Tag: perfume

Fresh Spring Fragrances

Roger & Gallet Thé Fantaisie* | Atkinsons Posh On The Green* | MALIN + GOETZ Cannabis*

If you’re looking for a simple seasonal update why not try a change of fragrance. With Spring only a month away I’ve selected a few fresh Spring fragrances for you to try. I prefer fresh scents over strong ouds or sweet fruity fragrances anyway, as they feel cleaner and less overwhelming to me, and to others. I see fragrance as an extension of style, people react not just to how you look but how you smell, too, good or bad. My signature scent is a woody clean amber, it’s slightly warm, unisex and always gets a good reaction but it’s more suited to the the colder months of the year.

This time of year is usually about fresh starts, flowers and plants start to regrow, we begin to switch our homes for warm, cosy hideaways to fresh and bright spaces, and we start to shed the heavier warmer layers in our wardrobe. It’s the perfect time to swap your winter fragrance for something fresher.

Atkinsons Posh On The Green*

Inspired by the British love of a manicured lawn, this scent takes its inspiration from traditional garden parties, polo matches in the summer sun, a day spent watching the cricket and Wimbledon’s manicured grass courts. There’s even a touch of gin and tonic about it. It’s a clean blend, suitable for both men and women, with top notes of coriander and petit grain, middle notes of galbanum and geranium, and base notes of vetiver and cedarwood.

MALIN + GOETZ Cannabis*

Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly with this one, this is not going to make you smell like a naughty teenager. As with all their fragrances it’s fresh and lively; with top notes of bergamot and black pepper, middle notes of magnolia, and base notes of cedarwood, patchouli and sandalwood. If you prefer something a touch more masculine, this is a great one for you.

Roger & Gallet Thé Fantaisie*

This is a much more complex fragrance with many different notes yet it remains delicate. Alberto Morillas combined top notes of pine tree, lemon, mandarin, orange, geranium, and coriander; middle notes of nutmeg, palmarosa, clary sage, pink pepper and black tea; and base notes of benzoin resinoid, sandalwood and vetiver. It’s another unisex fragrance but I would say it’s more rich than the others and leans towards the feminine.

Hotel Magna Pars Suites Milano

This post was created in collaboration with Hotel Magna Pars Suites.

Last month in Milan I found a beautiful place to stay, the Magna Pars Suites. Light, bright and airy, the 39 suites wrap around a central courtyard of lush greenery. It’s both peaceful and invigorating at the same time, as your senses pick up on all the different elements that surround you. This is a particularly important aspect of the Magna Pars Suites, it is the first Hotel à Parfum. The hotel is owned by the Martone family, the first to bring perfume to Italy, and it was built on the site of their original perfume factory.

Our rather large suite (FYI, we stayed in 30, Robinia – a floral suite), like all the suites it looks onto the central courtyard. Through the huge wall to wall glass windows all you can see are the tops of green trees and bushes below and the white walls of the far building; opening up the electric blinds in the morning, it’s a beautiful, fresh sight and a lovely way to start the day. Each suite has a little kitchenette, a small bookcase and the usual mod-cons. It also has a touch screen on the wall to allow you to control the lights, blinds and air conditioning/heating. Our bathroom was fairly large, with a bath, separate shower, twin sinks and separate toilet. It’s all very white and kept immaculately clean by the housekeeping. The lovely Marvin Aqua Adornationis toiletries you find in the bathrooms were created by Giorgia Martone. Each suite is adorned with paintings by artists from the Brera Academy, inspired by scents.

One of my main concerns I have when travelling is that I get a good night’s sleep. I need the room to be dark, not too hot, not too cold, not too noisy and (most importantly) the bed and pillows must be comfortable. It will come as no surprise, given the high-spec of the rest of the suite and hotel, that I slept incredibly well. The bed was huge and super comfortable. Waking up well rested, breakfast is always on my mind, it helps set me up for a day of exploring. The hotel offer a big continental buffet plus you can request cooked dishes to order. The poached eggs I had were exceptionally good, with deep orange yolks that oozed onto the plate. So good I had them two days running.

On the site of the hotel there is still a perfume laboratory, LabSolue. It’s a beautiful space, flooded with light during the day. Here you can attend a tasting session in the early evening. The benches are divided up by fragrance category; woody, floral and fruity. Like the suites, there are 39 corresponding fragrances, including Robinia – the name of our suite. Each of the fragrances was created by a famous nose, ours by Jacques Cavallier. A beautiful modern apothecary cabinet, made of warming wood lines one wall, it was inspired by Vincenzo Martone’s original pharmaceutical laboratory.

If you’re planning a trip to Milan this is definitely one hotel you should consider. The hotel’s staff are warm and welcoming, the hotel is stunning and it’s well located, just off Via Tortona, a stone’s throw from Navigili canals.

Bespoke Perfume Making At The Experimental Perfume Club

This post was created in collaboration with the Experimental Perfume Club.

Everyone should have at least one signature scent, a fragrance that when your friends get a whiff, instantly know it’s you. Even better is to have one that is unique to you, that is made up of notes that you are instinctually drawn to; you couldn’t get more personal than that.

In mid-December, whilst everyone else was deep in Christmas preparations, I met with Emmanuelle Moeglin, founder of the Experimental Perfume Club, at her lab in Dalston. Emmanuelle is keen to demystify the art of fragrance, helping those that are passionate about fragrance to better understand how they are created and to learn how to develop their own. Her background in the industry spans ten years, having been educated at ISIPCA in Paris, before working for brands in Paris, Barcelona, New York and London.

“Scent is a very personal item of someone’s wardrobe, but it can often be difficult to find something truly unique.”

I visited Emmanuelle for a one-to-one taster session. We talked about the types of scents I would usually wear, which are, for the most-part, fairly unisex. I love woody, citrus fragrances with notes of bergamot, vetiver and cedar, like Laboratory Perfumes Amber, Byredo Palermo and Le Labo Bergamote 22.

Emmanuelle had created seven perfumery accords (blends) that span the various different notes that make up most perfumes; citrus, floral, fruity, spicy, amber, woody and musk. She blind tested me to confirm which notes I was drawn to and these formed the basis for the fragrance I created. I instinctually chose (in order of preference) woody, citrus, spicy and floral. The order of preference was important as it determined the proportions of each blend I would use to create my perfume. The fragrance I created, which I called ‘Night Garden’, had a citrus top note, a spicy and floral heart and woody base. I love it, it’s just the sort of fragrance I would usually choose, and best of all it’s unique to me.

Emmanuelle runs group workshops and one-to-one sessions (for one or two people), as well as an open-access perfumer studio every other Wednesday.

The Ex Nihilo Demi-Bespoke Experience

I recently had the opportunity to try the Ex Nihilo demi-bespoke experience. It’s rare to be able to encounter such a unique perfume consultation, not because the 6th floor of Harrods is a restricted shopping zone but because the experience itself is unlike any other. Your senses are overwhelmed in a measured way. To begin with, you walk into a small gallery with walls painted Jardin Majorelle blue (just like Yves Saint Laurent’s gardens in Morocco), this is Ex Nihilo’s signature colour.

You would be forgiven for thinking for a minute that you have stumbled upon a pop-up homewares section of Harrods and that the gold-tone metal and Carrara marble units would look perfect in your home, and then you notice what resembles a chemistry lab at the far end of the room. This is the work of Christophe Pillet, his deft skill had me dying to take the whole boutique home with me.

After taking in the vivid blue, marble and metal, you notice some strange blocks on your right, part see through, part opaque, they look like flasks of some sort. This is where the magic truly begins. These objects are not flasks but Vase de Senteurs, a device that delivers dry capsules of each of Ex Nihilio’s unusual core fragrances. Why dry you ask? Well without the alcohol and water your senses are not overwhelmed by each scent which allows you to smell as many as you like.

Once you’ve chosen a scent from the Vase de Senteurs it’s onto trying the fragrance on your skin. All fragrances react with your skin making them unique when you wear them. I chose Vetiver Moloko, described as ‘a racy woody fragrance wrapped in a creamy and enveloping veil’. I tend to wear fragrances that are not overtly feminine and this combination of bergamot, Bulgarian rose, cypress, milky accord, vetiver, amyris and Madagscar vanilla forms the most beautiful and exquisite scent that could be worn by both a man or a woman; all the fragrances have been created like this although some are definitely more suited to one or the other.

If you want something a little more unique there’s a third step, the Ex Nihilo demi-bespoke experience. Sitting down at the marble bench towards the back of the boutique you’re presented with lots of little atomisers and to the side six small glass bottles which contain six of the world’s finest raw ingredients; Orange Flower Absolute from Morocco, Rose Centifolia from France, Bourbon Vanilla from Madagascar, Sandlewood from Australia, Pallida Iris Absolute from France and Grandiflorum Jasmine Absolute from India. These are the six raw ingredients that can be combined with each of Ex Nihilo’s fragrances to create a demi-bespoke fragrance. In each of the atomisers is the original fragrance and the three best combinations, each with one of the raw ingredients added (not all combine perfectly). I rather unexpectedly liked the Bourbon Vanilla and Vetiver Moloko combination most, my past experiences with vanilla have not been positive ones due to their poor quality but this is the best vanilla in the world. In order to create the perfect balance of ingredients Ex Nihilo have created a high-precision dosing machine called the Osmologue. Whilst you watch your demi-bespoke perfume(s) are created before your eyes. There’s also the option to personalise your bottle cap with mother of pearl, onyx, horn or leather. If you select all three variations of your original perfume you can have them presented in a beautiful case, subtly decorated with a geometric pattern that references the Ex Nihilo logo.

The whole experience left my senses overwhelmed and excited. If you’re still looking for a unique present for a special someone this would be an extraordinary gift.

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