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.

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

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.

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.

Penhaligons: Eau De Cologne

Colognes or Eau De Colognes were and are the starting point for all 'modern' fragrances. The first Cologne of all was famously designed by Giovanni Maria Farina, an Italian who had just moved to Cologne in 1709 when he made his very distinctive perfume and decided to name it after his new home.

Cologne has now become the generic term for a certain type of refreshing, unisex, citrus based perfume- these fragrances are also usually in a lower concentration of fragrance oil than Eau De Toilette and Eau De Parfum.

It seems fitting that Penhaligon's should have it's own
Eau De Cologne, being as it is such an elegant upholder of traditional grooming standards and elegance. This scent is a re-working of their original 1927 cologne and is part of the Anthology collection; all re-workings of classic scents from the Penhaligon's archives.

To create a good cologne seems like a really interesting challenge for a perfumer to me. You are working within quite a tight, even restrictive group of notes and essentially re- imagining a scent that was originally formulated three hundred years ago and has been consistently re-arranged ever since by literally hundreds of perfumers- and all the greats. It is the equivalent of singing a standard for a perfumer; you need to find a way of bringing something new and modern to cologne while ensuring it does continue to be a cologne and not an entirely different type of perfume.

The notes for this are (from Penhaligon's website):

Head Notes
Orange, Lemon, Bergamot, Rosemary

Heart (or middle) Notes
Neroli

Base Notes
Eau de Cologne has no base notes

So you can see this a completely traditional eau De Cologne in the style of all the greats, 4711, Guerlain and so on. I have been trying this on and off since Penhaligon's kindly sent me a vial a month or two ago and I think it's extremely successful. It's really come into it's own in this very hot weather when I think perfume choices become really difficult- the scent you wear can give you a headache and even make you feel sick if it's too strong in hot weather- and perhaps more worryingly can make the people around you feel ill too- so I like to use something light and refreshing but still interesting and this is all of those.

As you may have gathered I enjoy men's scents as much as women's and quite like wearing a slightly more androgynous scent sometimes. Although colognes have always been made to me and categorised as unisex for me they have always been men's fragrances first in my mind- so I rather love wearing them and challenging some people's ideas (and here I must say it tends to be younger people, mostly women I'm afraid, who seem to expect all of us ladies to smell of flowers, chocolate or a whole cookie mixture bowl full of vanilla all the time).

Obviously for men this scent choice might seem more classic and safe but I think men's fragrances also suffer from often being just too strong and cannot stand when men leave sillage for what seems like weeks in lifts, on staircases and on the tube- it's not cool and it's definitely not good in this weather. This is an elegant choice for a confident man who doesn't need to shout about either his taste or manly credentials because he is perfectly confident with both- and smells great.

Dreams and Orange Blossom

Orange blossom to me is the smell of happiness. High praise indeed for an essence or scent, especially from someone who can look more towards the darkness than the light. Some things in nature are there to just make us smile and I believe orange blossom is one of them; whether it is in food- especially my favourite macaroons as I stuff them, rather indelicately, into my mouth hoping no one is looking- or whether it is in scent. Still I have never found 'my' orange blossom perfume, despite flirting with several.

I was therefore delighted to find out Penhaligon's had a new orange blossom scent- and that it was created by the sublime French master perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour whose work I greatly admire and who created another recent and very successful perfume for Penhaligon's Amaranthine.

Duchaufour seems to be to have that great gift of creating a scent that is real. By that I mean not a synthetic smell that you immediately know to be perfume made in a laboratory but a smell that is so beautiful it imprints on your mind the way the scent of a lake you visited in Italy, a church in Southern France, or a field filled with glorious poppies might.

In his work for Penhaligon's Duchaufour seems to have really connected with florals in a way he hadn't seemed to in his previous work. Perhaps though these uncertain times mean people are looking more to joyful, reassuring smells like the orange blossom- which will forever be associated with wedding days, hopefully the happiest of days.

Penhaligon's Orange blossom is quite lovely, a very fitting addition to the Penhaligon's family of scents. It is part of their anthology series of scents, fragrances that are inspired by those in their archives- their original orange blossom was apparently created in 1976. This new version is at once very modern and timeless. It has a lightness, a lightheartedness, that would appeal to all.

My problem with orange blossom scents has always been I loved them but they felt just a bit too much on me personally- but this doesn't, this feels right. If I were to compare it to other orange blossoms I have liked very much in the bottle or on others but not on myself I would say this was like a perfect summer's day where there was a light breeze, where as others are a lovely summer day where you are just that little bit hot and uncomfortable; it's unashamedly joyful and delightful but it is never too much.

Head Notes
Neroli, Violet leaf, Bergamot, Lemon-cedrat, Cardamom absolute, Pink berries

Heart Notes
Orange absolute, Egyptian jasmine absolute, Tuberose absolute, Rose essence, Peach flower, Orchid

Base Notes
Sandalwood, Virginian cedar, White musk, Vanilla

CB I hate Perfume: Black March

If you don't already know about CB I hate perfume by Christopher Brosius then you really should; even if you aren't terribly interested in fragrance. I have admired Christopher's incredible nose and ability to create scents that truly smell of exactly what they purport to from a far for a long time; this man is an artist, he can recreate the smell of playdoh, dirt, snow- seemingly anything you could wish for. You can read all about his journey to becoming an independent perfumer here; I think it's a fascinating story.

Until now it has only been possible to buy CB I hate perfume on the internet and from the US but now I am delighted to say a selection are available from Liberty of London online and in their beautiful shop.

The scents Liberty are stocking are: At the beach 1966, Mr Hulot's Holiday Water, In the Library, Fire from Heaven and finally my favourite of these M (for metamorphosis series) #2Black March.

This scent was inspired by the following poem of the same name:

Black March, a poem by Stevie Smith, 1902-1971

I have a friend
At the end
Of the world.
His name is a breath

Of fresh air.
He is dressed in
Grey chiffon. At least
I think it is chiffon.
It has a
Peculiar look, like smoke.

It wraps him round
It blows out of place
It conceals him
I have not seen his face.

But I have seen his eyes, they are
As pretty and bright
As raindrops on black twigs
In March, and heard him say:

I am a breath
Of fresh air for you, a change
By and by.

Black March I call him
Because of his eyes
Being like March raindrops
On black twigs.

(Such a pretty time when the sky
Behind black twigs can be seen
Stretched out in one
Uninterrupted
Cambridge blue as cold as snow.)

But this friend
Whatever new names I give him
Is an old friend. He says:

Whatever names you give me
I am
A breath of fresh air,
A change for you.

Christopher Brosius calls this 'A fresh clean scent composed of Rain Drops, Leaf Buds, Wet Twigs, Tree Sap, Bark, Mossy Earth and the faintest hint of Spring' and of course it is all these things. To me it is mostly an extremely clear and quite uncanny smell of rain in early spring- where the trees and ground are woken by the water but there aren't yet many flowers to contribute to the scented song nature creates when it rains. It is quite beautiful and there is a strange mixture of melancholy and hope that perhaps you wouldn't smell if you hadn't read the poem- but knowing the inspiration for the perfume does add that certain poignance.

As with all the CB I hate perfume scents if you are looking for a conventional pretty and not terribly challenging smell this might not be for you. If you like something that is truly well crafted made by someone who seems to have a complete gift for what they do and that is constantly fascinating and challenges your perception of what we wear scent for then look for these. Just trying them will open your eyes as to what people can achieve with smell. I think Black March is beautiful and CB I hate perfume is remarkable.


'Black March' by Stevie Smith copied from here.

Minted.

Like the heroine of a period novel I like to walk... a lot. I walk all over London and always have done. In my opinion it's the only way to get to know the city better- I know I will be walking for the rest of my days to get to know it all thoroughly but part of me quite looks forward to that.


So on Saturday I took a long walk into central London. On arrival, which for me was Regent Street, I was hot, dusty and perspiring (a lady never sweats, she perspires). I wandered into L'Occitane and spritzed some of their Green Tea and Mint perfume and suddenly I felt as fresh and clean showered as I had first thing in the morning (first thing for me being about eleven).

I admit that I can be very guilty of not fully appreciating clean, citrusy, fresh smells. I know they are lovely and vibrant and all those things but in the back of my mind when I think of them I can't help but think... boring! Now green tea and mint is fresh and clean and can out do citrus at being upbeat but it also manages to be unusual, interesting and feel a bit eclectic when I wear it.

I had rather forgotten this perfume and rediscovering was like re finding a little bit of myself I suppose. So this is just to say Green Tea and Mint, I love you, I should not have forsaken you and I won't forget you again. You make me feel fresh but delicious and you are so reasonably priced. You leave me feeling minted.

StellaNude

StellaNude, the new scent from Stella McCartney, arrived in the shops this weekend. The name controversy asideI am long time admirer of Stella's original eponymous scent so I have been looking forward to trying this- which doesn't mean I don't sympathise with the naming issue- but I want to stay away from it here.

So. I think the original Stella will probably become a classic scent in years to come- either that or it will come to smell very much of it's time.

I quite admire that Stella McCartney hasn't rushed to bring out another scent and like Narciso Rodgriguez she has allowed her one very good scent to stand alone- albeit with yearly summer special editions and Stella In Two which is a kind of breaking down of the original smell.

I had thought StellaNude would be a truly new scent but having smelt it and then done a little more research I realise it is in the same Stella family. StellaNude to me is basically Stella with grapefruit. Initially in the top notes the grapefruit is very dominant but the amber, rose and peony that are so familiar from Stella are still there- as is a milky note that I couldn't pin down.

In the dry down StellaNude is much closer to the original Stella scent but the grapefruit continues to be present. In the dry down the grapefruit does add a complexity to the perfume and perhaps cutting some of the rose makes this a more universally appealing scent- because rose is quite a love or hate scent. Given how popular Stella is I'm not sure they need to make a more accessible version of it so I suspect the grapefruit is there for difference, freshness and possibly to appeal to younger buyers.

I think it's interesting that the StellaNude bottle is the same as the original scents' flagon. I suppose this may be to reinforce the fact the perfumes share a signature smell, or it may be that they have decided to have uniform bottles for the line- except the Stella in Two scents. I have always thought the Stella bottle to be very pleasing and I think the blush, skin colour of the nude bottle is as covetable as the purple we know so well.

StellaNude is certainly one of the nicest of the mainstream releases I have tried recently- but to be fair perhaps that is because it is so like the tried and trusted original. Still I can see that a bottle of the linen spray might find it's way home with me- and that a whole bottle might follow at some time.

Picture courtesy of Escentual

Diptyque Philosykos

I thought it was probably time for a perfume review around here as it's been a while!

With the never ending trail of new scents to try it can be easy to undervalue the treasure on our dressers and I realised today that I don't talk about Diptyque Philosykos very much at all- which is strange because the perfume world it is my equivalent of a sophisticated friend I can have fun anywhere with.

My love for philosykos wasn't instant, it gradually worked it's way into my consciousness while I was obsessing about it's more melancholy sister L'Ombre Dans L'Eau and others in the family. I would always spritz Philosykos, think it was very good but somehow not for me and then move on.

Then one very hot day in London I spritzed some as I walked past a Diptyque counter and I knew I had to have a bottle before the scent had touched my skin.

On me all the green, creamy lack of sweetness of Philosykos works best at the height of summer when it blooms.

The scent of a fig or fig tree is nothing like any of the natural summer smells of England but this perfume has worked it's way into my consciousness so much that it is now summer in a bottle to me; although it's never summer in the sense of suntan lotion and coconut oil but something more far away and even otherworldly than that.

It is a scent I always found to be worn by people with extremely good taste and seems to inspire fierce loyalty. Although I tend to wear it in the summer I can see why for some it becomes their signature scent and the only thing they want to smell of. It is constantly interesting, satisfyingly unexpected, contemplative but with a joyful heart, it at once a scent I could imagine on a classical God or Goddess and utterly modern.

When I bought my first bottle of Philosykos, the day I realised it's beauty, I clutched it tightly with pleasure as the first sprays dried into my skin and hugged it to me. I still give it a little hug sometimes as I apply it, it fills me with happiness that such a scent exists and I can wear it all summer long.

Picture from the Space NK website here

Boudicca Wode

On my visit to Connaught village I finally got to try the new scent Wode by Boudicca. (This is not to be confused with the Boadicea the victorious line- which I am also extremely curious about).

Wode comes in a stainless steel, graffiti can like bottle. You can choose two concentration of the scent- an eau de parfum which when sprayed onto skin looks clear like most scents. The second option is a bright, cobalt blue coloured spray- which when spritzed looks as though you have sprayed yourself with spray paint. The tenacity of the fragrance is a little lower in this version but this may well be worth it for the look of wonder in people's eyes as you demonstrate how the blue paint turns clear on your skin. You can watch the video of a model being sprayed with the blue scent here.

Notes for Wode include: juniper berry, cardamon, nutmeg absolute, clary sage, coriander seed, angelica route, saffron, tuberose absolute, tonka bean and castoreum (full list on their website). However it's the hemlock that adds the layer of magic and mystery to the scent, giving weight as it does to the scents tie with Queen Boudicca (Boudiccea- whatever) and her cobalt blue, woad painted Icini warriors.

The scent is very delicate for something associated with a woman of such immense power in her own lifetime and beyond. It is ultimately a cold, musky, woody, natural smelling, thoughtful fragrance. Perhaps when you first imagine the scent of Boudiccea you think of some kind of eighties powerhouse fragrance but this is actually much more fitting. It is also extremely wearable for something so achingly cool.

For more on Wode and a list of stockists please go to the Boudicca website .

By Redo: Chembur

By Redo's Chembur has taken my a little while to pin down but I'm starting to feel I have. It is part gourmand with very pronounced ginger and lemon notes and part sexy, with the animalic pull of musk and amber at it's core.

The By Redo website says Chembur was originally a picnic spot outside Mumbai. I admit that I have an overly romantic side which is particularly brought out by perfume- but it isn't just romance that makes me think this scent is a transporter. Much as L'heure Bleu takes me to a 1920's Paris I can have no hope of knowing Chembur takes me to grass, next to water with an enormous, unmistakable Indian palace behind it. Now I have never been to India so I don't know if such a scene is total fantasy but I don't think it actually really matters- this scent takes me to somewhere my mind longs for me to go to- and if I can't get there this is the next best thing.

The official notes for Chembur are:

Top: Bergamot, Lemon, Elemi
Mid: Ginger, Temple Incense, Nutmeg
Base: Labdanum, Amber, Musk

I would say that order doesn't necessarily give a full picture of the scent on my wrist as I type. The lemon is very pronounced and very like the tingling lemon of Chembur's perfume cousin Gypsy Water. The bergamot continues to give that cerebral, calming aspect only it can even in the dry down and the ginger is very pronounced. Were it not for the amber (which I think is the most detectable of the base notes) and the incense which is used with a light touch this fragrance would be just like an aromatherapy spritz.

By Redo don't seem to suggest whether their scents should be for a man or woman- but neither do they make a fuss about their scents being unisex. This can and should be worn by women, both for themselves as it is a wonderful mix of the calming and stimulating and for others because it could be something of a conversation starter. However I think Chembur would be devastatingly good on the right man- and one who doesn't necessarily hold pack with the atomiser as the lasting power is not it's best feature (which isn't something I have found with the other fragrances in the line). Sometimes I like to really notice what a person is wearing and this is one scent you shouldn't be shy to let loose.

Geranium Pour Monsieur- first thoughts

I managed to get a spritz of the new Frederic Malle scent Geranium Pour Monsieur as I flew through Liberty yesterday evening.

I have only my memories of the scent in the air and the dry down on my hands but my first reaction was- mint! sweet mint with the expansive quality of eucalyptus and the freshness of soap. As the scent dries down the minty soap is mingled with the earthy, even slightly sultry scent of geranium that I can see leads you towards a fougere (this is apparently a kind of fougere update).

I think I would wear this and I think I would be very interested in a man who did. It's like a bespoke Saville Row suite on a beautifully turned out avante garde artist or actor. Very good- and very more- ish.

By Redo: Gypsy Water

The By Redo scent I was always most curious about was Gypsy Water- of course I wasn't alone in this and it's been the hardest one to get a sample of- but now I have one courtesy of the ever delightful Les Senteurs.

I was initially fascinated by the name, Gypsy Water. Les Senteurs describe it as 'The smell of a lost childhood, of a vanishing race'- yes, yes I am totally drawn in by the words as always.

Happily the scent is as good as the words. I would agree with other reviews I have read that say this might not be what you think of when you think of a 'Romany lifestyle'- but I think that might have more to do with what you expect than the scent itself. The official notes are:

Top: Bergamot, Lemon, Pepper, Juniper Berries
Mid: Incense, Pine Needles, Orris
Base: Amber, Vanilla, Sandalwood

By Redo finally have their own site and they describe the scent as smelling of: 'The scent of fresh soil, deep forests and campfires'.

This is a scent that seems to be inspired by and redolent of the place where you might find Romany people living- rather than of the 'lifestyle'. The top and basenotes are particularly noticeable and the lemon stands out. This has something in common with Shalimar Light- in it's various forms and editions- again not what I expected but it's what I found.

I enjoyed wearing this. Lemon is always uplifting and energising but this is a happy scent with a cerebral quality- it's not just here are some bright shiny Italian lemons mixed with vanilla. It is a little cooler and more contemplative than a normal citrus. It's very wearable but it's not an 'easy' fragrance. It doesn't shout and it a scent you can enjoy for yourself. It has a slight touch of En Passant in that it has a whispering soulful quality that is known to it's wearer and only those who get extremely close to it.

Miller Harris: Fleurs De Bois

Strolling through my beloved Liberty I found to my surprise and happiness the new Miller Harris fragrance Fleurs De Bois available a month earlier than I had thought it would be. It is I now find exclusive to Liberty for the month of April.

I have been waiting to try this fragrance since I read the first reports that it was inspired by a walk through Regent's Park. I now read that is inspired more specifically by a walk through the secret gardens in Regent's Park. I confess that although I think of myself as having a fair amount of the knowledge I didn't know of a secret garden in Regent's Park- which I think makes the idea of the scent even more interesting to me.

The Liberty website describes the scents as having: 'Crisp top notes of galbanum and green grass, lemon Sicily, tangerine green and rosemary [that] give way to a traditional English bouquet of rose, jasmine and iris. A base of oakmoss, patchouli, santal, vetiver and accents of birch complete this green and woody bouquet'.

Initially I found the grass and rosemary scents most pronounced and as the scent dried on my skin the rosemary continued to be very detectable together with the lemon and some grass- but all in a more mellow, woody base softened by a hint of florals as is described.

Fleurs De Bois has excellent staying power, is beautifully packaged (as all the Miller Harris scents are) and I find it a very interesting perfume. It is not something I fell instantly for but the more I sample it the more I think I could fall for it.

My one point of contention with Fleurs De Bois is it's name. I don't find it unusual enough and it most definitely doesn't sound like what it smells of. I know the company has a tradition of using french names but I'm sure something relating to a secret garden in French, or even to the park, would have been much more romantic and appealing.

By Redo: Pulp

When I first read about the By Redo scents I thought Pulp would be a paper or newspaper scent- I have no idea why that came to my mind at all but it did- and I still think an inky papery scent would be very interesting.

However it is actually pulp as in fruit pulp. I hadn't thought about this before but fruit is probably my most neglected perfume family. I enjoy scents with some fruit but aside from rhubarb scents (Burberry Brit Red and the CDG Rhubard Sherbert) they don't get me worked up the way a chypre or incense scent does.

Pulp is the scent of fruit that is somewhere between perfectly ready to eat and being a little over ripe and almost ready to be turned into jam. It is the scent of fruit that is so juicy it is literally about to burst out of it’s skin.

Blackcurrants dominate Pulp. When I think of blackcurrants I think of wandering riverside or country paths in late summer, pickeing the berries almost absent mindedly. With the wild picked berries you get the alternation of a very sweet, sun soaked ready berry and the tart berries that are newer, or further down the bush. With Pulp you only get the sun soaked berries and this scent mixes the humble but deliciously succulent blackberry with the creaminess of the, to my English palette, much more exotic fig. These figs are perfectly ripe and juicy too.

It isn’t a sickeningly sweet scent though. Partly I think this is because it smells of the whole fruit including the skin. So many fruit based perfumes smell of the juice of the fruit rather than the whole piece of fruit. This smells of the skin, core, seeds, bits, all of the fruit. The sweetness is also counteracted by the apple note and the cedar in the dry down.

This is an interesting perfume and one I can't immediately compare to any other scents- which can only be a good thing. I am looking forward to revisiting in different seasons. I think it might work especially well in the depths of winter.

Picture courtesy of www.allposters.co.uk

By Redo: Pulp

When I first read about the By Redo scents I thought Pulp would be a paper or newspaper scent- I have no idea why that came to my mind at all but it did- and I still think an inky papery scent would be very interesting.

However it is actually pulp as in fruit pulp. I hadn't thought about this before but fruit is probably my most neglected perfume family. I enjoy scents with some fruit but aside from rhubarb scents (Burberry Brit Red and the CDG Rhubard Sherbert) they don't get me worked up the way a chypre or incense scent does.

Pulp is the scent of fruit that is somewhere between perfectly ready to eat and being a little over ripe and almost ready to be turned into jam. It is the scent of fruit that is so juicy it is literally about to burst out of it’s skin.

Blackcurrants dominate Pulp. When I think of blackcurrants I think of wandering riverside or country paths in late summer, pickeing the berries almost absent mindedly. With the wild picked berries you get the alternation of a very sweet, sun soaked ready berry and the tart berries that are newer, or further down the bush. With Pulp you only get the sun soaked berries and this scent mixes the humble but deliciously succulent blackberry with the creaminess of the, to my English palette, much more exotic fig. These figs are perfectly ripe and juicy too.

It isn’t a sickeningly sweet scent though. Partly I think this is because it smells of the whole fruit including the skin. So many fruit based perfumes smell of the juice of the fruit rather than the whole piece of fruit. This smells of the skin, core, seeds, bits, all of the fruit. The sweetness is also counteracted by the apple note and the cedar in the dry down.

This is an interesting perfume and one I can't immediately compare to any other scents- which can only be a good thing. I am looking forward to revisiting in different seasons. I think it might work especially well in the depths of winter.

Picture courtesy of www.allposters.co.uk

By Redo: Green

Green describes a whole family or genre of perfume but to my knowledge no one has ever been as direct as to call a perfume Green.

But By Redo have a fragrance called just that.

I think it’s a great name but to me it’s one that could be hard to live up to- as I kind of ultimate green scent. To me when I think of green like everyone else I think of grass fresh with dew, of leaves and of vegetal freshness.

Scent wise I think of the same I suppose, everything in the garden that isn’t a flower and some of the things in the kitchen that are green too! In a more abstract sense I suppose I think of spring or summer days, red hair (I think that comes from, would love to have red hair and wear a green dress), tennis or cricket matches and picnics, of crisp white shirts with matt gold or silver jewellery, of a light tan, of summer dresses and leather sandals or pumps.

In the bottled sense my favourite greens are vent vert (I have never smelt the original), Chanel 19 (I know this is a debatable green), Un Jardin Sur le Nil (also debateable perhaps), Miller Harris Jasmine Vert and... well the list could go on. There is a whole other sub section of the darker, more bewitching scents that are green chypres but I think they are for a different post.

When green scents are good they are divine but I think they can be tricky, perfume lovers often prefer the heavier orientals and chypres and non lovers often go for the more citrus or floral safer options in my experience. The poor greens can get a little left out I think because people don’t understand their particular beauty! Especially now that there are so many linen and fresh scents possible stealing their thunder in the summer, when they are best to me.

So to By Redo Green. On initial spritz it is unsurprisingly very green! But it’s not a sharp green and never becomes one. There is quite a vegetal tone to this which stops it from being generic. It dries down and settles quickly to a very green but also quite a soft scent. Almond is listed in the dry down notes and it is indeed present and gives the scent a comforting, more- ish aspect. I also initially mistook what is quite a strong honeysuckle note for lily of the valley, together with this there is a soapy freshness and still a little grass keeping this on the green and fresh page.

This is unexpectedly good I have to say. Yes I am partly charmed by it’s rarity I’m sure but this is a perfume you would wear a lot once it was in your scent wardrobe; one you would fine you reached for throughout the summer because it worked but also because it has a slightly left of centre aspect that keeps it interesting and it is very moreish for a green scent.

More By Redo to follow soon!

By Redo is available from Les Sentuers www.lessenteurs.co.uk in London and online and www.colette.fr in Paris and online. (Picture from the Colette website)

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Wouldn’t it?

There are a select group of perfumes that I try and try again because I love their names but the juice of the scents never lives up to the promise of the words on the bottle. I don’t suggest that means they don’t smell of what they are named to others, or indeed that that means they aren’t interesting fragrances to others- but to me they don’t smell as their beautiful names suggest and I definitely wouldn’t even consider them if it weren’t for their names.

I have been trying not to say which scents I’m thinking of but it all seems a bit too cryptic! So the scents I am particularly thinking of are Jo Malone Red Roses and Annick Goutal Ce Soir ou Jamais, although I’m certain there are others.

Recently a re purchase of Apres L’Ondee, a perfume which smells so exactly of what it suggests to me and seeing the posters of Red Roses everywhere for Valentines day has meant I have been thinking a lot about this.

What are we really buying when we choose a scent?

I always tell myself that as true perfume lover I buy fragrances based on what they smell of, not on the marketing hype, not on the bottle and not on the name- although I freely admit to myself if all of those are interesting in addition to the lovely liquid being so it’s all for the better.

I am now re- assessing this.

I am someone for whom words are a constant companion and comfort in life. I am constantly jotting down lovely phrases as I’m reading or watching films and keep a notebook of them. I always take note of strange, unusual words that have a wonderful meaning. I don’t mean to say that I have the widest vocabulary but words of interest to me and I find English particularly endlessly fascinating, it’s strange quirks, the lovely little words only Stephen Fry knows the meaning of and is able to use in conversation without sounding utterly pretentious- so it makes sense that a fragrance with a beautiful name will appeal to me.

I think if I’m honest I woudn’t love L’heure Bleu say, or even a new scent like Un Jardin Sue le Nil if I didn’t like the names so much. No I probably wouldn’t.

I do own a scent with a name I don’t like at all and I rarely wear it, which is a shame really. It’s Dolce and Gabbana’s The One and I bought it when I was outward bound in duty free. I cannot resist duty fee and the scent was newly out, I was looking for a light but interesting holiday scent. Actually who am I kidding I had decided I was going to buy some perfume and it was the best of what was on offer that I didn’t already have. Anyway I did and do like the apricot/ peach and vanilla notes although my inner perfume snob says CSP’s Vanille Abricot does the whole thing better it The One is a lot less intense. I have to say I had a lovely holiday and I was repeatedly asked by men and woman what I was wearing and told I smelled delicious, not my sole reason for wearing fragrance but it’s always nice to hear!

However the inevitable question comes:

Friend/ boy/ random Austrian chemist:.... you smell great... what are you wearing?

Me: .. thanks... er... well it’s new.... I picked up in duty free in London actually... er

Others: well it’s lovely, who is it buy?

Me: Dolce and Gabbana... it’s a new fragrance

Others: what’s it called...

Me: Er... The One... it’s a silly name isn’t it but I liked it... so yeah... um... yeah

Them: slight subdued yes it is a bit of a strange name- but it’s very nice

Both: slightly awkward transition to new topic

So in short I am not sure that a rose by another name would smell as sweet to me after all.

Picture courtesy of www.telegraph.co.uk

Tokyo Milk

I was delighted to find that I still love discovering a new fragrance line this weekend. Sometimes I worry that my appetite for fragrance is waning. I occasionally feel as if I have just tried just about everything I want to try and found such wonderful fragrances that nothing is going to top them or spark my curiosity. While that might be good for the purse strings it would also be terrible as I so enjoy the voyage of discovery.

These worries always vanish when I something new and interesting to explore!

I found Tokyo Milk on the second floor of Fortnum and Mason (more on their beauty floor to follow soon!). As you can see the bottles are small but beautiful, with a vintage feeling and lots of attention to detail.

The fragrance names and styles vary quite a lot. Cherry Bomb and I want Candy are very nice but perhaps not unlike lots of other sweet, candy fragrances on the market- albeit in slightly more chic packaging.

The fragrances I enjoyed most were Gin and Rosewater- a lovely, surprisingly refreshing but pretty scent that feels part 1920s and part ultra contemporary- it would be perfect on a hot summer's day punting by the river or for a boozy picnic in Kensington Gardens.



I also really took to Song in D Minor. Initially the notes of orange flower, gardenia and white orchid sounded pleasant but not really for me- and not very like a song in D minor would smell in my mind. The first spritz was a pleasant smell but a bit too sweet and fruity for me. The dry down becomes much less sweet and more contemplative. A slightly smoky but transparent comforting scent that would be lovely as a long day turned to dusk.

Tokyo Milk pictures courtesy of www.amazon.com