As the entrepreneurial brains behind Beautyspotter, Gemma Bellman has her finger on the beauty industry’s pulse. The innovative app allows you to discover salons, stylists and beauty treatments via the work they create, so you can window shop for a new look.
She talks us through her love of Dior Fahrenheit and her mothers perfume prowess…
‘It’s not glamourous by any means, but my first overwhelming scent memory is the sap from the waxy green bushes that lined the playground at my school in Dubai. The sour but sweet scent seemed to intoxicate taste as much as it did smell and still conjures vivid memories of happy hours spent playing in the dusty shade. I truly fell in love with scent on a family weekend away. It was the first time I’d strayed into the duty free perfume hall at the airport, which until then had merged into one ‘grown up’ area of no interest. I recall being completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of boxes, bottles and blotters filling the air with a sensory overload of florals and fruits.
When I was younger, I admired how my mother wafted her way thorough the crowded airspace, able to decipher and pluck her favourite scents from the rest as if it were meant to be! With one spritz she took a moment to herself in a cloud of her chosen scent and I wondered if I’d ever have such an experienced sense of taste and self knowing.
Lancôme Trésor was my first ever real fragrance. I distinctly remember spying that unmistakable diamond shaped bottle on my mother’s dressing table and wanting it ever since!
I put it on my Christmas list and to my delight it turned up in my stocking that year – I felt I’d grown into a lady that day!
Scent makes me feel safe and happy – just as it should! My fondest fragrance has got to be Dior Fahrenheit – a firm favourite with my father in the late 8os. It’s woody, musky scent was like a guiding light straight to him. Having said that, ‘my smell’ as my husband call it, is Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel. I think it’s been the dominant scent in our lives since we started dating!’
Twitter: @BeautySpotterUK
Written by Alice Jones
