cent Archives - The Perfume Society

London Fashion Week pops up: Behold the ‘Beauty Playground’!

How we love a pop-up, especially when it’s got beauty and perfumes a-go-go! How exciting, then, for the duration of London Beauty Week, a Beauty Playground will pop up on Covent Garden’s East Piazza, inviting visitors to discover and experience the best of the beauty and fragrance industry.

‘Weleda Skin Food will bring their Nice Cream Van to the Beauty Playground, dishing delicious ice cream over discussions about the brand’s ethical and sustainable ethos. Miller Harris will serve up bright neon, bespoke illustrations – and ice cream via their exclusive pop up – and will reveal two new vibrant fragrances: Blousy and Brighton Rock. Floral Street Fragrance will bring magic to The Beauty Playground with a spinning prize wheel, where visitors can take a spin the wheel to discover their perfume persona. Showcasing their new Eau du Parfum range, Molton Brown will offer fragrance consultations and a bespoke Beauty Bar will also be in situ courtesy of Miami export Buns & Buns, serving up Bottled Beauty cocktails designed in partnership with Molton Brown, inspired by the brand’s classic scents and presented in their signature bottles.

Subscription-based beauty brand Glossybox will delight beauty fans with an exclusive beauty treasure hunt around the estate. Those who find the hidden golden tickets on the Piazza on Wednesday 11^th September and Thursday 12^thSeptember will be taken to a beauty store within Covent Garden’s Beauty Quarter to collect one of ten exciting prizes. Prizes will be worth £100 or more from brands including NARS, Miller Harris, Atelier Cologne and more.

London Beauty Week is on a mission to discover Next British Beauty Brand and is hosting a competition to offer start-up beauty companies the chance to win expert beauty business mentoring and a central London retail space. The judging panel includes some of the most influential names in the UK beauty industry including senior executives from The British Beauty Council, Covent Garden, WGSN, Harvey Nichols and Felix Capital. The winner will receive mentoring from two British Beauty Council trustees, a pop up store in Covent Garden – London’s Beauty Quarter, a listing in Harvey Nichols Beyond Beauty, financial mentoring from Felix Capital and a year’s subscription to WGSN Beauty – the world’s leading trend forecaster. Participants can visit BritishBeautyCouncil.com to sign up, ahead of the judging panel which will take place on Friday 13^th September.

Brands across Covent Garden will join the celebrations and offer late night shopping and exclusive events for Londoners and visitors for the duration of London Beauty Week. Beauty lovers can pop into Aesop’s stunning King Street store, which will be adorned with fresh flower arrangements, for a bespoke skincare consultation, or visit Chanel on Friday 13^thSeptember or Saturday 14^th September where illustrator Melissa Bailey will be on-hand to capture the results of the brand’s incredible express services. Jo Malone London will host an exclusive cocktail evening on Thursday 12^thSeptember and a special Poppy & Barley Flower Arranging Masterclass, led by expert florist Wild Things, over London Beauty Week weekend. Those who love the glamour of the runway should reserve a space at Tom Ford who will be serving Metallique inspired cocktails to an intimate group and providing a demonstration on how to achieve Tom Ford catwalk looks.

Additional in-store events, experiences and installations can be enjoyed across Covent Garden beauty brand favourites, including Atelier Cologne, Miller Harris, Molton Brown, Ted Baker and Trevor Sorbie and The Alkemistry. Covent Garden is home to London’s best beauty brands and experiences, further including Dior, NARS, Deciem, Penhaligon’s, Aesop and more, making it the perfect destination to host London’s inaugural London Beauty Week.’

Be still our beating hearts. Ice cream and perfume and prizes, you say? We’ll be there faster than you can shake a stick (of rock!)

Reported by Suzy Nightingale

Anthropologie Floral Diffusers

We love an effortless scented solution, and most especially when they’re as attractive as Anthropologie‘s new Floral Diffusers. Forget all images of dusty old sticks in a vase, for these will be diffusers you’ll gladly display, front and centre…

Anthropologie have collaborated with a company called Herb Family for this range of stunning scented display pieces, the house starting life as DongSung Herb Farm in Korea herb farm back in 1987, which has now grown into a leading manufacturer of home fragrance products.

Anthropologie say: ‘Inspired by a floral bouquet, we have developed 5 floral bouquet in 4 fragrances that allows you to mix and match any of the four fragrances with the floral bouquet of your choice.’ And having had a look, we must say, quite fancy one for each room, really.

Chosing from Pussy Willow, Red Wheat, Baby Breath, Classic Wheat or Eucalyptus Pods, whichever you plump for, we think these would make great gifts for any home fragrance and interiors devotee – or for any friend that isn’t blessed with green fingers, and somehow manages to kill any living plant within a ten-metre radius. A fab option for your desk at work, too, we think – zero maintenance, fuss-free and they really radiate the scent around the whole house.

These Floral Diffusers are sold separate to the fragrance oils – available in the following options…

Fresh Cut Bouquet: Blend of fresh florals with soft hints of citrus and sandalwood

Mulled Cider: Blend of crisp apple, fresh mulled spices and a touch of orange and musk

Amber Woods: Blend of wood notes with white cedar, amber and sandalwood enveloped by a sweet vanilla touch

Autumn Spice: Blend of sweet pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon and creamy vanilla

But we think it’s a bit of a bonus, as it means you can use any home fragrance oil you currently have, or re-fill with something else entirely of your choice!

Anthropologie Floral Diffuser £32, Floral Diffuser Oil £8 for 4.5 fl. oz.

By Suzy Nightingale

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