Exploring Scent and Self

I'd wondered how you pronounce Roja Dove. Turned out he tells us that it rhymes with dodger and love. At the V&A last Saturday afternoon I spent two hours in the company of the man and his fans, and people just who enjoy a lovely afternoon out coming to lectures at the V&A. Women, all of us. Most of us over 40. Quite shocking.

I started to wonder if he was hypnotising us. "When you smell this you will feel this happen..." he would say and describe the sensation we were about to experience. How many of us did as we were told? In future will we find that smelling rose makes us feel cold, and smelling black pepper makes our cheeks glow? He talked about the way that scent is detected by the oldest part of the brain, which is why we can't always give the name of a scent - language came later - but we can say where we were when we last smelled it. As the room was absolutely freezing, I think that every time I smell a chypre in future it will remind me of a time when I was uncomfortably chilly at the edges. Very carefully, Roja Dove led us through the different pure natural ingredients that he used to make his new Diaghilev fragrance, the one that accompanies the current V&A exhibition.
Perhaps he hypnotised us to feel inclined to buy it; I bought it anyway; it seemed churlish not to.

Like most non-scientists he gets all mixed up over what a chemical is, realising that he had tied himself in knots and ending up calling a synthetic a "chemical chemical". We are all made of chemicals. Natural perfumes are chemicals. The man-made ones are chemicals too, but they are synthetic. No wonder that confusion reigns amongst cosmetics buyers and customers demand to be sold scents "with no chemicals in them." There aren't any.

Anyway, I warmed up later at Westfield, where I met my own personal hero for a Snog chocolate frozen yoghurt and several hours in the company of Harry Potter. And now I smell of Diaghilev, Dove's animalic chypre. Talking of animalic scents, jasmine contains some of the same fragrant chemicals as poo. Funny that. Roja didn't mention it.

Shalimar, Holidays and Cake Shops

Is there anything new to say about a scent invented the best part of a century ago? I shall give it a try.
Cake shops. Specifically French ones, patisseries with tartes tatins, vanilla slices and macaroons in unexpected colours.

There were perfumes, yes. Mostly people used them to disguise the scent of not washing very often. We like to forget this now, and think of fragrance as something to add at the last moment to complement our outfits (or lack thereof). At the time, people didn't bathe that often. Right until the 1950s there were children sewn into their clothes for the winter, in England. Really. (My mum taught some of them and reported that as they approached March the smell in the classroom was "ripe".)

Scent was used as a disguise, not as the added extra we enjoy now.

So there we were, with ladies wafting around in lavender, neroli, rose, violet, orris (the classic "powdery" scent as face and powders were traditionally perfumed with orris root from iris plants) and suddenly M. Guerlain creates an aroma of cake shops and you're supposed to wear it! Did Marcel Proust smell it? I do hope so. It would have been enough to make him take to his bed for a month while he came to terms with his confused emotions.

Spending two weeks in France, wearing Shalimar, staying in the Guerlain seaside holiday home and eating lots of ice cream, I've embedded the fragrance; it now reminds me of feeling relaxed and happy. So what's your holiday scent?

Shalimar By Guerlain For Women. Eau De Parfum Spray 1.0 Oz.

Pierre Guerlain's House by the Seaside

This is Pierre Guerlain's 19th Century house by the sea, on the Somme Estuary in a little town called Le Crotoy, Picardie. Pierre Guerlain was the founder of the perfume dynasty, and perfumer to the French imperial family. He had the house built expecting a visit from the Empress Eugenie, but she never turned up.

It's now an eco hotel, Les Tourelles, about an hour from Boulogne if you take the quick route. (There are two turrets, it's just that the second one is directly behind the first so you can't see it here.)

The restaurant is a delight, and specialises in seafood, naturally enough, although now the Euro is so wickedly powerful against the pound, if you want to eat there you just have to pretend it's Monopoly money.

That's the view from our window.


The beach is perfect for sandcastles, fine and slightly muddy, a blend of estuary clay and thousands of years of ground up sea shells. The British were out there every day with their buckets and spades building and rebuilding elaborate defences. The bird sanctuary opposite is the temporary home to thousands of shrieking gulls in the far distance.

So the only little problem I had with visiting Pierre Guerlain's former home, a hotel which my wonderful chap hand picked for me because I love perfume, is that there is not one single reference to the chap, his work, his legacy or that he ever lived there at all. The tourist centre has nothing about him. A street is named after him, but otherwise, not a thing. I wore Shalimar, but that was the only olfactory echo of his family's work I could find in the place. Perhaps we're the only people ever to visit specifically in search of perfume history.

If I lived there, I'd open a specialist perfumery and inhale the same sea air as Monsieur Guerlain, then see what inspiration followed.

PS Beware of idiot Englishmen who don't realise that eco hotels don't have air conditioning.

Educate Your Nose

If you want to start learning about serious scent, go straight to Les Senteurs. It's been bringing beautiful fragrances to grateful Londoners for 25 years, and still finds small, interesting perfumers before the rest of the world catches on.
Actually most of the world never does catch on. Les Senteurs does of course have some of the most beautiful scents in the world, but not necessarily the most popular. You will not find celeb scents here. You will, however, sniff things you didn't realise it was possible to bottle. (And if you are visiting with your children, cover their eyes as you approach L'Etat Libre D'Orange's range.)
But today, we are talking about Les Senteurs sale. Yesterday I dropped in and bought two boxes of osMoz individual perfume oils, both at half price. They aren't designed to be worn, but to be sampled on "touches", the blotting paper strips for smelling scent, and sniffed to help your nose to learn which is which.
I spent yesterday evening testing them all, and now, with the scents arranged and labelled as above, my front room smells delightful.
Right now -  well, in a moment - I shall be sprinting down to Elizabeth Street to get the others. Elizabeth Street is being dug up and repaved at the moment. Les Senteurs is right next to the building site. Don't let that discourage you. Walk from Sloane Square of Victoria stations - it's half way between the two.
As well as the osMoz boxes there are bargain fragrances from some of my favourites, Les Parfums de Rosine just for starters, and some beautiful candles for the present drawer.
I'll see you there.

Intimidated by Neatness

Is it just me, or are you scared of Jo Malone too? Not that I've actually met her, the woman herself, and it's not her I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of walking into the shops (Now owned by Estee Lauder). They are clean, bright and arranged with mathematical precision. I feel that unless I'm wearing black and white, and carrying a beautifully arranged bouquet of flowers, that I'll be stopped at the door and sent away.
The moment I approach, I feel as if my shoes are insufficiently shiny, my hair is unbrushed, my lipstick is probably spilling over the edges and my bag is just a bit too scuffed to be acceptable. I've met some lovely sales people in Jo Malone's shops, and some others who've decided I don't deserve to be there.
It's not as if the scents are intimidatingly challenging. They're very approachable, designed to be blended - if you can be bothered - so you can't get away with buying merely one bottle. No, you have to decide which two or three suit you best. In an ideal world, your husband will drop in just before Christmas and, completely baffled by the concept, get you the whole set
Yes, I own some, and in the past I liked to play with them, don't we all? But I can't help thinking that I'd prefer to wear real, deeper complicated things which have a lasting, changing life on the skin.

A Scent for Working

During our brief heatwave last month, I was taking a stroll through the back streets of Chelsea and dropped in on L'Artisan Parfumeur. Their shelves were almost bare - raided perhaps for their new Covent Garden opening - but we got into conversation about the scents which were still on the table. In general, I like their fragrances because they smell of something, not just "perfume". I also like the way they display their goods; each fragrance sprayed on to muslin and placed inside a small glass. You can smell the dry scent, then test it on your own skin if you decide you like it.

Working my way around the display I chose Premier Figuier for a project I'm working on; I needed something that reminded me of stepping into a greenhouse and their fig leaf, sandalwood scent does just nicely. Reaching spicy Havana Vanille, I lamented the loss of Vanilia, which is rather more like cakes topped with ice cream. (I've been to Havana and it didn't smell like this.) The shop lady then revealed her secret cupboard of things that had been discontinued but were still loitering in small numbers beind closed doors. I bought a bottle of Ananas Fizz, their refreshingly fruity scent which I first enjoyed when it was launched, can't remember when, with a little pineapple leaf shaped hat on the bottle.

This has become my current favourite "get on with it" scent. If I need to sit down and finish something I've been putting off, then a quick spray of Ananas Fizz will get me there. Like this, for example.

It does seem to have disappeared from their website:
www.artisanparfumeur.com/uk/index2.html

But if you absolutely must, it's on the US Amazon site for a slightly overwhelming number of dollars.


On the other hand; if it just takes one spray to inspire you to get on with it, whatever it is, I've no doubt it's worth every penny. And that is exactly how I justified buying a bottle of it.

Go forth and smell lovely, admirers of fine fragrance...

Paris, with a cold

Last week I fulfilled a kind invitation to speak at the in-Cosmetics marketing trends conference in Paris. It's held in a theatre attached to hall 7.3 of the Paris Expo, a huge complex with its own moving walkway that rolls right under the Peripherique (although the concrete is painted white so most people are hardly aware that it's not just some ceiling).
I strolled around the exhibition - which some women managed to do in four inch heels, probably the French - and saw materials from natural rainforest butters to new molecules displayed for the amusement and attraction of the creators of cosmetics. When the buyer from Estee Lauder walked on to a perfume supplier's stand, they almost fell to their knees in awe and delight. I melted away.

In normal circumstances I would have taken an extra day to visit perfumeries, however, I had a dreadful cold. One company kindly gave me a handful of Fair Trade menthol crystals extracted from organic mint grown in India. I sniffed at it deeply. "Crystal menth" quipped one of my Facebook friends. So instead I went to look at the perfumerie at Le Bon Marche, just to see what was new. This cathedral of cosmetics is owned by LVMH, who graciously allow some of their rivals to sell their wares (probably to see how well the competition fares on a level, luxuriously furnished, playing field). For the first time I felt excluded by its crystalline, cool, geometric structure (the bottom left corner of the picture above). It is designed to welcome those in search of scent, to make them feel at home, comfortable and indulged. Instead they find salespeople gossiping amongst themselves, and marooned middle aged gentlemen sinking into the soft leather sofas, looking glazed and wondering how long it will take for their wives to return from the handbag department.

In the stationery department, where I went to buy sellotape, the over-groomed sales women were having a chat while they rang up my purchase. The lady behind me in the queue and I exchanged a mere raised eyebrow while she waited for one of them to open the second till. But no.

There was a new installation, half fashion, half art, featuring Doc Marten's among other iconic designers. The four young, beautiful sales people stood in the centre crossroads talking, and caused an obstruction for those of us what wanted to look at the display.

Back down the beautiful criss-cross escalators (as shown above). I was tempted to buy the special Miller Harris perfume created just for Le Bon Marche. What I could smell of it, I liked. My sense of smell hadn't disappeared, it was merely dampened. But I couldn't bring myself to attempt to engage these people in conversation. I can get by in French, enough for the average Parisian to tolerate my attempt. But why should it be such an struggle?

Next door in Le Grand Epicerie de Paris, the food shop to end all food shops, Le Bon Marche's grocery, the lady on the till was a complete delight. So no more perfume or posh sellotape for me, my lads. But I might go back there for my Ovomaltine biscuits.

Une Rose

The lovely Peggy Appert at Liberty's Frederic Malle room soused me in Une Rose before I set off for an evening at the theatre.
I got on the 139 bus in Regent Street. I was aware that I was surrounded by rose cloud, the whole bus was a rose cloud. I do wonder about encroaching on other people's nostrils, but I take the view that filling their world with beautiful things is a good thing. As I got off on Waterloo Bridge, a couple followed me, stopped me and asked what it was. I handed over the sample that Peggy had given me; I like the idea of random acts of kindness. I also like wearing scents that are so astonishingly stunning that strangers come up to you and ask what you're wearing.
There are many rose perfumes in the world of scent; heavy, light, soft, strong, and in the world of Les Parfums de Rosine there's an entire range of rose blends, but for a pure overdose of rose aroma, take this one (or maybe Sa Majeste La Rose from Serge Lutens).

A million roses packed into a small bottle, exploding out and taking over the room, created by Eduard Flechier from Editions de Parfum Frederic Malle.
Frederic Malle's site.

Miles

Named after the measurement of length, not a person.
Pronounced as if you are speaking English with a French accent (myalls not meal).
A man's fragrance, easily worn by women. Reassuring, strong, deliciously fruity.
Smells like the interior of a brand new car made and driven in the 1920s - wood, leather, tobacco - and loaded up with late summer fruits.
A delicious dark red fragrance by Detaille of Paris. Miles