Candy Crush: Byredo Kabuki Perfume

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.

There are many ways to wear perfume that sit outside the conventional spraying and dabbing of alcohol-based scent. For years one has been able to splash on an alcohol-free aftershave or even rub on a solid perfume. There are even shower gels and body lotions that one can use to extend and intensify a fragrance. So brands are always trying to find new and exciting ways to wear scent and cult Swedish niche brand Byredo may just have come up with one of the coolest, which earns them the honour of being this week’s Candy Crush!

Powder perfumes are nothing new, but they are out of fashion. Historically, many brands offered scented talcum powders or makeup powders that could be puffed on with reckless abandon, but these products sort of fell out of fashion post the drama of the ’80s. Byredo however, has decided that powder perfumes need a revival and they are bringing this method of perfuming oneself into the latest century in an innovative way with their Kabuki Perfume. Fusing the idea of makeup brushes and contemporary perfume, these perfumed brushes allow one to apply a soft powder scent in a more subtle way. Colour me intrigued!

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The Candies 2016: The Best and Worst Perfumes of the Year

The Candies 2016 - The Very Best (and Very Worst) Perfumes of the Year — The Candies 2016 – The Very Best (and Very Worst) Perfumes of the Year

Here we are then, at the very end of 2016. It feels, especially after the losses of George Michael, Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, to name but a few, within the last week, a very bittersweet year. I say bittersweet because it’s not just the loss of the huge number of great talents this year, the likes of Bowie, Prince, Victoria Wood… (the list is endless), but also because the world seems to be a much harsher place than it did one year ago. Whatever your politics, I think we can all agree that 2017 is the year that we all need to work together to make our world a better place.

From a fragrant perspective, 2016 has actually been a pheomenal year. I’d be lying to you if I said that it was easy for me to pick out my very favourite scents of the year because I really did like a lot this year, and it feels like there certainly was a huge amount of good stuff, whether that be unique and interesting new things, or familiar styles that were executed very well. But you will be pleased to know that I was able to narrow down my choices and pick out the winners of The Candies 2016. I do need a stiff drink after all that work though…

If this is your first time attending The Candies, I shall explain how things work. Firstly, you may attend in your pyjamas and you do not need to worry about drinking too much and making a fool of yourself, in fact, such actions are encouraged. We have a number of awards to give out, each of which is split out by Mainstream and Niche, and then by gender. There are also awards for Best Top Down Design and even a Sour Candy Award, which names and shames the worst perfume of the year. This year we also have the addition of the Best Scented Product Award which celebrates the best smelly product for your body or home. It’s a full programme, so let’s get started!

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Liberty Art Fragrance – BYREDO Heliotropia Perfume Review

2016-07-29 16.32.10 — Heliotropia – Inspired by London’s Quirkiest Department Store

Whenever I go to London I inevitably end up paying a visit to Liberty. The place is like a fairytale, I tell you. Housed within a mock-Tudor building built using the timber from two ships (HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan), Liberty stocks a wonderful array of treats, ranging from silk scarves in beautiful Liberty Art Fabric to exotic nicknacks, not to mention their impressive perfumery which houses classic and contemporary brands aplenty. It’s London’s most unique retail destination and it epitomises everything that is great about Britain: quirkiness and higgledy-piggledy-ness.

Swedish fragrance house, BYREDO, who have a space within the store, have just launched a fragrance exclusive to and inspired by Liberty. It’s called ‘Heliotropia‘ and it’s described as a “heady infusion, in turns virginal and narcotic” that “carries the mind to a dream like place, a higher state of illusion.” Much like Liberty the store, Heliotropia the fragrance is a fantastical experience that beguiles, fascinates and amuses. One may not enter it expecting to make a purchase, but they will leave with something that money can’t buy: a sense of bewilderment. How’s that for a headline?

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Life Through a Lens – Byredo x Oliver Peoples Perfume Review

Life Through a Lense - Byredo x Oliver Peoples — Life Through a Lense – Byredo x Oliver Peoples

There is no language dedicated solely to the world of smell, arguably our most primal of senses. Instead we opt for words associated with our other senses – taste, sight and feel, to describe something that is for the most part, intangible. Colours, textures and flavours pepper our descriptions and allow the realm of the fragrance to move from the intangibale to something more palpable, combining together as the language of the senses to tell a scented story.

The “joint perception of the senses”, specifically the relationship between colour and smell, is the theme for Swedish niche brand, Byredo’s latest fragrance. The scent is a collaboration with Oliver Peoples, a California-based eyewear brand, and it accompanies a series of exclusive frames, and lenses that have been created and inspired by the fragrance. Housed within a choice of bottles shaded in either indigo, green or champagne, Byredo x Oliver Peoples aims to capture the Caliifornian landscapes through lenses in different colours, each of which highlights a new facet or nuance. This is a Californian life through a lens, and it smells/looks good.

“The conception of the collaboration was achieved through Byredo’s master perfume perceiving the sights of Los Angeles through different coloured lenses, and translating them into various smells, therefore producing a multi-faceted fragrance. This unique effort has resulted in an original frame designed by Oliver Peoples, through which the color of the lenses will correlate with the aroma of the custom blended fragrance by Byredo”

– Byredo/Oliver Peoples

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Smelly News: Byredo Launches Oliver Peoples Collaboration at Selfridges

"Joint Perception" - Byredo and Oliver Peoples — “Joint Perception” – Byredo and Oliver Peoples

Stockholm based niche fragrance house Byredo have teamed up with Californian sunglasses brand Oliver Peoples for a scented collaboration that pairs stylish eyewear with an equally fashionable fragrance. Inspired by the idea of synesthesia, the “joint perception of the senses”, where one can see colours or shapes when experiencing certain smells, a California-inspired fragrance was created to evoke the idea of a land seen through the varying shades of different coloured lenses. The result is a fragrance that is spicy, marine-like and warm, and in a link to the lense colours, is available in Byredo’s signature bottle shaded in either indigo, champagne or green to match the limited edition sunglasses.

“The conception of the collaboration was achieved through Byredo’s master perfume perceiving the sights of Los Angeles through different coloured lenses, and translating them into various smells, therefore producing a multi-faceted fragrance. This unique effort has resulted in an original frame designed by Oliver Peoples, through which the color of the lenses will correlate with the aroma of the custom blended fragrance by Byredo”

– Byredo/Oliver Peoples

"Joint Perception" Byredo — “Joint Perception” Byredo

"Joint Perception" Oliver Peoples — “Joint Perception” Oliver Peoples

Byredo and Oliver Peoples have created a space in the London department store Selfridges where customers can experience the fragrance, frames and lenses together. This retail space allows one to pick out the eyewear and fragrance bottle that speak to them, and is an interesting exercise in understanding what the individual eye is drawn to. Also, as we are so led by the marketing and packaging of our fragrances, it’s quite fascinating to see whether the fragrance itself is perceived differently when smelled in each of the three bottle shades. Does the indigo highlight the marine notes or does the champagne accentuate the warm sand? Intrigued by this, and the scent? Swing by on Monday for a full review.

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Smelly News: Byredo Launch Inez & Vinoodh 1996 Candle

Swedish perfume house, Byredo have launched their popular and Fragrance Foundation Award winning fragrance, 1996 as a limited edition candle. The fragrance, which was created in collaboration with fashion photographers Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, was inspired by a photograph taken by the duo in 1996, and is described as a scent that “combines polar opposites” and boasts a distinct accord of “viscous black amber”.

1996 was one of my favourite launches of 2013 and in my review I described it as being “sepia toned”. It’s an unfamiliar take on amber that sees sharpness, sweetness and unique textures pieced together to create a truly exceptional blend that is really unlike anything else out there. It is easily the brand’s most exciting fragrance and now, for those that love it, there is a candle too!

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Violet Tobacco – Byredo Black Saffron Perfume Review

Anyone who has been within an inch of this blog or my Twitter feed will know that my latest obsession is Byredo’s 1996. Never before has a perfume so quickly made its merry little way up to the very top of my wish list, leaving me drooling and lusting after it so badly that my long-suffering partner had no choice but to gift me a bottle for Christmas. For his sanity you understand?

So yes, I was very pleased with my bottle of 1996 and even more so when I found a little sample of a Byredo scent I’ve not smelled accompanying it – Black Saffron. Launched in 2012, this supposedly dark take on saffron, where the golden spice is merged with violet and leather to create something entirely unexpected, is a rather interesting scent indeed. Byredo describe the inspirations behind it as follows:

“Saffron is holy to all Hindus, is the colour of Buddhist robes and has become a symbol for India. It has always been a part of Byredo’s founders upbringing in both smell, taste and colour. Black Saffron is a fragrance inspired by this very idea of sublime unity.”

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The Candies 2013: The Very Best and Very Worst Perfumes of 2013

The Candies 2013: The Very Best and the Very Worst Perfumes of the Year

Can you believe that 2013 is coming to a close already? I certainly can’t! It only feels like yesterday that I was sat at my laptop, tapping away at the first reviews of the year and looking forward to the exciting new smells that next 365 days would bring. It has, all-in-all, been a very good year, with lots of interesting new perfumes launched, and on a more personal note too, as this year I took on the exciting role of Fragrance Expert for Escentual.com.

The perfumes have come thick and fast over the year, and once again the industry has seen an increase in the overall number of perfumes launched. Over the year we’ve seen our fair share of masterpieces, duds, flankers and celebrity money makers in, and as with any other year it has been a roller coaster ride of an experience sifting through just a tiny portion of what has been released.

In this post – my annual perfume awards (‘The Candies’) – I’m taking a look at my fragrant highlights of the year and those perfumes that have impressed, moved and surprised me. I’m also highlighting the specific scents that have failed to meet the mark this year and are disappointing enough to warrant naming and shaming. So sit back, don your red carpet gown (or suit), pop the champagne and enjoy The Candies 2013.

[Please also head over to my fragrant brothers and sisters who are sharing their very best perfumes of 2013; Persolaise, Olfactoria’s Travels, Eyeliner on a Cat, Fragrant Moments, Perfume Shrine, I Smell Therefore I Am, SmellyBlog and The Fragrant Man.]

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Christmas Smells (Really Good)

Christmas is just round the corner. I mean it people, the 25th of December is just up the street, lurking down a dark alley with criminal intent and an evil glint in its eye. By now one should have completed the super-fun/awful task of Christmas shopping (I have and yes I’m smug about it) and will now be putting the final touches to the Christmas plans that one is so looking forward to.

With all of the traditions and festivities it is unsurprising that Christmas is an incredibly fragrant time of year. The abundance of yuletide food, church masses and changes in the season make for an incredible wealth of smells associated solely with the one celebration, and each year one looks forward to reliving those odours that make the season so darn ‘Christmassy’.

As I’m a lover of both scent and Christmas I thought it would be fun to put together some of my favourite yuletide smells alongside perfumes that manage to capture the essence of these odours. Here you’ll find smells of the season and fragrances that are evocative of such wonderful treats as gingerbread and mulled wine. Christmas smells (really good in fact) and on The Candy Perfume Boy this winter, it has never smelled better!

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What’s On Your Christmas Wish List?

It’s that time of year where we all start to put together our Christmas wish lists for Santa, or as I like to call him – ‘Nigel’. Being the perfume nuts that we are means that beloved family and friends can sometimes struggle to pick fragrances out as gifts for us, after all we’re a selective (read: ‘picky’) bunch by nature and nobody would want us to open up a gift that we would deem as unsuitable on the big day.

To mitigate the chances of a botched perfume purchase at Christmas I supply a perfume wish list to my partner and my father every year. The other members of my family family flatly refuses to buy me any perfume, stating that I have “too much” and it’s “bordering on an obsession”. Who knows what they’re smoking, but I can always rely on my dad and Nigel (if he’s in a good mood) to pick something from my carefully selected list.

Let’s take a look at what’s on my list this year!

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