Cologne

Perfume Review: Iridium & Magnolia Heights by Tom Daxon

Two from Tom Daxon
Two from Tom Daxon

This year I was lucky enough to once again judge two fragrance categories at the Stylist Best Beauty Awards. It’s an honour to judge and what I love most about it, is that I always discover something new and exciting that I haven’t sniffed before. This year my discovery was the Tom Daxon line of fragrances. Now these are not new, nor are they fragrances that are difficult to get hold of, in fact it would have been super easy for me to try them long before now, I just didn’t get around to sniffing them with all the other stuff that’s out. So I’m officially late to the Tom Daxon party, but I am super chuffed to have been invited because there is some seriously good perfumery going on here.

Tom Daxon the brand is the brainchild of Tom Daxon Bowers who, at the age of 27 created his very own fragrance line. But fragrance and cosmetics are things that run in the family, and his mother spent time working as the Creative Director of Molton Brown. But Tom Daxon is very much the vision of the brand owner, taking inspiration from individual ingredients to create beautiful fragrances boasting the best synthetic and natural materials around. Working with Perfumers in Grasse, Tom Daxon Bowers has crafted a brand that is cohesive, distinct and abstract, but most of all he has created some truly beautiful fragrances.

There’s a clean, structural quality to the Tom Daxon collection that filters down from the stark minimalism of the sleek, architectural bottles to the fragrances themselves, which present bold accords with remarkable clarity and modernity. As an example of this I’m reviewing the two fragrances that won at this year’s Stylist Best Beauty Awards; Iridium (Best Niche Fragrance) and Magnolia Heights (Best Floral Fragrance). I think you’ll agree that they are very worthy winners indeed!

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Speed Sniff: Splendida Iris d’Or by Bvlgari

Speed Sniff: Iris d'Or
Speed Sniff: Iris d’Or

There are so many fragrance launches each year it’s difficult to write about them all. Speed Sniffs is a way to bring you to the point reviews fragrances that are quick and easy to digest. After all, sometimes all one needs is a few lines to capture the essence of a scent. Speed Sniffs are perfume reviews without all of the faff and tell you whether the subject is something you want to sniff or not. So hurry up and read, because we don’t have much time…

Do you ever sniff a fragrance and it stops you dead in your tracks? Sometimes you really have to spend time with a fragrance to really work out its nuances, but with others you have an instant reaction to it. When this reaction is positive it makes for a magical moment where one knows that they’ve found a scent that speaks to them in an entirely new way. This is exactly how I felt when I smelled Iris d’Or from Bvlgari’s new Splendida collection.

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Candy Crush: Byredo Kabuki Perfume

Candy Crush: Parfum Kabuki by Byredo
Candy Crush: Parfum Kabuki by Byredo

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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How Queer is Your Scent?

How Queer is Your scent?
How Queer is Your Scent?

That’s a pretty odd question, right? How queer is your scent? I mean, we’re all just out there trying to decipher the odour profile of a scent and what the heck it smells like, not to mention whether we like it or not, or whether it has enough longevity and sillage to get us through the day, right? Let alone trying to work out how queer it is for Pete’s sake! What does that even mean, anyway? How can a scent be queer? Is that even a thing? This is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot recently. Ever since i shot some queer-inspired photos for my review of Frederic Malle’s Superstitious, in fact.

Being a member of the LGBTQIA community (yes, we like our letters because it’s important to be inclusive) I have always felt that one of the key drivers for true acceptance is representation. Whether people are accepting of the community or not, it exists and queer people have the right to be represented in all mediums, whether that be in movies, music, art, or even perfume. This is something I want to explore in this little think piece, but it’s important to note though, that I am one person and not representative of the entire LGBT+ community. I am a white, cis-gendered gay male and I can only speak for me, and the community is so much more broader than any one person. So I hope we can share our varied opinions of the subject of queerness in scent, because it’s an important topic.

So what is a queer fragrance? After all, one could argue that if a perfume can’t have a gender, can it really have a sexuality? Well, to me, a queer fragrance isn’t about making a fragrance that is gay or trans, it’s about any scent that has a concept inspired by LGBT+ culture. It could be as simple as a fragrance inspired by a queer icon, or maybe one that celebrates queer art. It’s about telling the rich tapestry of stories within the history and culture of the LGBT+ community, which leads me nicely onto the subject of perfume and story telling.

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Five Reasons Why I’m Obsessed With Prada Candy

Candy!
Candy

I talk a lot about new stuff on the blog, mainly because there is so much new stuff out there!  I do like to keep you up to date with all the wonderfully smelly fragrances out there that are in need of sniffing, so what I bring to you is often new.  Sometimes though, I like to talk about the classics or simply those important fragrances that have done something different or have changed the face of perfumery in some unusual way.

So today I want to talk about a fragrance that isn’t new – one that I’ve had a strange relationship with.  It’s a fragrance that shares my name (well my pseudonym anyway) and it’s one that I’ve liked but I’ve never bitten the bullet and bought.  That fragrance is Prada Candy and in this post I want to share five reasons why it’s my latest obsession, despite the fact that it is far from new.  But first some history.

I was recently contacted by Fragrance Direct the online fragrance retailer who asked me to pick a scent from their extensive selection to write about.  Now I can handle most things, Dear Reader, but choice is not one of them.  Present me with a range of options and I am completely stumped.  Do I go for something new and a blind buy of something that I’ve never tried?  Or do I top up on a beloved fragrance that is running low?  Hmmm, no I know what to do, I’ll go for something I’ve always been unsure of wearing – and that’s what I did.

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Candy Crush: L’Artisan Parfumeur Body Range

This Week's Candy Crush!
This Week’s Candy Crush!

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.

I LOVE a body product, especially a shower gel. There’s something just so luxurious about slathering on one’s favourite scent in a lotion, cream or a gel. These products are the perfect thing to layer with a beloved scent, extending and emphasising it or for mixing it up with something unexpected to create contrast. They also make perfect gifts especially if it’s a treat yo’self kind of gift (i.e. the best kind)…

L’Artisan Parfumeur recently (well, relatively recently anyway) launched a new range of Shower Gels and Body Lotions in five of their emblematic scents. Celebrating the iconic classics of the range, these products are housed in the most handsome packaging ever: sleek black pumps that are as functional as they are pleasing to look at. So what is there not to crush over? New ways to wear iconic scents: check. Beautiful packaging: check. Amazing smells: check. Consider it a Candy Crush!

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Perfume Review: Oud Minérale by TOM FORD

2017-07-22 17.03.44
Oud Minérale

Tom Ford knows his way around the note of oud. Within his own brand he has a mini-collection of oud fragrances amongst his many Private Blends, each of which takes the style of oud in a very different direction. He’s also the man behind YSL’s M7 which was one of the first mainstream fragrances to promote the use of oud (whether it was the first is up for debate). So it’s safe to say that oud is very much a signature of the Tom Ford brand and it’s a style of fragrance (and I say style instead of note because it’s really more of a genre than a singular ingredient).

The latest addition to Tom Ford’s oud oeuvre is Oud Minérale – a fragrance that intends to approach oud from a much fresher angle. The brand describe it as a scent that merges “rare and precious oud with the fresh exuberance of the ocean”, which may lead one to think that perhaps this is an oud too far. After all, smoky, animalic, middle eastern oud is on the polar opposite end of the fragrance spectrum to anything remotely aquatic. But to think that, whilst justified, would not be correct because Oud Minérale is a clever little composition that manages to find the common ground between these two opposing styles.

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Perfume Review & Vlog: Concrete by Comme des Garçons

New from Comme des Garçons
New from Comme des Garçons

Comme des Garçons are real innovators when it comes to the olfactory arts. They’ve created some of the most unique and daring mainstream fragrances on the market and within their more niche lines have explored single notes of themes with the painstaking focus of a curator. They are a brand that does not lend itself to trends or marketing influence, they simply make beautiful and intriguing things. Much in the same that Rei Kawakubo plays with the form in her fashion, Comme des Garçons aims to subvert structure in their olfactory output too, always with fascinating results.

For their latest launch, Comme des Garçons are exploring “destruction, construction and creation” by taking inspiration from one of the most ubiquitous materials on earth: concrete. Named after the material, Concrete the fragrance aims to bring new contrasts to the idea of a material that is known for its solid composition, demolishing all preconceptions. So if you’re expecting something rocky, hard and brutalist in this fragrance, you may want to think again…

Before we get on to the scent itself it’s impossible not to pay homage to the awesomeness of the bottle, which is actually coated in concrete. That’s right, actual concrete! This gives a satisfying heft to the signature pebble design but also a really surprising softness that is tactile and pleasant. I love it and what’s more, it comes covered in bubblewrap to protect it, hinting at the fact that there may just be a hidden fragility to this usually hard and robust material. Genius.

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