There are so many hand sanitisers out there now, but when we were looking for a special extra gift to pop into our Treat Box, we wanted something that would be incredibly useful and smelled beautiful (of course we did!)
So as soon as we heard the BODYGUARD Protect hand sanitisers are made by French perfumers at an atelier in Provence, we knew we had to get our noses on them. Let’s face it – if we have to use them every day, we’d rather our hands smelled fabulous. And this is a fragrant ritual we can get behind.
Founder Celia Nicolosi explains:
‘Our heritage and all our expertise comes from creating fine fragrances in Provence, France. We use traditional techniques passed down through generations that take time and patience to deliver.
Our BODYGUARD anti-bacterial hand sanitisers are fragranced with a fresh Eau de Cologne formula, with each bottle made in our own L’Atelier in Manosque, Provence, this allows us to maintain the quality standards of our product. Our formula is also incredibly gentle on your hands, this is because we use a very high grade moisturising glycerin, which we don’t filter so that you receive all the added goodness to care for you hands.’
As we’ve discussed before, fragrant Colognes were traditionally used for health purposes – the alcohol was cleansing to the skin and many of the ingredients added additional anti-bacterial properties (though people didn’t realise that, then. They simply thought pleasant smells warded off sickness).
The BODYGUARD anti-bacterial hand sanitiser contains a powerful 70% alcohol formula with moisturising properties, to cleanse and calm your hands, each beautifully scented in four unique fragrances, and priced at £4.95 each.
Which will you choose as a daily fragrant pleasure…?
MORINGA BLOSSOM
The gentle clean scent of the tropical moringa flower subtly enhanced with violet and a touch of cedar.
MARINE
A breezy sea fragrance, of fresh Mediterranean bergamot, with a hint of woody cedar and musc.
COCONUT
Our coconut fragrance is an irresistible, dreamy, exotic cocktail of coconut, vanilla, jasmine and amber. A holiday must have!
CITRUS
Bursting with orange, bergamot and lemon, this classic citrus fragrance is awakened with notes of lavender and epice.
Fresh laundry – crisp cotton sheets on a washing line – is often cited as one of our all-time favourite smells. But what exactly makes line-dried fabric smell so good, and which fragrances can equally evoke the immediate comfort we long for…?
‘We basically create the smell of people’s babies,’ one of the technical perfumers told me, ‘and if we even change the scent of their washing powder a little bit, we get so many complaints.’ They produced many thousands of possible options to fragrance people’s washing – from caramel (popular in Brazil, apparently) to chic multi-layered, musky perfumes. But the most popular of all (and one of the most technically challenging to re-create)? That freshly line-dried smell.
So what is it, beyond your choice of washing powder, that makes fabric smell particularly pleasing if it’s been dried on a line (preferably in a flower meadow, and hung while wearing an Edwardian broderie anglaise gown just prior to picking apples in the orchard, in my dreams, but we work with what we have.)
In a scientific paper examining the ‘Chemical analysis and origin of the smell of line-dried laundry‘, atmospheric chemists have published their analysis of ‘line-dried towels at the molecular level’, now they’ve discovered the exact source of this so-specific smell. Using cotton towels from IKEA, they washed them three times, then dried them in three differing ways: inside the office, on the balcony under a plastic shade and on the balcony in the sun.
Percy Harland Fischer – Washing on the Line (1867-1944)
Extraordinarily, they found that ‘Line-drying uniquely produced a number of aldehydes and ketones,’ Sylvia Pugliese – the leading researcher – told the New York Times – which are ‘…organic molecules our noses might recognise from plants and perfumes. For example, after sunbathing, the towels emitted pentanal, found in cardamom, octanal, which produces citrusy aromas, and nonanal, which smells rose-like.’
Fascinating stuff, and it got me wondering which fragrances we could reach for that could also recreate that feeling of sunlit cleanliness and comfort, bottled…
A whoosh of silvery, sun-dappled airiness shot through with ginger, mint, and leafy green notes, softening to powdery florals, cushioned by warm skin-like musk and vetiver. One to spray when you need to be reminded of lazy sundays and lie-ins and snuggling up in bliss.
CLEAN Reserve Warm Cotton [Reserve Blend]£82 for 100ml eau de parfum spacenk.com
Yearning for an eco-luxury house with a Swedish mountain lake view? (Uh yes, always.) Bright cotton and bracing air’s evoked with ambrette seeds, freesia, spring magnolia, and soft musk. You’ll be yodelling from first spritz.
Who doesn’t want to be wrapped in a whisper of white fluffy towels and powdery peonies? Effortless and uncomplicated, sooth cares away with delicate freesia nuzzling fuzzy peach, gauzy ylang ylang, sheer rose, wisps of incense and a cloud of creamy froth.
Cacharel Noa, £15 for 30ml eau de toilette superdrug.com
Mandarin swathed in powdered sandalwood shavings, violet suffused in a cool fig milk and tonka bean draped with the feeling of washing blowing in the breeze. Think muslin curtains framing a perfect view, the deliciously cool side of a pillow against a flushed cheek.
Van Cleef & Arpels Bois Blanc £130 for 75ml eau de parfum selfridges.com
Think: deliciously smooth, Egyptian cotton (high thread count, obvs) boutique hotel sheets, just-showered skin and roasted coffee beans sitting atop a warm snuggle of back-lit amber and the sexy hay-like muskiness of the base. For dirty weekends (but in clean sheets.)
La Maison HedoniqueSamedi À Paris£135 for 50ml eau de parfum lamaisonhedonique
So, next time you bury your nose in a freshly dried, fluffy towel, slip into deliciously clean sheets that were dried in the sunshine or spray yourself with a fabulously ‘clean’ smelling fragrance – consider if you can pick up these ultra-nuanced notes with your nose. The more deeply we analyse smells – especially those ‘everyday scents’ we think we know so well – the greater our understanding and the better our sense of smell ultimately becomes. It’s a washing-day win-win…
Sustainability is a huge buzzword within the fragrance world at the moment, with customers demanding a more eco-conscious ethic to their beauty choices and some fragrance houses making sure they look after the raw materials so precious to their perfume formulas, while also ensuring a social responsibilty toward the communities of inigenous peoples who cultivate and harvest the crops.
Clean Reserve are one such responsibly-sourcing house, though striving for complete sustainability in the future; wherever possible they select raw ingredients cultivated and harvested using environmentally sound practices.
You may know them from previously having tried the original Clean range of scents and harmonious lifestyle products – and with a far more niche-inspired selection, they’re now in store and exclusive in the UK to Space NK. Having attended the press launch, we were fascinated to learn more about this collaboration with three of the world’s top fragrance houses. So, how do Clean Reserve introduce themselves…?
We’re making a choice:
To change the way you experience fragrance.
To create a collection that highlights your individuality.
To tap into our perfumers’ reserve of raw ingredients.
To actively engage in eco-conscious sustainability.
To remove the clutter, heaviness and complexity –
so all you’re left with is CLEAN.
From the wooden caps sourced in Spain from certified sustainably managed forests, the fragrances themselves use ECOCERT materials and are manufactured in a facility using 100% solar energy. The alcohol is derived from corn – even the cellophane wrapping of the boxes is made from corn! – and the scent is incorporated with aloe for added calming and softening benefits on the skin. Of course, being super-sustainable is all very well, – and especially significant on World Earth Day – but how do they actually smell…?
A gentle balance of sophisticated and sexy, this is not your average ‘dusty’ smelling oppulent rose – it’s sparkling with aldehydes (those bubbly ‘Champagne’-esque notes that add space and volume to a fragrance) and transparent in character. Touches of peony and jasmine with the tender rose petals seem to glisten with dew drops, freshly picked from the garden.
Clean Reserve Blonde Rose £79 for 100ml eau de parfum
Incense and oudh are notes that many seem to shy away from, known for their sometimes overwhelming natures, but you definitely need not fear being smothered by this blend. Fusing incense oil with blue cypress, birch wood, pimento and honeysuckle, further freshness wafts across from jasmine and magnolia, resinously clear fir balsam and the intriguing sarcocaulon mossamedens (‘Bushman’s Candle’). Warm and earthy, the fluffy musk base of suede, patchouli, praline and amber snuggles on the skin.
Clean Reserve Sueded Oud £79 for 100ml eau de parfum
An exploration of the polarity between warmth and cold, the opening is exhilarating with verbena, bamboo leaf, bergamot and juicy quince pear blending seamlessly into a heart of pure, dry cedar wrapped in cotton, peony and wild moss. Fuzzy musks balance the base with gold amber, cool vetiver and myrrh – a mineralic iciness keeping the base notes from ever being muddy, it’s the inviting earthiness of an untouched forest to get lost in.
Clean Reserve Smoked Vetiver £79 for 100ml eau de parfum
All the Clean Reserve fragrances are made especially to be linear in character – and therefore perfect to blend with each other without the notes fighting or becomming too complex and overbearing.
We had a go at layering the three outlined above, and found it immediately became a completely new smell – harmonising notes from all, but transforming into a bespoke scent with a personality all of its own. Suddenly, the dry grassiness of the vetiver was amplified and the soft suede became deeper, more woody – all buoyed by wisps of a white bouquet peeking through the forest clearing. As Sueded Oud and Blonde Rose are recommended as the perfect ‘his and hers’ fragrances for a wedding day – we think we may have introduced a new partner to this marriage and created a menage a trois!
Clean Reserve have the distinction of being the first fragrance brand to reach the finalists of the US CEW Eco Awards this year, with the winners being announced in a couple of weeks time. With five fragrances in the collection at Space NK, you’re bound to find your own favourite combination, so why not go and explore?
Meanwhile, if you’d like to try the always reviving Citrus Bodguard Protect Hand Sanitiser as an extra goody in our fragrant Treat Box, you can buy the whole box of THIRTEEN perfumes and two scented treats for just £23 (or £19 if you’re a VIP Club Member)
