Perfume Review: Staccato & Mìneir by Miller Harris

The Miller Harris Stories Collection started with a simple idea: give two different perfumers the same evocative passage of text from a novel and see what they create. The results, Scherzo and Tender, could not be more different and were an exercise in showcasing how both Mathieu Nardin (Scherzo) and Bertrand Duchaufour (Tender) interpreted the text (from F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night) in entirely unique ways. I personally love this idea, after all, aren’t perfume’s just smelly stories that stir emotion, surprise and transport us in the same way as a novel?

Miller Harris have now added a total of four fragrances to the collection (and have since discontinued Tender) with the two latest being Staccato and Mìneir. For these new additions the text that serves as inspiration for each scent is different, with the “addictive and smoky” Staccato channeling Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and the “aromatic marine” Mìneir diving into the pages of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. Despite my love of reading I must confess that I don’t know either novel but that is not going to stop me exploring their olfactory counterparts!

Let’s Sniff!

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Perfume Review: Rêverie de Bergamote by Miller Harris

I do love a surprise, especially a fragrant one, and when that fragrant surprise is from one of my favourite (and most-worn perfume houses) well then, I’m a happy boy. So imagine my surprise (I promise that’s the last time I say ‘surprise’ in this review, maybe..) when the first launch from Miller Harris in 18 months landed on my doorstep. Being real with you, MH had been launching A LOT of things before their brief pause and some of those launches (Blousy, Brighton Rock, I’m looking, nay, I’m glaring at you) felt a bit rushed and unfinished, and didn’t set my heart on fire. So it was with great intrigue that I approached their new launch ‘Rêverie de Bergamote’ and (massive spoiler alert!) it did not disappoint.

Rêverie de Bergamote is described by Miller Harris as an “aromatic citrus” fragrance. They say it’s a “bright, soulful scent for a slow Sunday morning” and I feel they’re going for something that sets a mood or a vibe, and that vibe is bergamot-scented relaxation (something we could all do with, let’s face it). Emilie Bouge (Robertet) created the perfume and took inspiration from relaxing mornings listening to music. And whilst the theme is very ‘Bergamot and Chill’, I would say that Rêverie de Bergamote is not to be underestimated – it has a few tricks and unexpected twists up its sleeves to raise the excitement levels. Let’s sniff!

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Perfume Review: DANCE Amongst the Lace by Miller Harris

At the back of my childhood home we had a sprawling piece of land that my parents never really did anything with. At time it was vastly overgrown and my siblings and I would have to beat our way through the undergrowth with big sticks to get to the wooden fort my father made for us – our base where all mischievous schemes were planned. As you can imagine, all of this was tremendous fun and I have vivid memories of us playing in the tall grass and weaving in and out of the rows of cow parsley that stood tall along the borders – long stems exploding like floral fireworks out of the ground.

Cow parsley, or “Queen Anne’s Lace” as it is also know, is the inspiration for Miller Harris’ latest fragrance ‘DANCE Amongst the Lace’, which joins WANDER, LOST and HIDDEN in the brand’s Forage Collection. The idea of the collection is to celebrate the idea of nature existing in urban spaces – the interplay between the natural and the man-made. DANCE aims to capture the “surprising freshness and unique scent of cow parsley” – a plant that is found in many of London’s urban spaces. What they’ve created is an incredibly modern and easy-to-wear fougère that is perfect for summer.

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Candy Crush: Narcolor Reed Diffuser by Miller Harris

I’m always crushing on something scented or other. My nose knows no limits. Candy Crush is where I showcase the beautifully scented things I’m crushing on right now so you can hopefully develop a crush too.

A well-fragranced home is an important thing in my book. A scented candle can create a pleasing olfactory ambience for when friends are over for dinner, whilst a room spray can provide scented refreshment to stale air and cover up unpleasant pet or cooking odours. Then there’s the reed diffuser, now these are interesting. I’ve always looked at reed diffusers as the background noise of home fragrance – they provide a fragrant hum in the background, adding a more subtle ambience to a room. These three methods of home fragrance – the candles, room sprays and reed diffusers – can be used together, of course, to compliment and contrast, but it is the reed diffuser that makes for the perfect base layer in one’s home fragrance arsenal.

I am guilty of being both a home fragrance lover and a Miller Harris fanboy, so it was no surprise that when the brand launched their dedicated collection of home fragrances, I was most intrigued. The crown jewel of this collection, which features room sprays (one of which is an aquatic oriental called ‘Periwinkle’ that I must have) to compliment their existing series of candles, is the ceramic reed diffusers. Available in four fragrances (Cadimus – a tuberose, Narcoflor – a huge floral bouquet, Verditer – an ode to figs, and Mossket – an earthy chypre), these diffusers are as much an enviable decorative object as they are a vessel of beautiful fragrance. I was sent Narcoflor to try and it’s officially a Candy Crush!

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Perfume Review: Peau Santal & Powdered Veil by Miller Harris

Miller Harris has had a very busy year – they’ve launched two capsule collections of fragrances: Scherzo x Tender and Forage (Lost, Wander & Hidden), and to complete the hat trick, they now presents their third collection of fragrances this year: Peau Santal and Powdered Veil. Housed in bottles coated in intriguing shades of pink (baby pink for Powdered Veil and a more ‘nude’ (not a word I like to use because it only represents one type of skin colour, but other descriptors escape me, ‘blush’ maybe?) shade for Peau Santal), these two fragrances celebrate the intimacy and the ritual of glamming up – the lace of dresses, the powder of make-up, and the wood of dressing tables, and wardrobes. They are fragrances with distinct textures, of powder and skin, that arrive perfectly in time for winter. Let’s check them out.

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Christmas Crush: Sandalwood & Musk Christmas Candle by Miller Harris

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Instead of a Christmas gift guide this year, I’m switching out my regular Candy Crush posts for just as regular Christmas Crushes instead. In these posts over the coming weeks you’ll find some wonderfully scented gifts just in time for the holiday season, with products that I am crushing on. So get ready for some marvellous Christmas gift inspiration!

Are you ready for Christmas Crush round two?!

I’ve probably bored you all half to death with my lyrical waxings on my Miller Harris obsession, but please indulge me one last time. Over the last year or so this brand, which I probably would have ignored or even described as ‘wishy-washy’ 12 months ago, has done a massive about face, launching a veritable feast of beautiful high quality fragrances that do the one thing that all fragrances should: smell good. They have found a character and a personality that they lack were lackingebefore and do you know what? I’m here for it! Everything they are launching smells great – some of it’s unusual, but for the most part it’s all accessible, well-composed and gorgeous in every way. A round of applause for Miller Harris, please.

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Perfume Review: Scherzo & Tender by Miller Harris

Scherzo x Tender

What happens when you give two perfumers the same passage of text and ask them to make a fragrance with no olfactive brief? The answer is two fragrances that are as different as day and night and it’s an experiment undertaken by a surprising house: Miller Harris. Now, if you’ve not been sniffing the recent launches from Miller Harris you have been missing out. They’ve been very quietly doing some phenomenal work (I point your noses in the direction of Rose Silence and Le Cèdre, to name just two, but trust me when I say that there are many more exciting things to sniff) and it really seems that they are forging an identity for themselves, after years of muddled direction. Miller Harris now has a personality and a character, and I’m here for it.

For their latest project (launching in January 2018), Miller Harris is releasing two fragrances inspired by a passage of text from F.Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night. The idea is that the brand handed this passage to two perfumers, Mathieu Nardin (the creator of lots of their recent works such as the aforementioned Rose Silence and Le Cèdre – check him out, you must) and Bertrand Duchaufour (y’all know who he is) and asked them to make a fragrance each inspired by the text. That’s it. No olfactive direction, no concept, just simple literary inspiration. The result is Scherzo (Mathieu) and Tender (Bertrand) and they really are quite surprising.

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Perfume Review: Le Cèdre by Miller Harris

It’s not often that I bring things to you on The Candy Perfume Boy before they launch, after all it’s not much fun writing about things that people can’t get their noses on yet, but right from my very first sniff of Le Cèdre, the brand new fragrance from Miller Harris (launching in May), I couldn’t not share it with you. I’m not a massive fan of woody fragrances as a genre and on the whole they very much feel lovely, but not for me, therefore it’s also rare for me to sniff something distinctly woody and be head over heels for it. So now you understand just why I’m so excited to be writing about Le Cèdre!

Le Cèdre is the latest addition to Miller Harris’ Perfumer’s Library, a capsule collection of scents created to play to different seasons and moods, and coming together to create a fragrant wardrobe filled with scents that cover all bases. This is a sort of IKEA approach to perfumery where one can purchase a flat-packed collection of scent ready to be assembled and worn throughout the seasons. Le Cèdre joins the collection as 2017’s seasonal entry and I’d suggest that it’s the unconventional scent for the summer season. Miller Harris describes Le Cèdre as an “audacious and escapist fragrance” that is softer than one might think. Well, for someone who finds cedarwood a touch on the solid side, that really does sound like something rather fabulous indeed.

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Stay in Bed With Miller Harris’ Rose Silence Scented Candle

It’s Valentine’s Day today and if you’ve forgotten to get your loved one a gift and are within the vicinity of a Miller Harris store, I may have just saved your bacon – you can thank me later! This year, MH are encouraging us to ditch the idea of a dinner out, or a cinema date, or even a romantic stroll in the park, no, they want us to stay in bed and you know, do the stuff you do in bed (you know, crocheting, sleeping, antiquing etc.). To aid you in your romantic antics, Miller Harris have created a beautifully fragrant and niftily customisable scented candle featuring one of their most stunning scents: Rose Silence.

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Soft Touch – Miller Harris Étui Noir Perfume Review

I have a confession to make: I’ve always found leather perfumes difficult. They’re just so damn demanding most of the time and one has to commit to wearing them for the whole day, which can be a chore if they start to get annoying, which I find they often do. Don’t get me wrong, the smell of leather in fragrance is often beautiful, but with time it can become dry, harsh and tar-like, suffocating a guy and sending himm reaching for a mouthwatering cologne to quench the nose-thirst. So yes, I like leather, but it’s not often that I find myself loving a leather fragrance, and whilst there are exceptions (Tom Ford’s Tuscan Leather being the most notable), leather just isn’t my thing as a rule.

With that in mind, I’m always very happy when a scent comes along to convince me that I do, in fact, like a style I’m slightly averse to. In terms of leather, that very scent is the new Étui Noir by Miller Harris. Described, rather fantastically, as being “like a well-worn leather jacket shared by lovers with comforting flashbacks of each other” and “as deep as the night”, Étui Noir is a leather with a difference. This is a leather fragrance crafted with an emotional point of view, speaking in nuanced and eclectic tones. It’s representative of the new style of Miller Harris, which is much more focused than it has been in recent years and to put it simply, Étui Noir just is an interesting fragrance to unravel.

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