Tag: pop-up

Connock London’s win GOLD Pure Beauty Award

Connock London have just won GOLD for Best Niche Fragrance at the Pure Beauty Awards, and what’s more, they’ve popped up with a perfumed treatment space at Westfield London – the perfect place to explore their range of award-winning niche fragrances, candles, body-care luxuries and more. But fear not if you can’t make it there in person, for we have a wonderful suggestion for you to try samples of their scents without even having to leave your sofa…

At the very heart of this wonderful British brand is family. Amanda Connock inherited her passion for scent through her father, mesmerised by the wonderfully exotic and natural essences he would bring from his travels as an ingredient supplier to the fragrance world. Today her brand, Connock London, is a best-kept perfume secret – but one that’s shared by those-in-the-know, inspired by the love of and respect for nature, native folklore and travels.

Connock London Vittaveli is the fragrance that won Gold for Best Niche Fragrance at the 2019 Pure Beauty Awards. And we can see why. Inspired by the tropical beauty of the Vittaveli island located in the sparkling turquoise waters of the Maldives, it’s another fragrant destination we’re dreaming of escapin to by wearing the perfume. Elegant top notes of frankincense, geranium, spicy pepper berries and bergamot blend into a leafy green note reminiscent of the fruit of the Banyan Tree. A radiant floral heart of jasmine, pink rose, frangipani and gibiscus is warmed by a sultry base of sandalwood, vanilla orchid and delicate oudh notes.

Kukui Eau de Parfum is the signature fragrance of Connock London – and with a fascinating story. When customers fell in love with the scent of Connock London’s bodycare, they pleaded for it to be offered as a perfume – and thus, Kukui Eau de Parfum was born, to keep them happy. (And they are, they are!)
Beautifully blended to reflect the soul and beauty of the Hawaiian islands from which Connock London’s signature kukui oil is sourced, this elegant floriental is built around the gardenia flower and is complimented by ‘scent-sational’ floral notes of Moroccan rose, white jasmine and calla lily. The scent is further enriched with sandalwood, vetiver, white amber and layers of cashmere and sheer musks, completed with the rich bitter chocolate sweetness of vanilla absolute and tonka bean.

For further refreshing, you can’t do better than douse yourself lavishly in the gorgeously green Connock London Andiroba – here we travel to the mysterious natural beauty of the tropical Amazonian Rainforest. It opens with lush, leafy top notes which are enlivened with citrus accords of bergamot, lemon and Brazilian orange. A rich floral heart of iris and violet sits on a deep, earthy base of sandalwood, cedar and musk with a touch of lavender and Peruvian pink pepper.

We have a way for you to embrace the sunshine spirit of true luxury this house embodies – and no passport (or even train ticket) is required! Why not try for yourself at home, today?

The Niche Collection Three Discovery Box (£19 / £15 for V.I.P. Club Members) includes perhaps THE most raved about cult perfume: Kukui. Here, lavish amounts of that rose, jasmine, bergamot, lily and – most importantly – the waxy, dreamy magnificence of gardenia swirl into an immediate and bountiful floral bouquet that hits you as soon as you spray, seeking to to recreate the sense-delighting experience of visiting the island of Hawaii. We can practically feel the white sand between our toes when we wear this, so vivid is the sensation – and how wonderful to be able to wear something mood-lifting and life-enhancing in these often dark and dreary months.

Meanwhile, you can go to our page dedicated Connock London to read more about their history and inspirations, or pop along to their website to explore the full range. However you choose to try them, we feel sure you’ll fall under the scented spell, too, and will be joining those in the nose in your fragrant ravings!

By Suzy Nightingale

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 11th September and Thursday 12thSeptember 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 13th 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 13thSeptember or Saturday 14th 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 12thSeptember 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

 

Edinburgh Festival’s fragrant pop-up: Jenners host unique scent space

Jorum Laboratories are Scotland’s first fragrance-creation house, and excitingly announced the launch of their own eponymous perfume brand, Jorum Studio, showcasing scents in a pop-up perfumery at the iconic Edinburgh department store, Jenners, during the Edinburgh Festival.

Having already worked with leading brands including Penhaligon’s London, L’Artisan Parfumeur, Miller Harris and NEOM Organics, amongst many others, Jorum Studio – run by talented perfumer Euan McCall and partner, Chloe Mullen – was first established in Edinburgh in 2010, giving them a way to explore a more truly artisanal approach to fragrance creation. And also, allowing further collaboration between fellow artists and craftspeople, with local photographers, writers and even glass-blowers getting involved.

Now, because of the Jenners pop-up, the public will can sniff out these modern olfactory expressions for themselves, with six fragrances from the brand’s original Progressive Botany collection, showcased alongside three from the Psychoterratica range. And in addition, Jorum Studio say there will be samples and special offers available for customers throughout the duration of the pop-up.

With the launch of each new fragrance, Jorum Studio will be progressing the current conversation around fragrance as a craft and/or artform in itself. The debut collection, Progressive Botany Vol.1, launched earlier this year, and in the autumn, a collaborative heirloom art-work will be presented by glass artist Juli Bolaños-Durman.

Along with other contemporary Scottish businesses, it’s a chance to celebrate a new image of Scotland, because, as Euan comments, ‘Jorum Studio is a vision of contemporary Scotland, showing that our country is about far more than tartan, whisky and shortbread,’ an ethos reflected in this homegrown, artisan brand. So from now until 26 August 2019, Jorum Studio will be taking up residence in a standalone area of the world-famous store, showing visitors what contemporary niche perfumery has to offer.

The myriad links between the arts and perfumery are growing with each house and event that highlights the connections, and we are thrilled whenever retailers take this seriously – investing time and space to help showcase indie brands who are leading the way for the future of fragrance. If you’re in Edinburgh before the end of the month, make sure you stop by and try the Jorum Studio scents for yourself – and keep an eye on the exciting artistic collaborations they have planned…

The Jorum Studio pop-up perfumery at Jenners Department Store in Edinburgh is accessed via the entrance on Rose Street. The pop-up will be open from 9.30am daily until 26 August 2019.

By Suzy Nightingale

 

 

 

Fish & fragrance?! Sarah Baker Perfumes pops up at Fin & Flounder

It’s quite possibly one of the most unusual Christmas pop-ups we’ve seen, but niche luxury perfume brand Sarah Baker Perfumes is collaborating with Fin & Flounder, the premium fishmonger and oyster bar on Hackney’s fashionable Broadway Market.

On Saturday 8th and 22 December, Sarah Baker Perfumes and Fin & Flounder will be offering the public a Christmas special package deal: a luxury Sarah Baker fragrance of their choice, six oysters and two glasses of champagne for £120 (the fragrances usually sell for £120 on their own, so this represents a bargain for shoppers who like to be lavish!) In addition, the fragrances will be available to purchase separately at £100, and a range of fragrances in handy travel atomisers at £20 – perfectly sized for stocking-stuffers.

[NB: Those of you not already familiar with Sarah Baker can read all about her journey to founding her own niche house in the recent Fashion, Fragrance & Feminism issue of The Scented Letter Magazine, in which she kindly invited us into her studio to gaze in wonder at her fabulous personal fragrance collection (a must-read for fans of ultra-niche scents!) for #ShareMyStash]

While this Christmas collaboration might seem a peculiar one for perfume, it came about when artist and founder Sarah Baker was creating a new image for the launch of her ‘Motif Collection’ in Belgium in November. Baker wanted ‘…to create a campaign image referencing the Flemish traditions of 17th-century still life paintings as an homage to the city.’ In keeping with this tradition of memento mori paintings, she sourced the best quality—and best looking—fish from Fin & Flounder, already being a fan of the fishmonger’s beautiful window displays.

‘After the massively positive response to the image we created in Antwerp, it seemed only fitting to go back to the source and do something with Fin & Flounder since their fish are really such an integral part of what makes the image work,’ explains Baker.

The fishy collab also makes more sense when you know the theme behind her latest release, Atlante, ‘With its sea-breeze fresh combination of notes —yuzu, seaweed and ambergris—inspired by the wild ocean.’ Shoppers visiting Fin & Flounder will be among the first to try this new fragrance. And if you can’t make it own for the next two Saturdays’ full-on boujee fish and fragrance experiences, you’ll be able to buy all the Sarah Baker Perfumes at Fin & Flounder during its usual weekday opening times until 22 December 2018.

Written by Suzy Nightingale

The Perfume Shop Pop-Ups: emotion-based scent shopping

Pop-up shops are quite the thing nowadays, and The Perfume Shop, the UK’s largest specialist fragrance retailer, has announced it will open a central London pop up shop for four days in October, rather excitingly offering scent shoppers the chance to select perfumes based on emotions rather than gender, notes or brands.

The Perfume Shop Say: ‘It is accepted that perfume can affect your mood, a simple spray can make you feel happy, romantic or energised.  On 25th October The Perfume Shop celebrates this transformative power of perfume with its first pop up shop to group products by emotion. This Shop of Feelings will celebrate how perfume can affect your mood, focusing on perfumes to make people feel Sexy, Calm, Invigorated or Happy.

For the first time perfumes will be grouped together to celebrate the way they make you feel, and the store’s experts will be on hand to guide customers through the different moods and perfumes on offer to help everyone discover something new.’

Cathy Newman, The Perfume Shop Marketing & Customer Experience Director, explained: ‘Ten years ago people walked into our stores and headed for the men’s section, or women’s section or just the brand they knew. Today’s customers are very different, they don’t shop by gender anymore, they want to explore different notes and be transported emotionally by their perfume.

“We can’t wait to hear customer feedback on the pop up shop in Covent Garden, and who knows this new way of shopping by feelings could be the future for fragrance.’

Non-london scent sniffers, do not despair! There are a smattering of other pop-ups around the country (see below), and hopefully more will follow in the future.

At The Perfume Society, we’ve long held with encouraging people not to pre-judge fragrances based on what the bottle looks like or the listed notes of a scent – blind-smelling is definitely the way forward, and hopefully this new concept of shopping based on how you feel (or want the fragrance to help you feel) will encourage other retailers to take braver steps.

The Pop Up Shop is only open for four days in central London from 24th to 28th October, and will display new and classic perfumes, as well as a selection of beautiful coffret and gift sets, so perfect for early Christmas shoppers.

Where to find them:

Regent Shopping Centre in Hamilton (opened 15th October)

The Avenue Shopping Centre in Newton Mearns (opens 19th October)

Maltings Shopping Centre in St Albans (opens 22nd October)

Covent Garden, 5 Great Newport Street (24th to 28th October)

Did someone say summer? 2nd-8th June: Acqua di Parma gelato at Harvey Nichols!

When the words ‘luxury gelato’ and ‘Acqua di Parma’ are combined in an email’s subject line, you can be sure we’re clicking on that within a nanosecond – and of course we couldn’t wait to share the news with you…

At Harvey Nichols, a brand new pop-up space is being created in order to celebrate the launch of the Acqua di Parma La Collezione travel set. Surely one of the fragrance houses we most associate with summer, Acqua di Parma have gone full-steam ahead with the sunshine vibes by commissioning luxury gelato brand Snowflake to invent three unique flavours –Bergamotto di Calabria, Arancia di Capri & Fico di Amalfi – all of which have been inspired by their Blu Mediterraneo range of easy-breezy scents to see you through the sultriest of days in the city.

As if the ice-cream wasn’t enough of a draw, On 2nd & 8th June Acqua di Parma’s in-house artist will also be on hand for on-site bottle painting and personalisation, and customers will be offered complementary customisation of their bottle with any Blu Mediterraneo purchase. What’s more, all customers purchasing Blu Meditteraneo between 2nd & 8th June will receive a Majolica tile of their choice scented with their favourite fragrance. 

We’re just in love with these beautifully evocative drawings by Michalis Christodoulou, also specially commissioned for their pop-up shop, and we don’t know about you, but we’ve definitely been inspired to hot-foot it down the Harvey Nichols to cool off in style…

Acqua di Parma La Collezione travel set: Bergamotto di Calabria, Arancia di Capri & Fico di Amalfi £99 for 3 x 30ml

Buy it at Harvey Nichols

 
Written by Suzy Nightingale

An absolutely darling Diptyque 34 Boutique pops up at Liberty

This morning (22nd September), the Perfume Society gang was lucky enough to see the preview of Diptyque’s lovely pop-up store in Liberty.
Reminiscent of how they first started out –as a ‘bazaar’, with links to fabrics and design –creativity was abounding in the room.
As they tell us: ‘Diptyque has always fostered a passion for objects with a soul. As soon as the first store opened at 34 Boulevard Saint Germain in Paris, the founders – Christiane Gautrot, Desmond Knox-Leet and Yves Coueslant – displayed their surprising finds side by side with their original upholstery fabrics. Italian glass bead necklaces, hand-sewn change purses, potpourris blended according to the owners’ changing inspirations…’ (And with Liberty having started in the same way, it’s a natural ‘home’ for this lifestyle pop-up.)
They had a host of new innovative products just bursting with gorgeousness, so we’re going to give you a quick run down…

La Madeleine

The new candle – with a scent composed by Fabrice Pellegrin –  is inspired by the little lemon-y cakes from Cazelle Bakery, a Parisian bakery founded in 1905. Apparently their famed madeleines are mouthwateringly delicious, ‘A simple sponge cake that’s so irresistible even the raw, melted butter dough gets your taste buds dancing’, is how Diptyque put it. And the candle smells just so, all citrus-y, creamy vanillas – practically edible.
La Madeleine candle £55 for 220g
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Carrousel

Now this has got to be one of the cutest, most delicate examples of prettiness we’ve seen this year. It’s an object that adds life to a candle’s flame: the stand – with its intricate metal bird cut-outs – sits atop any 70g candle, and once the wick is lit the heat generates a current of air that makes the stand turn slowly. The birds dance around the candle and their playful shadows are projected: a small wonder to amaze both adult and child.
Carrousel (limited edition) £30
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Essences Insensées 2016

Every year since the launch of their successful Collection 34, Diptyque have created a scent based on a particular floral harvest. In 2016, the fields of May roses in Grasse were exceptionally abundant, inspiring Fabrice Pellegrin to create a scent bursting with petals from the Centifolia rose,  sweetened by accents of honey and red fruits. Whoever declared rose ‘boring’ clearly had yet to sniff this delight.
Essences Insensées 2016 £105 for 120ml eau de parfum
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Reflet

A beautiful object that creates a glow around your candle like no other. A round plate of oxidised mirror sits behind the candle, giving the flame a hypnotic, mesmerising, malachite halo. It was inspired by the back wall at the 34 Boulevard Saint Germain store (also made of oxidised mirror) and adds an enchanting element to the ritual of lighting a candle.
Reflet candle holder (limited edition) £110
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Fabrics

Long before Diptyque was ever known for their fragrance, they were renowned for the upholstery fabrics designed by the founders themselves. Taking inspiration from the fabric archives, illustrator Charlotte Gastaut created contemporary interpretations of the brand’s original designs – and let us tell you, they’ve never looked more at home than in Liberty. Available in pillow covers, fabric totes and pouches.
Pillow cover (limited edition) £50
Pouches (limited edition) £28
Fabric tote (limited edition) £35
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The Diptyque Liberty pop-up will be open until Christmas 2016