Tag: Molton Brown

WIN a Molton Brown Fragrance Advent Calendar!

Celebrate in style this year and count down to the joyful Christmas day with the MOLTON BROWN sensational luxury advent calendar!

Christmas truly will come early this year if you’re the lucky winner of this fragrantly fabulous ultra luxury Molton Brown Advent Calendar. Filled to the brim with Deco-styled scented surprises – normal price £175, but worth £259 no less! – there are swoon-worthy treats for every day, as we count down to the big one…

Among them: the new Limited Edition Juniper Jazz eau de toilette – a must-sniff for gin lovers, its mint-frosted juniper berries sparkling with a metallic gleam over a heart of orris, warm guaiac wood and a silky sandalwood, patchouli and whisper-soft musk base.

Perhaps it’ll be the mysteriously allure of Geranium Nefertum that captures your heart? Luscious fig leaf accord fizzes with the cool freshness of bergamot and the fruity/woody delights of geranium extract and radiant jasmine. By the time the base of smooth sandalwood, labdanum, cedarwood and osmanthus unfurls, you’ll be enraptured.

And you can’t overlook their iconic Black Pepper fragrance of course! It’s a modern must-have – gender free and so ahead of their time (as always). Spicy, warm, and sure to set your cockles tingling, the addictive mix of cardamom, bergamot, coriander and lavandin melt into the generous warmth of black pepper, pink pepper, amber and cedarwood to revive your spirits. Finally, the cedarwood, oakmoss, leather and vetiver base are a balm for the very soul.

 

The stunning scents are to be found amidst a fragrant flurry of candles, body and bath oils and pampering treats, and every single day will be something to celebrate this December. A perfect calendar to ‘share’ (or at least pretend to) with a partner, we feel… but ONE lucky winner will receive this fabulous advent calendar WORTH £175!

 

For your chance to win, simply enter below… Good luck!

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* This prize draw runs from 9am on 14th November 2020 to midnight on 23rd November 2020. A winner will be chosen and contacted on 24th November 2020. This competition is open internationally; please allow up to 10 days for delivery from the UK. 

Left it too late? Last-minute gift ideas

That moment of mounting panic when you suddenly realise… you’ve left it too late to present them with a gift! Uh-oh. But hey, it’s okay – whether you’ve dropped the ball for Valentines day, an anniversary, birthday or any special occasion you absolutely meant to remember: we have the scent solutions!

Here are some ideas that you can ‘gift’ your recipient with immediately, no postage required – simply write them a lovely card and explain you’ve treated them to one of the following (with fragrant swag to follow). If they love to smell great, we guarantee they’ll be delighted…

 

Simply tick the ‘this is a gift’ box and give 365 days of fabulous fragrant activities with our Perfume Society VIP Cub Subscription for only £25, and they’ll receive the following exclusive benefits:

•  Six issues a year of our online/downloadable digital magazine The Scented Letter – (virtually) the only publication in the world devoted to all things fragrant…

• Exclusive competitions with fab fragrant prizes – including bottles signed by perfumers.

•  Early access to tickets for all our events – meet with leading ‘noses’ and key figures from the perfume world, attend in-store events, workshops, etc. (Our VIPs are first to hear about these.)

•  A special member’s discount on our Perfume Society Discovery Boxes (normally £19 – but £15 to our VIPs)

•  Plus choose a FREE Discovery Box when you sign up (so they’ll get an actual present to look forward to)

 

For people who love print (we must admit to being partial – for longer features, especially), give them a year of fragrant reading with a Scented Letter magazine Print Subscription for £75. This multi-award-winning publication has been described as a ‘must-read’ by industry insiders and perfume-lovers, so we are delighted that in addition to our digital magazine we can now offer this print subscription of The Scented Letter, delivered to your door and starting with the current edition. (For autumn 2017, we look at Fashion, Fabric + Fragrance.)

Appearing six times a year this utterly beautiful magazine, featuring at least 60 pages on perfume news, features and much more is bound to take you ever-deeper into the scented world. Click here for a sneak-peak at our taster issue!

In addition, we feature all the breaking scent news, interviews with ‘noses’ and other creators, alongside fragrant features by leading fragrance writers – from Thomas Dunckley (The Perfume Candy Boy) to Persolaise, via Viola Levy and our Senior Writer Suzy Nightingale. (If you’ve signed up as a subscriber, you will continue to receive access to the complimentary e-zine version.)

NB We are able to ship The Scented Letter overseas; please contact us for prices here

 


Who doesn’t like filling out some kind of personality questionaire? There are now a great selection of Scent-matching Personality Tests you can take for FREE online or in-store, so get them to do the quiz now and offer to buy a bottle later. Genius!

Molton Brown invite you to ‘Embark on an illuminating journey to discover the ideal match for your unique self.’ The profiling system, was created in tandem with trend forecasting and innovation agency The Future Laboratory, and you instinctively choose from a series of images, at the end of which you’ll discover which ‘psychological perfume profile’ you match. Everyone we know who’s tried it has found it an incredible experience, and it’s brilliant at selecting scents you may easily have overlooked yourself.

Penhaligon’s offer a visual feast to explore while answering simple questions, all illustrated in their delightfully quirky and so-iconic way, with prompts to choose between textures, places to visit and favourite thirst-quenchers. It’s fun and quick to answer the test, and somehow they really do expertly pinpoint your perfume personality type. At the end you’ll be presented with a selection of samples to choose from, which you can either purchase online or pop into a store to smell, before splashing out for a full bottle.

Experimental Perfume Club are brilliant at taking the worry out of picking a new perfume, and their recently launched LAYERS Lab in Selfridges features a fantastically acurate in-store app that allows you to create your own bespoke perfume! We wrote about the concept in more detail here, but basically, the LAYERS App asks questions before recommending 3 possible formulae. You can either choose from the selection or customise the fragrance further with the help of their Fragrance Curator. Once you choose your final blend, your unique fragrance is created 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.

 

If they are really into perfume and want to learn more, we’re pretty sure they’d love to have a go at making their own on a Perfume Making Workshop. It really gives you an insight into how a perfumer works, and a new appreciation for their creations, and a number of courses offer differing experiences that make perfume perfume-lover’s gifts.

4160 Tuesdays offer a number of options for perfume lovers who want to go that step further and have a guided session of making their own, from an afternoon or full day workshops, right through to five day workshops for the really serious, and more technical courses for the more experienced and those who want to start their own house. They can travel to you if there’s a large enough group (great idea for a party), or you can visit their beautiful new studio in London.

Karen Gilbert is a perfumer who offers online workshops, live presentations and studio based courses for anyone interested in creating fine fragrances, natural perfumes or developing your own range of scented bath and body products. Signing up to her newsletter also gives you access to top tips on where to buy the best ingredients and materials you’ll need, and there are even free online taster sessions to get those creative juices flowing.

Cotswold Perfumery have been making perfume for over 50 years, run by chief perfumer John Stephens, who now invites the fragrance obsessed to indulge their passions in various courses and one-day workshops. Running throughout the year in a dedicated teaching room/laboratory at the Cotswold Perfumery in the beautiful village of Bourton-on-the-Water; ‘as well as learning the skills involved in developing and making your own perfume (to take home with you), you’ll get a unique insight into the life and work of John, one of only six independent perfumers in the UK.’

Whichever of these last-minute gift options you choose, it’s bound to be appriated by any perfume lover. Why not print out an I.O.U voucher to put in the card, as a reminder they will get an actual gift later on? Or you know, gussy up some lovely word to write in their card, add a bunch of flowers and put the date one week ahead in your diary for next year?

By Suzy Nightingale

6 of the sexiest leather scents you should try…

Reminding us of our beloved leather jacket, a stack of books or the wood-panelled, boozily infused surroundings of a members’ only club, leather fragrances are generally not for the scent-shy. Scintillatingly smoky, they evoke a particularly voracious and luxurious sensuality, favouring deep base notes that linger the whole day long.

Russian leather fragrances have a long heritage, recently enjoying something of a revival as we crave perfumes that are bigger, badder and bolder than before, and it’s the intense, relentless smokiness of birch that’s the vital scent ingredient giving Russian leather it’s characteristic smell.

In order to process birch for perfumery, the bark of the tree is peeled off in papery strips and soaked in a water/alcohol mixture until it forms a ‘liquor’, which is then evaporated to leave the oil behind. Perfumers can use any number of ingredients along with birch to compose a ‘leather accord’ – echoing the history of the leather trade and tanning process itself, when animal hides are treated with strong-smelling oils to mask their naturally foul odours.

Over time, the smell of ‘Russian leather’ became shorthand for luxury goods and an exoticism lusted over by wealthy travellers who wanted to waft forth their fortunes in scent form, too. And this eventually led to a piece of that history being present in practically every bathroom in the UK, including, perhaps, your own…?

 

The Russian soap-opera in your bathroom…

Cussons’ Imperial Leather soap has been a staple of British bathrooms since 1938, but you might well wonder where it gained the name. According to their heritage story, ‘In the 1700s Bayleys of Bond Street were challenged by Count Orlof to create a perfume which embodied the distinctive aroma of the Russian court, and as a result they developed the scent of Imperial Leather.’

In 1921 Bayleys was acquired by Cussons Sons & Co, and it wasn’t until 1938 that Cussons conceived the idea of launching a soap based on their archive scent, initially called ‘Imperiale Russian Leather’, but soon renamed to ‘Imperial Leather’.

During the 40s, soap was heavily rationed in Britain, so Imperial Leather was marketed as being the best choice because it lasted far longer than other brands, with the world’s tallest man apparently being a fan, presumably because, well, he got through a lot of soap!

In 1975 the Cussons Group was acquired by Paterson Zochonis, now renamed PZ Cussons – currently boasting an extraordinary range of fragranced body products (along with the ever-popular Imperial Leather), including soaps and shower gels scented like sherbet lemons and even cherry Bakewells, for perfume-lovers of a certain age, the name of Cussons will forever evoke the comforting smell of Imperial Leather.

Six Russian Leather scents we love:

We think winter is the perfect time to explore this fascinating fragrance family, and we’re certainly not short of recently released scents to try. Read on to see how the many moods of Russian leather can go from the masculine to feminine, from the softest caress to the sizzlingly opulent…

Curls of smoke swirl through a Siberian pine forest, leather-bound books infused with a campfire’s glowing ember scent.

Molton Brown Russian Leather £45 for 50ml eau de toilette
Buy it at moltonbrown.co.uk

Butter-soft leather liberally dusted with baby powder, the comfort of warm skin embraced with an open heart.

Evody Cuir Blanc £84 for 50ml eau de parfum
Buy it at houseoffraser.co.uk

Chic aldehydes bely smoky scandal insinuated beneath – supple leather waited for with baited breath.

Les Exclusifs de Chanel Cuir de Russie £140 for 75ml eau de parfum
Buy it at chanel.com

Violet leather ballet shoes, cinnamon-dusted bon-bons eaten at Nijinsky’s performance while writing love-letters.

Le Jardin Retrouvé Cuir de Russie from €35 for 15ml eau de parfum
Buy it at lejardinretrouve.com

Frosty air tinged with lavender, frozen herbs gathered at dusk in a fur-lined leather coat, ice-crystals on eyelashes.

MEMO Paris Russian Leather £205 for 75ml eau de parfum
Buy it at harveynichols.com

A buxom bouquet thrust forcefully into a leather-gloved clasp, hot coffee clutched to warm the fingers, a woodland romp to warm the soul.

Zoologist Civet £135 for 60ml eau de parfum
Buy it at bloomperfume.co.uk

Written by Suzy Nightingale

Molton Brown set sail with Seabourn…

Molton Brown have long been offering us ways to escape the everyday humdrum with a vast selection of fabulously fragranced goodies – since 1973, in fact – but for the past fourteen years, only travellers on the luxurious ocean-line, Seabourn, have been able to experience this ultra-bespoke range. Created especially for the lavishly appointed ships, the scents were suitably inspired by the sea itself. Once exclusively the pleasure of passengers of the Seabourn, now Molton Brown are offering the range as a summer Limited Edition, giving us all the chance to get on board with their tantalisingly transportive fragrances and (as always) high quality formulas.
Molton Brown Say: ‘This year, for the first time, Molton Brown have created two completely bespoke fragrances that reflect the cruise line’s unparalleled luxurious guest experience. Usually available exclusively for Seabourn’s on-board guests, they will be offered in Molton Brown stores for a limited time. The beautiful collection is composed of ingredients inspired by Seabourn’s very own signature cruise destinations.’
The first thing you may notice are the exclusive bottles – standing apart from Molton Brown’s usual style with opaque white bottles, all featuring charming illustrations of the main fragrant ingredients, hand-drawn by the coast-based illustrator, Angela McKay. Completely sharable, the range encompasses shampoo, conditioner, bath and shower gel and a body lotion. And we couldn’t wait to get splash-happy…

Immersive Samphire & Eucalyptus Bath & Body Collection:
As always, Molton Brown use the highest quality ingredients possible, such as the carefully sourced, salty-green notes of Samphire picked from the French Atlantic Coast, and deliciously uplifting eucalyptus from Beijing. Philippe Bousseton, Master Perfumer at Takasago, reveals his inspiration for this collection as being, ‘A revitalising and very fresh aroma ideal for bathing, where samphire and marine notes are reminiscent of the sea and ultimately, of the Seabourn experience.’ Fabulously evocative, fresh without being citrus-y, we were immediately dreaming of those revitalising seaside walks that make you feel more alive.

Immersive Samphire & Eucalyptus Bath & Shower Gel £20 for 300ml

Immersive Samphire & Eucalyptus Body Lotion £25 for 300ml

Inspiring Basil & Vetiver Hair Care Collection:
Here, Master Perfumer of Fragrance Resources, Heidrun Harder, used herbaceous basil from Vietnam and deliciously cool vetiver, found in Haiti. Explaining the charcater of these products, Heirun says they are, ‘Very sophisticated, rounded and clean thanks to aromatic notes of basil and vetiver, perfect for hair care.’ A complete boon for those of us who require a more subtle wake-up than being blasted by grapefruit or  drowning in flowers first thing, they are gentle but effective and leave hair glossy with a ready-to-go bounce.

Inspiring Basil & Vetiver Shampoo £18 for 300ml

Inspiring Basil & Vetiver Conditioner £18 for 300ml
Molton Brown Seabourn Collection
Buy them now at moltonbrown.co.uk
Written by Suzy Nightingale