Tag: botanicals

Goldfield & Banks – the blissful Botanicals series of scents

Dimitri Weber launched his house of Goldfield & Banks in 2016, showcasing for the fist time in the fragrance world the stunning native ingredients of Australia. And WHAT a wonderful treat for all fragrance lovers this proved to be…

 

When he started, Dimitri explained to us, nobody was talking about Australian ingredients at the various trade shows he visited, but ‘…now I notice more people are showcasing and highlighting their provenance, and the big houses like Firmenich and Givaudan are now exploring those ingredients, and that’s so wonderful!’

It was a fragrantly fateful 25 years ago Dimitri first travelled to Australia for a fragrance launch. He’d worked on fragrances in France for over twenty years before that trip that was to blow his mind and shape the course of his scented life and career. A friend suggested extending his trip, seeing as he’d flown for 24 hours to get there, to explore the wilds of the Australian landscape. While there, Dimitri says he totally fell in love with both the place and a special person, eventually moving to Australia and completely immersing himself in the wonderful ingredients he found there.

 

 

 

With this idea of combining the refinement of French perfumery with a hitherto under-explored palette of fragrant ingredients, he was proud to start his own brand to highlight unique materials of incredibly high quality: ‘Some of the farmers we work with are growing their ingredients in such remote locations in Australia that there’s no pollution whatsoever – they are completely pure.’

There are so many scents to adore within their collection – which you can read about along with the full founding story and inspirations of the house – in our page dedicated to Goldfield & Banks; but here we’re going to the Botanicals Series (easily distinguishable with their gilded bottles), beginning with the most recent…

 

Goldfield & Banks Island Lush 

Perfumer: Amélie Jacquin

They say: ‘South Pacific Sandalwood; the epitome of wild tropical beauty. Carnal and bountiful, Island Lush is a sumptuous perfume with a heart of modern woods. A wind of exoticism transports you on a journey to islands beyond the horizon, where radiant spices, powdery orris, vegetal roots and luscious resins envelop smooth wood species.’

We say: This is beguilingly buttery from the get-go, a scents that seems to melt into skin, becoming one with you, as that unique quality of sandalwood – somehow green yet spicy – radiates throughout. The orris offers a powdery finish which melds the supple softness of the leather to the grassy cool of vetiver and richly unctuous resins in the base.

Botanicals & Essences in Island Lush:
Sandalwood South Pacific
Sandalwood Australia
Bergamot Italy
Pink Pepper
Nutmeg Indonesia
Agarwood
Ginger
Geranium Egypt
Guaiac Wood Paraguay
Cedar Wood Texas
Patchouli Indonesia
Vetiver Haiti
Benzoin Laos
Leather

£180 for 100ml pure perfume harrods.com

 

 

Goldfield & Banks Purple Suede

Perfumer: Ilias Ermenidis

They say: ‘An olfactory imagination expressing the scent of aromatic fields of sunburnt lavender, where blossoms are crisped by the fierce heat of the sun. Paired with the scent of rust-coloured saddles, this sensual perfume reveals a distinctively rich and dry sillage. A contemporary and unexpected take on lavender and leather.’

We say: Intensely aromatic, this is a lavender so pure (flourishing in Tasmania’s unspoilt landscape) that we swear we feel better simply smelling it. Definitely not the dusty, fusty lavender you may have previously experienced, within Purple Suede it feels rich, luxurious, even decadent in its herbaceously surprising, oakmoss-swathed softness.

Botanicals & Essences in Purple Suede:
Lavender Tasmania
Pink Pepper Reunion Island
Hyssop Flowers France
Woodleather
Patchouli Indonesia
Oakmoss
Civet
Amber
Oud

£180 for 100ml pure perfume harrods.com

 

Goldfield & Banks Silky Woods

Perfumer: Hamid Merati Kashani

They say: ‘The perfume is a more subtle, luxe and modern interpretation of agarwood (also called oud). One that is delightful to wear on any occasion and which offers a sensation of a distinctive gourmand and musky fragrance on a silky smooth skin.’

We say: If a fragrance can ever smell like liquid gold, this is it – a smooth, molten swoon of Australian sandalwood, harvested sustainably for the first time in the Daintree Rainforest in Tropical Queensland. Spiced with a tingle of saffron, swirled with smoked vanilla and the hug of tobacco leaves in the trail, it’s an all-day (and night) wrist-sniffer, for sure.

Botanicals & Essences in Silky Woods:
Agarwood Tropical Australia
Cinnamon Ceylon
Tobacco Leaves
Ylang Ylang Madagascar
Vanilla Tahiti
Sandalwood Australia
Incense

£180 for 100ml pure perfume harrods.com

Written by Suzy Nightingale

Fragrant gins we love – the list gets longer!

Our discovery of Theodore Pictish Gin made the list of ‘fragrant gins we love’ get longer, and we would like you to consider for a moment the many hours The Perfume Society team have devoted to this research for you and you alone, dear reader.

A little while ago we shared with you some of our favourite gins infused with ingredients more often sniffed in scents – inviting you to stop and sip the roses – but having been introduced to Theodore Gin at a ‘Gin & Pefume’ evening in London recently, we wanted to share our latest fragrant finding with you too.

Inspired by the lost civilisation of the Picts, this aromatic Scottish gin is actually an experiemental batch, and includes six scented botanicals of pine, damask rose, pomelo and bourbon vetiver – ‘distilled in a multi-stage process using an old charentais still alongside a rotovap to extract the best flavours and aromas from each distinct botanical.’

 

 

The makers explain that, ‘Pomelo is distilled in old Charentais still at ‘feu nu’ to extract the elegant citric notes of the fruit. Ginger is double distilled again in Charentais in order to extract woody warmth and powdery spiciness. Honey and fresh pine needles are distilled under vacuum using a rotavapor to preserve the freshness of the botanicals. Coriander, juniper, pink pepper, chamomile, kaffir limes, orris, cardamom and lavender are distilled in classical London Dry style

​After distillation and blending, we further infuse Theodore Gin with Oolong tea, which gives it a green-grassy astringency that adds layers of complexity as well as balancing the natural sweetness of the gin, as well as giving the liquid a pale straw colour.

This intricate and delicate elixir is the product of a perfumer and two master distillers, one British and one French, combining old and new techniques.’

Having sampled this aromatic gin in three differing cocktails (for research purposes) we can tell you that the lavender and smoky coolness of the vetiver are certainly very noticable to our noses, as were the warm tingle of ginger balanced against the soft powder of orris and gentle tea undertones in the taste.

For true fragrant gin connoisseurs, best sipped with a non-obtrusive tonic alone, we feel, and perhaps with a creatively foraged garnish to compliment the floral notes most? We shall be looking forward to conducting further scented research throughout the warmer days to come, either way…

Theodore Pictish Gin £45
theodoregin.com

By Suzy Nightingale