bespoke Archives - The Perfume Society

Experimental Perfume Club launch online bespoke service!

Experimental Perfume Club has always been about pushing the boundaries and trying new things within the world of fragrance, and now they’ve gone one step further – offering their unique ‘bespoke service’ online!

It’s been a tough time for retail, and perfume houses have had an extra layer of difficulty, given that we haven’t been able to smell their scents other than buyingtheir Discovery Sets and getting samples to try at home. We’ve seen a HUGE demand for our Discovery Boxes because of this, so that’s all well and good, but what about those houses offering bespoke, custom-blended fragrances?

Brilliant perfumer, and founder of Experimental Perfume Club, Emmanuelle Moeglin has managed to turn what could have been tragedy into triumph, rby eacting quickly and being one of the first in the industry to dramatically adapt her business to the ever-changing challenges.

As we reported previously, Experimental Perfume Club now offer online classes – from a free mini session to an advanced creation course, so the learning and experimenting (that was the impetus for them launching in the first place) is now available to an even larger audience who can do the classes in their own time, from the comfort of their own homes.

Now, we are thrilled to share that Experimental Perfume Club are bringing their utterly genius bespoke customisation service online, too! The Bespoke Collection and Discovery Set allows you to create and customise you very own unique fragrance online (an opportunity which was previously only available to customers in-store at Selfridges).

We happen to know this Bespoke perfume service works perfectly, as one of the first people to try it in-store when it launched was The Perfume Society’s own Co-Founder, Jo Fairley – followed shortly after by myself. We happen to have almost identical tastes in perfume, but Jo had not mentioned a single note that was in her customised blend. Lo and behold: when we compared, we found we’d both created exactly the same scent, out of the many thousands (hundreds of thoudsands?) of possible combinations! A dark, smoky amber/incense that positvely purrs with provocation, it proved to us beyond doubt their bespoke customisation service genuinely works.

How to get your bespoke-blended perfume:

The new Bespoke Collection includes twenty unique blends, carefully curated by Emmanuelle, to sample and wear at home first. Online, you can use the LAYERS formula finder’s in-house algorithm and ‘receive a shortlist of formulas that match your unique olfactory profile.’ Finally, your favourite fragrance can then be ordered in a full size, fully personalised bottle.

Experimental Perfume Club Bespoke Collection £50

Bespoke Perfume £110 for 50ml eau de parfum

Bespoke Collection + Full-size Bespoke Perfume £150

Refill Service for 50ml Bespoke Perfume £65

Experimental Perfume Club’s bespoke fragrance space at Selfridges

Experimental Perfume Club have launched a LAYERS pop-up lab at Selfridges, London, where customers can now design their own bespoke fragrance from almost endless combinations and have it blended instore, just for them! It’s one space, but with two scent experiences – and it’s shaping the future of fragrance as we know it…

The Formula Library

How it works: ‘Create individual blends using our six LAYERS Eau de Parfums in multiple combinations, you can compose over 50,000 unique, personalised fragrances. Our LAYERS App features an in-house algorithm which enables us to understand your personal tastes, before recommending 3 possible formulae that match your unique olfactory profile. You can either choose your favourite blend from the shortlisted selection or customise the fragrance further with the help of our Fragrance Curator. Once you choose your final blend, our Fragrance Curator will formulate your unique fragrance in front of you. And, for the ultimate bespoke touch, you can choose a name for your fragrance and a personalised label for your 50ml bottle.’

The Refill Fountain

How it works: ‘Being eco-conscious has always been at the heart of what we do and we strive to source and manufacture responsibly. Our goal is to reduce unnecessary packaging and waste and enable loyal consumers to reuse their packaging again and again. Our first refill service will be available exclusively at the LAYERS lab at Selfridges, London. A place where you can reduce your carbon footprint by bringing back a bottle of your empty 50ml fragrance to be refilled for a reduced price. Looking after both your pennies and the planet.’

Emmanuelle Moeglin, founder and perfumer of Experimental Perfume Club, said: ‘We love to provide unique olfactory experiences for consumers who are becoming more and more invested in what goes into their products. The LAYERS pop-up lab will take our bespoke perfumery offering to the next level with more formula choice than ever before where customers will be guided in creating their own bespoke fragrance. We are also proud to be a company striving for sustainability with our perfume refills, and are one of only a few perfume brands offering this eco-friendly service.’

If you can’t make it to Selfridges to experience the fragrant fun first-hand, don’t fear! You can get the feel for layering up the fragrances in your own home by trying the Experimental Perfume Club Blending Boxes for £90 – fine fragrances to wear alone or blend at home to your own bespoke formula, with all ingredients and instructions included.

‘A set of three pocket fragrances and a personal blending bottle. Choose three fragrances from across the collections to customise your own fragrance; one Top, one Mid, one Base eau de parfum. Follow one of the suggested blends or let your imagination run fly!’

Jonathan Ward

Fragranced candles don’t get much hotter than Jonathan Ward‘s… metaphorically speaking, of course, but we were wowed from the very first time we smelled them.

You see, British candle maker and fragrant auter, Jonathan Ward, likes to do things differently. Having begun in the fashion world and created fragrances for others, Ward crossed over to the light side with his own fragranced candle house at last, and now has perfumistas filling their own homes with his scents.

As you might imagine, we’ve had our noses on a fair few scented candles in our time. The Perfume Society offices are contstantly aglow (candle-light is so flattering to the features, don’t you think? Especially when you’ve lost that post-holiday glow!) and currently we have Halcyonic wafting its magic. Inspired by the Bright Young Things of the ‘roaring 20s’, we felt it was just the thing to have burning after watching the Downton Abbey film. And as you’ll see, below, even the wayhe describes the notes feels like the an entire world and cast of characters, captured in scent…

Top
Steam Iron Lapel, Smoked Lipstick Kiss, Tea Rose, Amber
Heart
Crab Apple, Honeysuckle, Prickle Pear, Wet Jasmine
Base
Black Amber, Black Salt, Tuxedo Musks

Fragrance expert Stephan Matthews regularly cites Ward’s creations among his favourite in the whole world (and as we know, there’s a lot of candles out there!) and recently caught up with this coolest of candle makers to discover his scented heritage. We Wear Perfume, meanwhile, fell madly for the literary and mythological inspirations behind the brand, waxing lyrical (sorry, couldn’t resist) about the ‘complex and captivating stories for his artful scented candle collection that are akin to miniature novels.’

Indeed, these are no ordinary candles – Ward creates scented spaces into which we can escape at the flick of a flame. He likes to ‘…ignite the olfactory legacies bequeathed by artists, visionaries, prophets and poets—bringing fresh light to their thoughts and ideas.’

Where we think these candles excel is the fragrances have just as much complexity (and time spent on them) as a bottle of personal perfume. In fact, Ward admitted to We Wear Perfume that he sometimes dabs a bit of the fragrance oils he composes for the candles behind his ears, apparently even combing a bit through his beard! But be in no doubt: here’s a man who takes the compositions of these scents really, really seriously.

Another point of difference is the added benefit of the candles being completely clean-burning – Ward is one of the founders in the promotion of natural waxes, with the wicks attached using an artisan candle technique that fixes them without using glue or resin.

When Jonathan asked if we’d like to learn how to create your – completely bespoke – candle we leaped at the chance. And now you can join us…

We’re not talking about pouring some already created scent into some wax and adding a wick, here. We mean blending your own custom scent using professional perfumer’s accords, then practice making your very own candle; from mixing the oils to pouring the wax it’ll be a hands-on experience (and a new life skill).

The workshop will be led by the immensely talented Jonathan Ward himself, who will undoubtedly share invaluable candle-related knowledge throughout the day. This will be an unforgettable workshop where guests will enjoy refreshments and take home their personally scented Jonathan Ward candle, along with being offered an incredibly generous and exclusive discount of 15% off Jonathan Ward products on the day.

Tickets for this unique day’s custom candle course are £65 and can be purchased here:

Saturday 5th October 2019
Times: 11.00 am – 2:00 pm
Venue: Johnathan Ward Candle Studio, Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Rd, London E8 4QN

By Suzy Nightingale

Design In Scent: WIN The Wedding Fragrance Discovery Experience

Looking for a unique wedding gift or a bespoke scent for your happy day? We think we’ve found it!
What could be more special than making your wedding totally tailored to you, as a couple? For those about-to-be-weds who long for something truly memorable, Design In Scent offer Fragrance Journeys™ – not only for couples to wear on their wedding day, but with complimenting candles and ambience mists to scent the celebration itself.
And, very generously, they are giving away a Wedding Fragrance Discovery Experience for you to explore, and a bottle of your favourite perfume!
Read on for details of how to enter the competition…
Design In Scent say: ‘We are giving away a Wedding Fragrance Discovery Experience and a bottle of your favourite fragrance from the new Design In Scent Wedding Collection. Searching for your perfect wedding scent is a beautiful experience for you to enjoy with your partner during planning. When you scent your wedding venue with the fragrance you love and gift it to guests it becomes an incredibly meaningful part of your day.
The Design In Scent Wedding Collection features four Fragrance Journeys™ for couples to wear, scent their wedding with and gift to loved ones. Each Fragrance Journey™ contains three complementing fragrances – a Feminine eau de parfum, a Masculine eau de parfum and a Union ambience fragrance that fuses the two into a new but recognisable scent. Capture the precious memories of your wedding with the magic of scent…’

Founded by Gemma Hopkins in 2015, Design is Scent utilises Gemma’s early career as a multi-sensory designer, coming into contact with Heston Blumenthal’s revolutionary work and inspiring her to enrich our most neglected sense: smell. Gemma teamed up with lawyer turned wedding-planner, Meghan Fay, after Meghan attended a wedding Gemma had created a bespoke fragrance for – so taken by the scent that she tracked Gemma down, eventually becomming the Partner and Managing Director of the company.
Until this year, their work was purely for VIPs on a couture basis, creating fragrances for exclusive events at luxury venues such as The Arts Club, The Shard and Battersea Power Station. Now the fragrant duo are opening up their world of scent by allowing couples to explore four ‘masculine’ and four ‘feminine’ fragrances together, along with four other ‘Union’ scents to try – and it’s definitely a case of exploration, as they ‘…encourage people to break the fragrnce ‘rules’ and simply choose what they love A bride may wear a Masculine fragrance and vice versa,’ and of course they can be layered together.
To find out more, visit Design In Scent’s website…
How to win: Simply fill in your details, below, and we’ll enter you into the prize draw.
Prize: A beautifully presented Wedding Fragrance Discovery Collection and – once you have chosen your favourite – a bottle of your favourite perfume!
Closing date: No further entires will be accepted after 10am Thursday 10th August, 2017
Good luck!
[contact-form-7 id=”145448″ title=”Design In Scent Wedding Collection Competition”]

Terms & Conditions: No cash alternative to the prizes will be offered. The prizes are not transferable. Prizes are subject to availability and we reserve the right to substitute any prize with another of equivalent value without giving notice. Closing date for entry will be 10/08/2017. After this date no further entries to the competition will be accepted.

BYREDO's 'Unnamed' perfume – the scent you can call your own (and now create your bespoke ad campaign!)

If you have ever dreamed of a perfumer naming their creation after you or wanted a tounchingly bespoke gift for a loved one, BYREDO have come up with the genius idea of leaving the label of ‘Unnamed‘ completely blank – so you can call it whatever you like! Tapping in to the hot trend of personalisation, the bottle comes with a Letraset sheet of transfer letters to rub on, and really the only limit is your own imagination…
Ben Gorham, Founder and Creative Director of BYREDO, explained: ‘The names of the BYREDO fragrances often describe the origin of an idea, a thought that leads to a brief presented to the perfumer. With fragrance being completely subjective these names spark the imagination of the perfumer and finally the customer. They each experience the fragrance even before they smell the ingredients in the bottle. We still find it fascinating that people interpret our fragrances in so many ways.’

Ben continues, ‘To celebrate BYREDO’s 10 year anniversary we created an unnamed fragrance that allows our customers to choose a name meaningful to them, and customize the label of their bottle. This is our way of celebrating the notion and uniqueness of smell and an opportunity to thank our partners, retailers and staff as well as the loyal customers who have supported and grown BYREDO to what it is today.’
Of course we absolutely had to give ours an eponymous name…
And what of the scent itself? A blend of warm pink pepper and an icy cool gin accord, the shade of a pine forest evoked with iris roots blanketed by moss, rivulets of spice-sprinkled fruits trickling through verdant undergowth and underpinned by the soft trail of frosty woods.

Now you can even go online and create your own ad campaign to celebrate the launch of ‘your’ fragrance. What would yours be called, and who will you choose as the ‘face’…?

BYREDO Unnamed £90 for 50ml eau de parfum
At Liberty
Written by Suzy Nightingale