Perfume: Vivienne Westwood, Boudoir- Sin Garden

Vivienne Westwood's Boudoir Sin Garden is a lovely perfume, with a terrible name and a less than enticing box. I wonder if the latter two comments are the reason it doesn't receive more attention?

All scent lovers know it's all about the smell- and if for you it's a little bit about the bottle then I think Westwood's Tudor orb looks very pretty on dressing tables and in cabinets.

The great Dame's first perfume was Boudoir, a beautiful and truly sexy scent. The blush pink liquid is truly romance nectar and it's not to be worn without caution. I've rarely worn it without being complimented by men and women- however I also rarely wear it because frankly I don't often feel up to it. It is also absolutely not a perfume you could wear for anything other than a date or a very sophisticated party. You truly need a good black dress and to feel like Sophia Loren on the inside to carry it off. If you can it has untold influence!

Sin Garden (really who came up with that) is much more wearable while retaining some of the earthy aspects of the original. It is heavy on the oakmoss but that is lightened by top floral notes and the whole scent is green without the coldness that I find some green perfumes have.

I've been wearing this scent since Christmas- it was a good day and evening perfume in the winter, it has enough power to be worn in the cold. However it's really become interesting since the weather got warmer- it has enough freshness for higher temperatures but enough amber and oakmoss to be a little sexy too.

I know I'm starting to love a perfume when I start to worry about running out- and I'm two thirds of the way through this bottle. For a lady with as many bottles of scent as me to use that much since Christmas- I think that is a review in itself.

Image from Fragrantica.

What perfume would they wear? Lisbeth Salander

Lisbeth Salander is a modern hero and one of most brilliantly written characters to emerge in this or any decade. If you haven't read the books in the Millennium trilogy or seen the brilliant Swedish language films then do. The stories are gritty yes, hard yes but also totally consuming- and at once modern and timeless. I haven't seen the new English language film made by David Fincher but he seems the perfect choice- though Noomi Rapace is Lisbeth for me.

I asked the question on twitter of what perfume Lisbeth might wear. Okay she isn't perhaps the first women you think of when you wonder about how they smell- and as one person said of cigarettes is pretty likely. She is such a real character though that I think she would wear a scent of some kind- perhaps not a terribly conventional one. I have suggested Bvlgari black for her and Penhaligon's Sartorial was also suggested by @SalwaAzar and I can see that.

So what do you think, what fragrance would Lisbeth Salander wear?

Lost perfume treasure

It has not been good news on the buying things that have been on the wish list front of late.

I tried a great bay rum but with citrus, great on a guy, cool on a girl, scent in Anthropologie in the summer and now I can find it nowhere. It was really good, the cool label contained a cool scent- but I think it must not have found enough noses (despite seeming so... yes I'm going to say cool again because it just was). I have tried to contact the Grove company but they thought it was on sale on Anthropologie's US site and it isn't.

Oh the perfume treasure we see and should grab when we can. If you see some try it and let me know what you think- it may have become better than it was in my mind because I can't get it- but I think it was excellent!

So the loss of Grove is a shame but oh well. However I also have been wearing as my every day scent for some years L'Occitane Green tea and mint (as discussed here), just for work and play and to smell fresh- it's a good price, good quality and I like the way the mint makes it a bit quirky and everyone likes a tea and mint smell- so I've found. Well. Well. What should I find when I do some boxing day online browsing, my go to every day, smells of me scent is gone- gone! also not on ebay! Okay they still do the green tea and they still do the green tea with jasmine- but it's the mint that makes it worth getting- that makes it a bit unusual and a bargain for it's price that I can spray without feeling guilty. Gone. The prescious is lost. I should not have sprayed with wild abandon.



So the search is on for a new every day smell that is not expensive so I can spray lots. I don't want anything too feminine or that would overpower people but I don't want anything very insipid either, no bland citrus or floral smells please. I like laundry fragrances for this sort of thing- I used to wear Clean but you get through that in about a day it smells so good. A green tea might be the thing, or a mint- or the two halves as a whole- but then we stray into expense again. I would like Heeley mint but that's no really cheap enough to spray around the office if your colleague has a smelly lunch. It's good to have a project I suppose. Sniff.

Dior: Maison de Parfums

The Dior Maisons De Parfums is located exclusively in Selfridges in London but it feels like visiting Maison Dior itself (I imagine, I am yet to go to heaven in Paris).

We were invited to sit down on the classic dove grey Dior chaise with a glass of champagne and some serious coffee tables books about Dior, to relax and acclimatise to our new surroundings.

I had decided to take a good friend who is getting married next year and wanted to pick a new scent for the day as I thought my perfume schizophrenia would be too much of a challenge for a service designed to choose one signature or occasion perfume for you. We began by discussing the perfumes my friend already enjoys and wears- we concluded that the feminine florals she enjoys (Benefit's Maybe Baby and Dior's own Miss Dior Cherie) were in her opinion to relaxed for a wedding and that her beau found them a little sweet and she wanted to find something new and sophisticated that he would appreciate.

With a brief and a style in mind we started the best part of any fragrance quest- the sniffing! The extremely helpful and I must say very knowledgeable lady who works exclusively for the Maisons De Parfums gave us approximately five scents to begin with- which is a reasonable number I felt.

My friend (and I) had strong reactions to these smells as they were obviously chosen to be quite distinct from each other. This process allowed us all to understand that despite thinking she enjoyed sweet florals the scents my friend was actually choosing in a blind sniffing session were sophisticated but still relatively light florals like J'Adore and Forever and Ever Dior as opposed to the heavier scents like Diorissimo- more classic masculine or citrus and aldehyde leaning scents like Diorella were firmly rejected (as I think we all expected they would be- but it is fascinating watching someone test scents for the first time without thinking about the packaging and marketing of them).

After a quick sip of champagne and a waft of coffee beans to refresh us we moved on to a narrowed down selection in the family of preferred fragrances. The perfumes are always initially tested blind but then their names and some of the history is revealed and it's interesting how that can change or support some one's reaction to a fragrance.

Ultimately we took home a beautiful bottle of Forever and Ever Dior- a scent my friend had a strong initial liking for and which does come in one of Dior's grandest, most special boxes. It's a lovely choice for a bride I think and it is different from perfumes she has worn in the past but still very much in character for her. She loved the evening at the Maison De Parfums and interesting so did I, even with my knowledge and being so used to trying perfume they managed to make the experience very enjoyable and to teach me things I didn't know. I was also give some lovely samples of perfumes I had enjoyed trying which I thought was a nice touch (hello New Look 1947, you smell extremely good).

Arran Aromatics: After the Rain

Turnberry in Scotland is a dream of a hotel. From the moment your foot steps over the threshold you feel wrapped up in a cosy, stylish blanket of comfort. You can sit by roaring fires eating butter tablet and reading, get straight into your bed with so many soft, downy pillows you may never get out, run a hot bath and then recline for what feels like forever or head straight out to the wild beach to get invigoratingly wind, salt and sea swept before you do all of that.

Scent is a strange thing- when you ask people about their favourite smells they don't generally say 'Chanel Number 5' or 'Miss Dior' they say hot tarmac and bacon sandwiches, both great smells that you would never want to wear as a perfume even if someone could recreate them well.

Rain though is a smell that is often mentioned which perfumers can and do try and replicate. Apres L'Ondee is one of my favourite perfumes of all time and is of course named for the scent of a place after rain, or a shower- that's a summer shower though, over a garden perhaps and is more about atmosphere, a smile after tears, than about the scent of a place.

It rained when I was in Scotland, not all the time and it didn't make me sad- I wanted it to rain- I love that smell, I adore wild seas and all the things I've mentioned above, getting a bit wet knowing you can go indoors to a steaming cauldron of a bath- or just never going outside and watching the weather storming around you as you stay warm and content inside (under a blanket).

I did go outside though, chiefly to smell the scent of rain and sea- salt, some humidity, the musk of sand and reeds breathing or being kissed by a sweeping mist from the sea. Amazingly I found that very smell in a bottle inside the shop at Turnberry- the perfume is Arran Aromatics After the Rain. I can report it is as good as it sounds and also very good value and made in Scotland, which must be a good thing.



Beach image courtesy of Turnberry, bottle courtesy of Arran Aromatics. After the Rain and all Arran Aromatics products are available from their website.

Life in Scents podcast

Life in Scents is a new podcast from olfactory aficionados Jo Barratt (@JoBarratt) and Odette Toilette (@OdetteToilette who I interviewed here). It is not unlike a Desert Island Discs of smell, a scented journey through a person's life. So far there are four podcasts, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed (perhaps unsurprisingly!) and all of which taught me something I didn't know about scent.

I think what is particularly good about this project for me is the feeling that I am not the only person whose memories are completely caught up in smell, or the only person who perhaps thinks of scent in terms of memory. As regular readers know I love the radio and podcasts especially so this is perhaps my ideal pre- recorded feature- in fact it's something I've wanted to do myself and never quite managed so hurrah for Odette and Jo and do have a listen- the podcasts are free and available via i tunes or at the Life in Scents website.

L'Artisan Parfumeur Mûre et Musc

I saw my first blackberries of the year at the weekend and was immediately inspired to reach for L'Artisan Parfumeur's Mûre et Musc, a perfume concoction of equal parts blackberry, musc and magic.

In all truth blackberry musc sounds like something you might buy in a pharmacy/ chemist, a cheaper body spray that would be beloved of teen girls on their first independent foray into picking a scent for themselves.

This scent couldn't be further from that fragrance you imagine. There is blackberry yes, but it is blackberry from the branch not the sugared kind from a pie a body spray might contain. There is still dew on these fruits and a hint of the forest they came from. There is musc here too but not the very shouty, so synthetic your teeth stand on end kind. This musc is the cleaner, sophisticated smell of a grown up.

So when I spray the enticingly named Mûre et Musc I always smile a grown ups smile. I can wear a really good musc, a chic one, one that makes me check my posture, straighten my back a little and I can still have a little fun with a dash of blackberry. Perhaps the little girl can grow into a woman without forgetting where she started.

Disclosure: I received a bottle of Mûre et Musc as a press gift

What it's easy to forget about perfume

As you may well know bbc4 are currently showing a short series about perfume.

You can watch the first two episodes on the i-player here if you haven't already.

It is perhaps not surprising that I stayed in to watch this programme, in fact several friends apologised for messaging me during the transmission (which I assured them was silly, because of course I was recording it). It was really wonderful, partly because some of it really wasn't, if that makes any sense. The behind the scenes look at the creation of a new mass market scent will not I think have won that perfume any fans but I rather loved that.

Anyway this post is not about the programme, though if you like either perfume or eccentric people then I do recommend it. It is about remembering as a scent lover that not everyone has the perfume education we have all given ourselves.

After Tuesday evening's programme a good friend who wears several lovely and not especially generic scents messaged me to ask if I knew of Shalimar by Guerlain which had featured quite heavily in the first episode. Initially I sent a message back saying of course I have, I could hardly call myself someone who liked fragrance if I had not- and said she should catch up as soon as possible. She asked what it was like and I said wonderful but that it was not my most favourite Guerlain but that I thought it was perhaps the most accessible of the older ones and so on and so forth, as any scent lover might.

She knows I love perfumes but she said wow you know so much about it (and I really hadn't said much). I have despatched her to suitable perfume counters in London to try one of the Queens of perfume but this has reminded me that we all assume everyone must know L'heure Bleu for example, or Rive Gauche or Diorella. We are so consumed by scent that we sometimes forget the classics are to be so revered and to always be talked about. I am so often looking for what is new or what is old but hard to find that I forget to point people towards and to talk about what is there year on year.

So if for some reason you have never tried Shalimar please, please do. Then try Mitsouko and if you don't like it try it again and again, look for the peach and the moss and fall in love with it. Then on a more bad tempered day try L'heure Bleu and let is take you over a little. On a better day try Apres L'Ondee and embrace your inner pre war suffragette. When you have tried all these try the mens scents, many women wear Vetiver so spritz that by try them all. Then go to the Dior counter and try all the ones they don't talk about very much in the bottles that look the same, they are far better than any of the scents they will want to talk to you about. Then over to Chanel to try Chanel 19 and Cristalle because they don't give them enough love and they are scents for women not girls (or men).

Perhaps even those of us who think we know everything there is to know about perfumes in standard perfume halls would do well to re- try some of the scents that have been there for a long time- or to remember to love them.

Lutyens and Rubinstein

Lutyens and Rubinstein is easily one of my favourite bookshops. Based in Notting Hill it is owned by two literary agents (Sarah Lutyens and Felicity Rubinstein). The shops is so obviously owned by people who love books that is barely needs explaining. It is not a large space but on the two small floors they have managed to fit many, many interesting titles as well as some crockery and, fabulously in my opinion, some perfume.



The scents are from CB I hate Perfume and many of them are directly inspired by books or literature. Particularly note worthy are A Room with A View and fabulous In the Library- but they are all worth smelling ( and you can read about the full range of perfumes by the very talented Christpher Brosius on the CB I hate Perfume website).



Picture of the interior of Lutyens and Rubinstein from The Guardian here.

Picture of the range of CB I hate Perfume scents available at Lutyens and Rubenstein courtesy of Vogue. You can read their own blog about Lutyens and Rubinstein here.

Juniper Sling

Juniper Sling, just the name sounds decadent, 1920s esque and even a little debauched (in the best possible way). It is the name of the new scent from Penhaligon's which will be available later this Summer.

To celebrate Penhaligon's created a secret, pop- up speak easy in London's Fitzrovia. With the help of Dalston's The Clove Club we were treated to cocktails and a dinner inspired by Olivier Cresp's new olfactory wonder.

Obviously being a gin inspired scent the menu featured a healthy and very welcome ammount of London's finest spirit but Olivier has accented the juniper with notes of brown sugar and black cherry- so that was pudding sorted. Cresp is the creator of Angel and therefore the master of the gourmand scent and he spoke very genuinely about how much he had enjoyed his experience with Penhaligon's, I find listening to perfumers speak so fascinating, they are always so precise with their language as I suppose they must be in their work.















I think one of my favourite touches of the entire evening was the salad dressing being spritzed from atomizers, surely the chicest serving suggestion possible. All the food (and drink!) was utterly delicious, particularly the brown sugar ice cream and the cloudy red wine with a eucalyptus note (sounds strange but it's very very good).

We were lucky enough to sample the new fragrance with dinner and I must it's very good and perhaps more importantly in these days of utter scent saturation it's really new and interesting. Penhaligon's are building a very innovative set of new scents with some of the most talented perfumers in the world- Amaranthine, Elixir, Sartorial and now Juniper Sling compliment their classic scents and offer truly unusual fragrances.

First thoughts on Fitzrovia by Penhaligon's

Last week I received an unusual but delightful invitation to attend an evening with Penhaligon's at Callooh Calley in Shoreditch (which if you haven't been is a cocktail and Alice in Wonderland lovers destination bar).

With my special key (which was the unusual part) I was able to walk through the wardrobe and into the Penhaligon's room where we were treated to drinks inspired by their fragrances; I think the hit of the evening was the Blenheim Bouquet but they were all very worth trying!



We were able to try three upcoming Penhaligon's scents; two further additions to their Anthology collection- which is made up of scents from their archives re-imagined or refreshed for modern noses- of which more news soon.

Of course all new perfumes are exciting to me but I had been waiting to try Penhaligon's major new scent for the year since I first heard that it was to be inspired by gin and so I wanted to write some first thoughts about it now.

Firstly because I love gin (although I do not love tonic at all) and think juniper is a wonderful and very British ingredient. Secondly I'm obviously very interested in the relationship between food and scent and a new gourmand that doesn't begin with sugar or chocolate is only a good thing in my eyes.

On first sniff I can report Fitzrovia is indeed gourmand and there isn't just juniper but pepper, black cherry and brown sugar in the notes. The scent will be unisex which is obviously very trendy at the moment but in this case I think is correct. I will write far more about the fragrance when it is available(in the Summer) but until then I think I will be getting more interested in smelling different varieties of gin to keep me occupied.

Interview: Odette Toilette from Scratch+Sniff events

Scratch+Sniff events are "Purveyors of Olfactory Adventures". Odette Toilette (Lizzie Ostrom) is their founder and arranges their meetings once a month at The Book Club in London's Shoreditch. The events are designed as a place to celebrate our sense of smell and explore scent, whether you are a novice or an aficionado.

I've loved the evenings I've attended so far and asked Odette to answer some questions about Scratch+Sniff and her love of scent more widely:

1) Have you always been a scent lover?

Yes since a very young age. The Avon lady coming by was a highlight of the week for my sister and I when we were about 7! I remember being obsessed with those fairy fragrances which probably smelled of very fake peach, but which to me were the height of exoticism. My mother used to say: "I can go without new clothes, as long as I have perfume and lipstick, that's all that matters."

It kind of grew from there, but I'd say the interest really started growing about 7 or 8 years ago, and a huge part of that I think is the internet - discovering a whole world of cultured and fascinating fragrance discussion. I remember the day I found makeupalley and spending far too long in general reading perfume reviews.


2) What gave you the idea for the Scratch and Sniff events?


Well, professionally my background is in events and communications, and I started Scratch+Sniff because the gatherings I wanted to go to didn't exist. I had seen from the sidelines all the great perfume safaris and tours being organised though boards and online communities, but was (stupidly) too intimidated to join in. In a separate incident, I discovered that a friend who I'd known for years was also obsessed with perfume, yet we'd never talked about it. I find with friends, we'd all say 'oh you smell nice', but never going further in the conversation.

And I would definitely call myself adventurous in the kinds of cultural pursuits I attend - I love experimentalists in the UK like Bompas and Parr, Coney, Shunt or The Last Tuesday Society, who push what an event can be, or the subjects it might explore, so really it all came together in a serendipitous moment. An opportunity was presented to trial a quirky evening shindig, I jumped at it, and the rest came from there.


3) I like the fact that Scratch+Sniff is a mixture of different medias, some speaking by experts and audience participation; was it hard to devise the events?

No I wouldn't say it's hard and I think that's because I play to my strengths. I'm not a perfumer (nor do I think I'd be a very good one, though if anyone would like to fund a course I would be happy to oblige), but what I do know how to do is engage people imaginatively, and I love an unusual format. Scratch+Sniff to me is a bit like a sandpit - so far people have come along for the ride, which is what makes this so rewarding.

4) I think the internet has really opened up people's eyes to scent. Events like yours, the publications of more scent based books and the increasing interest in individual perfumers have all been effects of the internet I've found. Do you find the people who attend the events are not necessarily hardcore scentaholics?


Completely. Though I'm delighted when perfume addicts come to the events (and I love meeting bloggers in person), what really excites me is that Scratch+Sniff attracts those new to this whole world. They read about the event as an alternative night out, think it sounds intriguing and don't really know what to expect! That they leave with their eyes opened to olfaction is the best thing ever. I really do think perfume is entering a very exciting time, and the old ways of doing things are going to get rather left behind.


4) You have looked at scent and the movies, scent and travel and men's scent to name a few so far. What upcoming themes have you got planned for Scratch+Sniff?


Oh there are loads, I've probably got 3 years worth of events up my sleeves. We've got scent and music coming up which will be fun, and in general there's lots of potential in events that explore crossover with other art forms. Visual arts is one I'd like to do, ideally in collaboration with a gallery. Often an event run on a more general theme, like A Scented Journey Around the World, brings up a plethora of new ideas where we can drill down a bit more into a topic. So I'm currently looking at a Moroccan Special. Grant Osborne at Basenotes has also suggested a Scents of Childhood event as a riff on the teen night we're running, which I'm very keen to do. So many ideas, so little time etc etc.


5) Do you have a favourite perfume?

Errr do I have to pick one? Currently the scent I'm wearing nearly every day is Frederic Malle's Une Rose, after years of being blasee about florals, on which note I'm also loving Carnal Flower. For sentimental reasons I'm going to go with Premier Figuer from L'Artisan, because I have very strong memories of turning up at their shop in Chelsea at a ridiculously young age, and having a cheeky spray. When I finally got a bottle I was ecstatic, only to find the coconutty edge gnawing away at my love of it one week later. Oh well. And I shall always love the old Diors especially Diorella - a favourite of my mum too!

6) And (or if the above is too hard... which it certainly is for me) is there a scent you wish more people were aware of- and why?

I'm a big fan of Tauer perfumes in general, and the way he shares his whole creative process. His perfumes really tell an imaginative story and they always challenge. I think that's important - there should always be something not quite right in a scent, in the best possible way, otherwise it gets BORING.

7) Is there a historical figure in perfume who you would like to have met- or had a sniffing session with and why?

Oh yes - to continue my Dioraptures (can that be their new perfume??!), Edmond Roudnitska. I would have loved to sit with him quietly while he took in the scent of Lily of the Valley. I'd have also liked to have a cup of tea with Marie Thérèse de Laire who quite possibly concocted Caron's famously outrageous house base, Mousse de Saxe. Though I know very little about her, I've the feeling she'd be a laugh. And finally and perhaps most of all, a fictional character - Sugar from Michel Faber's novel The Crimson Petal and the White, whose marketing savvy turned around the fortunes of her lover's perfume empire, Rackham's.


You can find out everything you need to know about Scratch+Sniff here, including information on upcoming events and booking tickets. You can follow the lovely Odette on twitter and read the Scratch+Sniff blog here. If you can't make the events you can follow basenotes who live blog/ tweet them.

Further reading:

The BBC have made an adaptation of the Crimson Petal and the White; I confess I have recorded the first episode but not watched any as yet so I cannot recommend it or not- but it's definitely worth trying.

The Wellcome Collection are currently showing an exhibition about Dirt which should appeal to anyone who interested in smells- the good and the bad.

Eating Perfume: Penhaligon's chocolates

Flower food and scented recipes get my pulse racing in exactly the same way as a new fragrance. I've written about eating perfume before in the context of the ingredient ambergris but Penhaligon's in Edinburgh and their neighbour The Chocolate Tree have gone one better and collaborated on chocolates inspired by Penhaligon's perfumes.

The fragrances they produced chocolates for are: Malabah, Cornubia, Endymion, Orange Blossom, Amaranthine and Gardenia; a mixture of classic and newer formulations.

I was excited and fascinated by this process- and the chocolates themselves sounded delectable. Alex Musgrave, the delightful manager at the Edinburgh branch of the perfumers, agreed to answer some of my questions about how this chocolate collection.

1 How did the idea for a collaboration between Penhaligon's and The Chocolate Tree come about?

The collaboration was almost accidental. With a touch of fate! I have wanted to create scented chocolates for almost as long as I have worked for Penhaligon’s which is six years now. It’s a tricky thing to do. The artisan chocolate market is awash with a huge array of convoluted flavours, some successful some not. I had criteria. I wanted something local and therefore exclusive to my boutique, flavours reflective of our fragrances, not slavish imitations and delicacy and originality. I wanted them to surprise my clients. We succeeded on all these points.

One of the Chocolate Tree team, Josie, their talented baker, came in looking for fragrance. We got talking about flavours, scents and mutual ideas. Then Ali (Alistair Gower), the owner of the Chocolate Tree got in touch and we sat down to talk chocolate and perfume. He was new to fragrance and truth be told I am not a massive chocolate eater and knew very little about the way artisan quality chocolate is made. We looked very carefully at the fragrances with the ingredients we thought might produce the most unique finished product. I wanted a range of tastes, finishes, textures and sensations. I really wanted each chocolate to be savoured on the palate in the way a scent opens and blooms on the skin. Big ask, but you know what….we got very close. Especially with some of them. We did a couple of trials and changed the ganaches, tweaked ingredients, changed the colour of chocolate shell here and there and then kept tasting until we were happy. The final six chocolates were just beautiful and worked better than I could have hoped for.

2) I am a great lover of rose and violet creams- which are obviously made with perfume type flavours- I know they are quite love or hate- what was the reaction of customers to the perfumed chocolates? Was there a particularly successful chocolate?

We knew the reaction from clients would be really interesting. Everyone (the team included) had quite pre-conceived ideas about scent-inspired chocolates. So it seemed did many of our customers. I trained all our staff in the collaboration process and the inspiration and the ingredients. I had involved them in all stages of the process too, asking for feedback from them about the different drafts of the each chocolate. So when we started to sell them and talk about them we were more than we prepared. We all loved different chocolates too and were passionate about the project. We launched them at a special evening for local businesswomen, talking about the collaboration and letting the ladies sample them for the first time. It was interesting to watch reactions as I talked. Some were intrigued some not, some not really liking the idea at all, imaging a straight perfume/chocolate mix. After tasting however was a different matter. Hugely positive, everyone surprised and really intrigued by the witty interpretation of the fragrances, the scented echo if you like. We sampled them in store as we sold too and this really worked, talking each client through the project and letting them sample the same scent too. The feedback was so positive, with repeat sales for the chocolates and so much encouragement from our clientele.



3) I think using floral ingredients in food is becoming more fashionable- and gourmand fragrances continue to be very fashionable- did anyone find that they liked the chocolate of a scent they didn't like on their skin?

This is an interesting question. The Amaranthine chocolate was in many ways the most challenging to create and the fragrance for me that I wanted to be absolutely perfect. The fragrance was launched in November 2009 and exploded across the artisan scent world with its divisive and compulsive blend of tropical banana leaf, spiced oils, high levels of ylang oil and a deeply weird hot milk note in the base of the scent that made it so moreish and sensual. It is perhaps one of the most unusual and shocking scents that Penhaligon’s has launched and was created by master perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour. I wanted the oddness of this scent to come across. The contrast of comfort and carnality, the creaminess and unsettling power of ylang, a renowned aphrodisiac oil. This fragrance divided our clients. Some loved, some hated. The chocolate however worked like a dream, (we used tiny touches of ylang ylang essential oil) seducing all who tried it and for me is the stand out chocolate in the collection. On a personal level, one of the chocolates is based on Malabah, a ginger and rose based oriental we have in our collection. The scent itself is witty, juicy and stylish but smells sharp and bitter on my skin, much as I want to wear it. The chocolate however is smooth and beautifully made, with delicate notes of green coriander running through it and the earl grey tea note which in the scent is fresh, is smoky and warm in the chocolate. Wonderful.

4) I am especially intrigued as to how the non floral ingredient like sandalwood tasted- could you tell us a little bit about that?

The sandalwood note (and the use of myrrh and the Endymion chocolate) works very well with chocolate. They are both warm, woody, earthy notes. This plays well with the bitterness of dark chocolate in particular. Ali the chocolatier and his team use these notes with great finesse, the aromatic creaminess of wood oils breathes into the chocolate and seems to give it an extra dimension without ever overpowering it. Like base notes in fragrance, I noticed as the chocolate finished on the palate, these wonder bitter woody notes resonated last of all, smoothing and rounding the experience off.

5) Might the collaboration be repeated in the future?

I have future projects in the back of my mind already. The valentine’s project is already up and running in Edinburgh and selected London stores. I would like to look at working on chocolates for the new Anthology fragrances launching in late spring. One of them is a sparkling fruity gourmand begging to be made in a chocolate. We are looking at making Blenheim Bouquet, out bestselling citrus into a mini bar for father’s day, I love the idea of playing with black pepper, lemon, pine and bergamot. Maybe a small box of limited edition Orange Blossom chocolates for mother’s day. So there are ideas galore. I want Ali to be considered like a perfumer in some respects, someone who I consult with a brief, who creates something special to sit alongside our beautiful fragrances. We both like a challenge and the process so far has been fun and surprising for both of us.



Thank- you very much to Alex and everyone at Penhaligon's. There is lots more information about the upcoming Valentines chocolates on the Penhaligon's facebook page and you can follow the fragrance house on twitter- they have lots of competitions and interesting events throughout the year.

Strange Invisible perfume

One my major perfume discoveries last year was Strange Invisible Perfumes, a range of completely natural (and importantly) certified organic perfumes made in America. You can read more about Strange Invisible Perfumes and their ingredients here.

My new found love for the line is in fact purely driven by the scents I have found which are interesting, daring and inventive; that they are natural is, to me, a bonus. However if for you this is an important factor (and I can increasingly see that it would and perhaps should be as much for fragrance as it is for skincare) then these are the best perfumes I have found that do not contain any chemicals.

I have tried the following perfumes from this line but there are more and I would love to hear about the ones I haven't tried yet if anyone has.

Musc Botanique: A perfume that smells of musk without containing any. Musk although an extremely popular smell is of course derived from animals and as such some people disagree with its use in perfumery. Strange Invisible perfumes have crafted this scent entirely from botanical ingredients and I must say it is really quite successful at mimicking the more ish, nuzzling quality of musks. It also has a very pleasing salt quality. This is a very successful unisex scent that I would recommend to anyone who wants to wear a non floral, musk type scent but who prefers to only wear perfumes that contain natural ingredients.

Fire and Cream: This perfume has a delicious bright orange, marmalade colour in the bottle. On the skin this is also an orange scent- with top notes of the fruit itself and orange blossom and beautiful basenotes of a particularly rich grassy vetiver as well as sandalwood and patchouli. For anyone who loves orange and or vetiver and anyone who likes to be a little bit different.

L'Invisible: The signature scent of the line and the perfume they describe as the 'little black dress' of the collection. With beautiful and overtly sexual notes of amber, moss and ylang ylang they are quite right- this would be the ideal natural perfume for a date night. It has quite a pronounced lemon citrus top note which rescues it from being too heady and old fashioned.

Prima Ballerina: This is absolute lovely but as I have already reviewed it I will say no more than this is my personal favourite and direct you to my former review here.

Aquarian Roses: Is obviously an aqua rose scent- now with my love of all things rose and particularly salt notes I always expect to love aquarian roses (Rosine and Lostmarc'h have their own versions as well). Honestly I have never found they live up to my expectations but this one is the best I've found. The rose oil is clearly of a very high quality and the perfume smells exactly like a rose garden when it's raining; perhaps because this is where natural perfumery works best, it can really mimic smells you would find in life and would never expect to find in a bottle, but you can.

Fair Verona: A very beautiful name for a perfume, I wondered if it would be rather hard to live up to- but this scent does fair Verona and Juliet great service. As with all the other scents in this line the quality of the raw ingredients in Fair Verona shine through. This is especially true of the jasmine, which is listed on their website as being a combination of oils from that flower.

In many ways a classic scent Fair Verona could, in other hands, have been over- poweringly feminine but here the jasmine retains a freshness which prevents this. That lightness may come from the pink grapefruit note, which also suggests youth and vibrancy. The scent is not without complexity though and sandalwood stops it from being too carefree. A scent for women of all ages who want to smell like ladies but not girls.

Peloponnesian: The only specifically male fragrance I have tried from this line (although I think several of the scents that are not listed as unisex could easily be for an open minded man). Peloponnesian is quite simply everything you want from a man's scent (well that I want, as a woman). It is a very well balanced blend of the classic citruses that do tend to dominate men's cologne type smells together with some of the more unusual ingredients that do seem to be characteristic of this companies way of working. Those rarer ingredients include mountain sage honey and the botanical musk which I discussed above as a major ingredient in L'Invisble- which again here adds a salty aspect which works incredibly well for me. It would be very hard for a man not to be well dressed in fragrance terms in Peloponnesian.

Photos taken in Content/ Wellbeing who offer the range of Strange Invisible (and other natural perfumes and beauty products) in their lovely London shop and online.

I was given samples of all the scents reviewed here which in no way influenced my opinion of the products.

Prima Ballerina

Ballerinas are the essence of refined femininity- combining elegance, grace and perhaps most importantly strength. The adage is to never judge a person until you have walked in their shoes- well to dance in a ballerinas shoes is to understand them- they might look fragile but being en pointe is as strange and painful as you imagine- to be a ballerina is to be utterly in control of your body and your mind.



Strange Invisible perfumes have chosen the rose as the centre piece for their Prima Ballerina scent- and the rose is everything a ballerina is, in flower form. Although if we're honest the rose is even more full of life than a ballerina, a rose in real life would probably have cream on top of it's cake, stay out a little bit too late and maybe wear it's hair a little bit too long- but always with grace- and I don't think a well behaved dancer would do any of those things.

Prima Ballerina is a blend of Rose, sage, lime & botanical musk according to Strange Invisible Perfumes website. While I do see that complexity to me this scent is rose- in fact buckets of roses, overflowing pink varieties from across the world. In smell and character Prima Ballerina is not unlike the much revered Moroccan rose bath oil from Ren.



Strange Invisible Perfumes are certified organic, and one hundred per cent natural perfumes. The world of natural beauty and perfumery is something of a mystery even for many product and scent enthusiasts- and what may be marketed as pure or from nature in press releases may in fact include synthetics, chemicals and animal products. My interest in finding genuinely good but organic scents led me to this company but I can honestly say this scent is as good if not better than any perfumes you can buy with chemicals in them- in fact the lushness of the rose smell is I'm sure due to there being a great deal more natural ingredient contained in the perfume. I would certainly buy this scent for the smell alone rather than for environmental reasons- although that this scent is ethically sound is clearly a fantastic bonus.

The first picture above is from The English National Ballet's Romeo and Juliet, choreographed by Rudolf Nureyev, which will be performed in London in January.

The second picture above is for the forthcoming Darren Aronovsky film Black Swan, which I cannot wait to see. The poster is from The London Ballet, a lovely site for anyone interested in this most refined form of dance.

The picture of Prima Ballerina and other Strange Invisible perfumes was taken at Content/ Wellbeing which I recently posted about.

If you like ballet and would enjoy seeing male and female dancers in repose then there is one more day to visit Mary McCartney's exhibition at The Michael Hoppen Gallery or you can see a selection of her pictures behind the scenes at the Royal Ballet (called 'Off Pointe') in her book From Where I Stand.

Lipstick rose- the cocktail

So far my meet ups with the lovely Metropolitan Mum have been very glamorous and FUN!

Firstly we went for the fashionistas and foodies favourite afternoon tea Pret a Portea at the Berkeley Hotel- you can read all about what we got up to on Metropolitan Mum's blog here.

Then last week we decided to head out after dark for some sophisticated cocktailing at the very hip, very award winning, 69 Colebrooke Row in Angel.

They take their drinks seriously at Colebrooke Row, employing a similarly scientific and fastidious but fun approach to Heston Blumenthal's with food. The menu is just right- there is a good amount of choice without it becoming overwhelming or in anyway cocktails by numbers. The full menu is here- and if you ask nicely they will make you the occasional off the list treat.

I don't think you will be surprised to know that I ordered the Lipstick Rose cocktail as soon as I arrived (I had pre perused the menu that afternoon when I was particularly needing cocktail hour to come quickly). A lipstick rose is apparently made of Raspberry & Violet Syrup with Rose Vodka topped with Champagne. You will notice there is lipstick on my glass in this picture- that isn't mine, it is edible lipstick that comes on the glass, nice touch isn't it?

The Lipstick Rose is very nice- I am a serious lover of cocktails but champagne ones do need to be good because messing around with the sacred nectar that is bubbly can be a travesty. This one isn't- it is a thoroughly lovely tipple for girls. It is also unnervingly like the perfume it shares a name with- Lipstick Rose from Frederic Malle. Obviously drinking perfume would actually be disgusting because it's mostly neat alcohol but you know what I mean.



I liked to see this trend though- and I wonder if we might see more cocktails like perfumes? You could make a grand, super deluxe Bellini inspired by the complexity of the peach in Mitsouko, with some brandy and perhaps some vanilla vodka. Some people might feel it is sacrilege to use perfume to inspire cocktails but I think they go together rather well- and the skills of a master taster and a master perfumer are really not unrelated.

L'Artisan Parfumeur: Coeur de Vétiver Sacré

Coeur de Vétiver Sacré (the sacred heart of Vetiver) is the new L'Artisan Parfeumeur scent (exclusive to Liberty of London).

Vetiver is a star ingredient in perfume and it has a strong, powerful personality. It is dark chocolate, butter and espresso. Unlike more widely known perfume ingredients Vetiver isn't derived from a flower but is in fact a grass, the perfume oil being extracted from its roots. Pure vetiver does smell of grass, warmer and richer than a freshly mown lawn but having something in character with it and perhaps something in character with its cousin lemongrass (though non of the spice) it's salty and deeply earthy but dry. Vetiver is profoundly green and extremely seductive on a man or a woman. For me personally, together with jasmine, Vetiver is my favourite scent in pure oil form.

Vetiver is very widely used as a basenote and is likely to be in your perfume in some form but also has several stunning fragrances built around it, notably Guerlain's Vetiver- famously made for men but adopted by many women (because they love it and because men love them with it on).

Karine Vinchon is the perfumer who created this scent for L'Artisan (she was also responsible for their Jatamansi fragrance). They describe her as 'wanting to 'create a different, mysterious vetiver by revealing all its facets: its sparkle, enlivened by black tea with bergamot; its peppery side with touches of saffron, coriander, ginger and pink pepper berries; its hints of dried fruit, date and apricot; its vibrant heart accompanied by roses, iris and osmanthus flowers; its woody soul backed by sandalwood, white cedar and gaiac wood; its trail of balsam wreathed in incense, amber, cistus, tonka beans, vanilla and musks; and its shadowy character, animal and smoky, enhanced by labdanum, castoreum and birch'.

So as with many soliflores (scents that seek to replicate a single smell) a great deal of skill and many fragrance notes have been combined to make this interesting, individual and indulgent perfume. This is not a scent you would find in your local pharmacy and it is not a perfume for someone who would want to find a fragance there.

I would urge anyone interested in smell to pick this up because it's the closest perfume I have ever smelled to the vetiver oil I tried in a perfumer's studio (the oil in pure form is extremely expensive and smells beyond sublime). This is a scent that reminds you of the wonder of smell. It would work on anyone and would make them more interesting for their fabulous choice of scent.

Coeur de Vétiver Sacré is exclusive to Liberty of London and is available in the shop and online here.

Scents of the Mediterranean the world over

Scents of the Mediterranean is a collaboration between perfume blogs from around the world, which was kindly organised by Ines from All I am- A Redhead and Helg from Perfume Shrine. I would like to thank them both for inviting me to participate and for all their work. I really enjoy coming together with other bloggers and think it's very much in the spirit of the community to work together. I'm really looking forward to every one's thoughts on their favourite smells from the Mediterranean, mine are below but do let me know yours as well.

Diptyque Philosykos: Philosykos is figs, it's like a symphony on them- not just the skin and the flesh but the branches and leaves of the fig trees and the the hot, beating sun I imagine shining, burning down on them day after day. It has become quite simply one of my favourite fragrances. I continuously receive compliments and even nuzzles from people when I wear it (which isn't why I like it but it helps!). I find it quite a cerebral scent too, I think well with it on. It's not terribly masculine or feminine but it's sensual, like figs themselves.

By Redo Palermo: This is the newest By Redo and I have been wanting to write about it so this is a great opportunity. Palermo is, of course, the capital of Sicily- for me one of the most intriguing corners of the Mediterranean. While I am lucky enough to have travelled to many parts of Italy I haven't made it to Sicily yet and I do long to go- to see the architecture, the history that makes most British buildings seem new (which is hard) to eat the food and feel the hot stone under my feet. So of course Palermo seems exotic, enticing and a little bit mysterious to me before I have even smelled it. It is actually a citrus and herbaceous scent, to some degree fresh but not in the way of many lemon based scents. This is a sophisticated smell, in the same family as Eau Savage and Miss Dior, a light chypre dressed in the ironed white shirt of a citrus eau de toilette.

Carthusia Mediterraneo: this is southern Italy to me- walking in the lemon groves and drinking the freshest lemonade I ever tasted in Sorrento after swimming in the pool. I don't particularly like lemon scents as I am always saying but this is the exception, this is lemon sorbet and all the joy of Italy bottled up for me to bring home. Whenever I want to go back, whenever London is too grey or cold or maybe sad, one spritz of this and I am the land that makes my heart happy.

Olive oil. I thought for quite a long time about including something as simple as olive oil but it truly is the taste of the Mediterranean for me and actually it's scent is not only very transporting but it's very unlike any other smell. To me olive oil means health, a different kind of health to our Celtic and Anglo- Saxon robustness. Olive oil is men in their eighties dancing or stealing a kiss from a beautiful lady, it's Sophia Loren still looking beautiful and it's food that tastes amazing and you know is doing you good. So all my ideas about olive oil might be cliches but they work for me.

Korres Yoghurt after sun lotion. This one is quite specific I know but it's what I thought of! It is by Korres who are obviously Greek and it smells exactly like the those bowls of fresh Greek yoghurt that are quite tart you have for breakfast on holiday (I've never been to Greece sadly but I've had those bowls of yoghurt everywhere else and this product mimics the scent perfectly).

The other blogs participating in this project are as follows:

Bonkers about Perfume

I smell therefore I am

Notes from the Ledge

Olfactarama

Suzanne's Perfume Journal

The Non- Blonde

Waft

Smelly Blog

Scent Hive

Katie Puckrick Smells

Sonomascent

Roxana Illuminated Perfume

Perfume Shrine

All I am- A Redhead

Eating Perfume

You might love to smell perfumes but do you love to eat scents?

I can't get enough of floral cooking- rose water on rice pudding, violet ice cream, lavender iced cakes or in lemonade, orange blossom macaroons.

Eating ingredients you find in perfume is usually about florals though and they are certainly not for everyone. This weekend I had the 'luck' to try something completely different from the perfume world: Ambergris.

For those who perhaps aren't as interested in scent as cooking Ambergris is a legendary ingredient in the perfume world- apparently a beautiful, earthy musky smell that was loved and revered for it's medicinal qualities for hundreds of years.

Ambergris is a delicate sounding word but beauty in this case masks if not a secret then a surprise. For Ambergris quite literally describes a grey rock type substance found on beaches (named to be like grey amber) which is actually whale vomit. There are more details about what Ambergris is and it's journey in life it in this BBC article.

Ambergris is generally rare in perfume nowadays because of cost and increasing restrictions- which in the case of ambergris being taken or developed from slaughtered whales is clearly absolutely the right thing in my opinion. The question of naturally found Ambergris being used in perfume seems to me more difficult- I would have thought that as long as no creature is harmed this shouldn't be a problem- but I do understand that where demand outweighs supply people will bend rules and I consider harm to any creature to be too greater cost for any perfume or beauty product.

Ever well read and knowledgeable Helg who writes Perfume Shrine suggest some modern scents that are meant to have natural, as opposed to synthetic, ambergris in them here. If Eau De Merveilles does contain Ambergris and that salty cosy skin like scent derives from that ingredient then I can completely understand why ambergris has been treasured for so long- that perfume is quite beautiful and unlike anything else I have smelled for wanting to make you nuzzle the wearer or any clothes it's been on (gentleman take note, I think it could work very well on you- although I believe Terre De Hermes is meant to be the men's equivalent).

Now we come to the point of the post (finally I here you say)- how did I come to eat ambergris and how was it?

Well I came to eat it at Bompas and Parr's brilliant dinner/ art installation The Complete History of Food on Sunday (you can read a full review by food bloggers and London secret supper club dinner hosts Fernandez and Leluu here).

I had heard via reviews that there was an unusual ingredient in one of the courses and found out on the day it was whale vomit. During the meal though I couldn't work out what we had eaten which could contain in it and at no point were we told about it. Then we got to the dessert section of the meal: a delicious candied orange and iris flower jelly with an ambergris posset- I, knowing what ambergris was, knew this was the moment to be brave but my fellow diners wouldn't believe me and said that the delicious, extremely sweet creme brulee type custard couldn't possibly be the whale vomit we had heard the rumour about. No no they said it must have been a hoax, this is far too lovely and doesn't look like that would look.

Well I checked and it was ambergris and it's true that it doesn't look anything like you would imagine- it looks just like custard but on the spoon is slightly clearer and of a less runny consistency. In the mouth it tastes like an extremely rich burnt custard as I said and the texture is again like custard but perhaps firmer and slightly gelatinous. It was delicious I must say, although I'm not sure for either the cost or effort of finding it it was really that much better than a really good creme brulee and I could never quite get what I was eating out of my head for long enough to really enjoy it. It is fantastic to have tasted such a treasured ingredient though, even if it was a bit weird!

Love Potion No. 9 print

Perfume people- you want this don't you? So do I.

Available from www.ros-shiers.com. This print is £39 which is very reasonable in my opinion. There are lots of other lovely prints available. All are Giclée prints which her site says 'are guaranteed to not fade or age and have a colour life of 75-100 years. The Giclee printing process ensures a print with brilliant colour and razor sharp detail'. The prints also apparently fit in off the shelf frames being 30x 40cm which is fab because with most of the prints I buy the frames cost more than the pictures.

Found via Daily Candy.

PS. She has a blog too- skip over here to read.