Looking for some inspiration to scent your home this Christmas? Check out my latest Escentual for some beautiful home fragrance (featuring Acqua di Parma, Comme des Garçons & Annick Goutal) to enhance your Christmas decorations. Click here to read.
Scent
14 December 2017 @ 19:00
Caravansérail, London
Consider the above a date for your diaries, people! To celebrate the launch of edition 4 of NEZ The Olfactory Magazine, I will be joining perfumer Lyn Harris (of Perfumer H) and art historian Christina Bradstreet (also Events Manager at the National Gallery) as part of a perfume roundtable hosted by Fragrantica’s Eddie Bulliqi. The subject is ‘Is Perfume Art?’ so I’m positive that we will have lots to talk about, with varying viewpoints from a panel consisting of a perfumer, historian and blogger.
The Candy Perfume Boy has afforded me with a huge number of wonderful opportunities and amazing moments over the years, but to date, none have been more awe inspiring than a trip that happened earlier this year. I was invited to attend the launch of an entirely new brand called Anima Vinci in none other than Grasse: the home of perfumery in the South of France. Who could say no to a morning spent picking rosa centifolia in a small field in the centre of Grasse, followed by a trip to Art et Parfum, the home of legendary perfumery Edmond Roudnitska? Not this blogger, that’s for sure!
Anima Vinci was founded by Nathalie Vinciguerra, a Corsican native who has dedicated her career to perfumery, working at Penhaligon’s and L’Artisan Parfumeur as Creative Fragrance Director. During her time with these brands she developed over 40 fragrances, so Nathalie knows perfumery, that much is evident and her fragrance brand celebrates both passion and energy (two things Nathalie has in abundance) through five fragrances that pay homage to key olfactory families. In Latin, Anima means ‘soul’ and Vinci means ‘to conquer’ and if these five fragrances do anything it’s conquer the senses and energise the soul. Anima Vinci is a brand you’re going to want to know about and in this piece I hope to introduce you to the five wonderful fragrances in the collection.
Please indulge me whilst I tell you a little tale that informs you all you need to know about Baccarat Rouge 540 by Maison Francis Kurkdjian. I was sit in the lobby of the Soho Hotel the other day, having just attended an evening with Perfumer Christine Nagel hosted by the Fragrance Foundation. It had been a long day and I desperately needed to charge my phone (for instagram purpose, obviously). As I sat there, minding by own little fragrant business, I watched industry bods trickle past me on their way out. After about ten minutes, two journalists walked past and their conversation went something along the lines of:
“You’re wearing Baccarat Rouge by Kurkdjian, aren’t you?”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. I can smell it.”
“I’m not. I think I’d know.”
“I can smell it!”
Guess who was rocking the Baccarat Rouge? Oh yeah, that’s right, this bad candy boy right here, that’s who! I fessed up, don’t you worry. But this little tale just goes to show how distinct and unique a signature the fragrance has. In fact, I don’t think I said this when I reviewed Baccarat Rouge 540 last year, but I think it is easily the cleverest perfume composition of the last five years. For a short formula it does a lot, evoking white and red hot crystal with novel accords that feel entirely new. It’s a technical marvel but it’s also a rather unrestrained essay in excess, from a perfumer who usually brings us spacious, chic beauty with a steady hand. I’ll stop beating around the bush and just come out and say that Baccarat Rouge 540 is a god damn masterpiece, and now it comes in an even more lush and luxurious Extrait de Parfum. Colour me excited!
Escentual now stock AURA. So I’ve revisited this little beauty with a review this week. Click here to read.
If not, why not?!
Follow my instagram page for lots of beautiful fragrant content by clicking here! Also, if you want me to follow you then leave your instagram handle in the comments and I will do exactly that!
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!
Ooh do I have a treat for the MUGLER addicts amongst you! This Christmas Crush post is solely dedicated to the house of MUGLER and those that reside in its many galaxies. In my mind there is no greater gift than the gift of MUGLER and this Christmas the brand has a rather splendid array of olfactory offerings for you to gift to your loved ones (or just to yourself – self care is very important, after all). So in this post you will find MUGLER gift sets, perfume, candles, body products and more, all of which will leave you scented FOR THE GODS. Enjoy!
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.
I’ve got wood on the brain, Dear Reader.
Now, before you judge me with your smutty little minds, I am of course referring to wood fragrances and not any other form of wood, metaphorical or otherwise. I’m not sure what may have led you to think of anything else – certainly not the somewhat tongue in cheek title of this post, that’s for sure! Anyway, the truth is that I’ve never really got wood before, as in, I’ve never really enjoyed wood fragrances that much (again, minds out of the gutter please, people). They’ve always felt too subtle or too plain for my exuberant tastes, so for the most part I’ve ignored them or passed them off as lovely, but not for me. That however, has changed very recently.
Over the last few months I’ve started to find wood fragrances a little bit sexy. I’m attracted to them and they are just the kind of thing I find myself wanting to smell on a man. But it’s actually more than that, they’ve also become the type of thing I want to wear when I’m feeling mighty fine, or when I want to feel mighty fine. So in this post I’m going to showcase some beautiful wood fragrances that are more than just a little bit sexy – in fact, they’re all very sexy in their own individual ways. So, please put on some Barry White and close the curtains because things are going to get a little bit hot and steamy up in here as we investigate seven wood fragrances with some serious bom-chicka-wah-wah factor.
The Candy Perfume Boy 