angelica root are embellished with orris, nutmeg, lavender, and bay. Dusky accents of liquidambar linger on the skin, as soft as silk.
A TRIBUTE to EDITH
A rich, sensuous rose. Reminiscent of Paris in the jazz era, this is a sultry and compelling fragrance with geranium for a modern accent.
RUN of the RIVER
A splash of refreshing lemon and lime mingles with aromatic elements of bergamot mint and lemon thyme layered on clary sage and orange flower.
ROOT of all GOODNESS
Warm and enveloping with an aromatic heart and a touch of citrus and spicy ginger, this perfume is a celebration of Parterre’s English grown vetiver.
With the cold weather (and all of us in desperate need of a treat), the code will be valid for TEN DAYS (expiring on 23rd February 2021). So what better time to explore these exquisite scents.
Why we love Parterre: When David and Julia Bridger decided to combine the ruling passions of their lives – art, gardens, travel and perfume – and gather a team of experts (literally) in their field, they set in motion a series of events that is poised to change the face of British fragrance forever. And put Parterre on the map.
David’s family had been in farming for almost 400 years, so horticulture runs in his veins – even though most of his career had been spent in marketing. Julia, meanwhile, had wide experience in advertising, going on to run a luxury villa travel company. Together, the pair (at that point based in Hampshire) began looking around for a farm of their own to buy, before stumbling across the ‘sleeping beauty’ of Keyneston Mill. It had fields – 50 acres of them. A run-down mill house and some crumbling outbuildings. An overgrown orchard. But lots and lots of potential not only to fulfill their dream of actually growing and distilling perfume ingredients right there, in the Dorset countryside – but to show visitors how it’s done, as they’d so enjoyed in Grasse.
Embracing the concept of ‘from seed to bottle’, with Parterre, the Bridgers not only set out to to grow, harvest and distil many of their own ingredients – but they also had a longing to try growing crops that had never before been grown on British soil. Even including – astonishingly – vetiver. For Julia and David, this is about ‘reinventing perfumery by taking it back to its roots.’ Parterre‘s motto: ‘Where creative botany meets artistry and the wild spirit of adventure.’
The planting now expands into surrounding fields, with crop-scale ingredients producing incredible quality yields, which are then hand-blended by Jacques Chabert – one of the world’s leading perfumers, who works in Grasse alongside his daughter, Elsa Chabert, while his elder and equally talented perfumer daughter, Carla Chabert, runs their Paris laboratory. Meanwhile, Parterre’s creative team is headed up by Virginie Daniau, President of the British Society of Perfumers (BSP), who first introduced Jacques to Keynestone Mill’s owners.
This adventure in botany has taken over four years – but the vision has now become reality. Over 2,000 aromatic plants and flowers are now being grown just 20 minutes from Poole – including rose geranium (more of which anon), melissa, hyssop, chamomile, angelica, artemisia, clary sage, yarrow, bergamot mint and red thyme. Many of them have made it into the limited edition, numbered flacons of Parterre fragrance now on sale at spiffy Piccadilly department store Fortnum & Mason, as well as via their own website.
‘Our mission is to grow the most unusual plants we can source,’ explains Julia. ‘Each plant is then trialled, harvested and distilled on site – and this process captures the very essence of each aromatic variety.’
For Julia and David, this is about ‘reinventing perfumery by taking it back to its roots.’ Parterre‘s motto: ‘Where creative botany meets artistry and the wild spirit of adventure.’
