A new concept in fragrance? – Floral Street scents review

Making my way through Covent Garden after a sneaky trip to Bloom, I passed by ‘a new concept in fragrance’ – Floral Street.

Ok, ok, so I went in cynical.

The ‘new concept’ is eight eau de parfums, ranging from London Poppy at the light and breezy end to Black Lotus at the ‘dark and challenging’ end, all of which can be tried at ‘experience stations’ – platforms with testers laid out. They’ve got shower gels too. And floral lino.

But the staff were warm and welcoming. And on request for samples, were quick to offer me whatever I fancied, as 1.5ml tester sprays. Nice service.

I picked a couple I thought would be most interesting – Ylang ylang Espresso, from the middle of the range, and Black Lotus from the far end.

Ylang Ylang Espresso

Ylang Ylang Espresso has the perfume world’s worst name (I’d rather boast of wearing Zoologist’s ‘Beaver’). But its mix of tangerine, sichuan Pepper, rose, jasmine, tiramisu accord, patchouli, ylang ylang, espresso beans, cocoa beans and guaicwood ain’t all bad. The coffee is rich, creamy and chocolatey, without being too sweet. It’s got a rough edge that occasionally stops it going into pudding territory, and longevity is excellent. It’s best during drydown when an extra soft muskiness emerges every now and then. It’s a nice one to catch a whiff off, if too poorly-blended to wear.

Black Lotus

Onto Black Lotus. This one has an ok first-spritz appeal – a quick blast of spicy fruit. But things go wrong almost immediately. It does a quick pass through generic blokes’ aftershave territory, then heads straight to Horriblesville. It’s musky, peppery rose with a hint of saffron. But above all – ashtray.

Jeez, this stuff is rank. It’s palatable on a strip, but spray it on your skin for the full horrorshow. This reeks like a Friday night in Bromley Firkin pre smoking ban – sickly sweet Impulse body spray mixed with 10 ex-Marlboro lights. ‘Narcotic flowers’ my arse. This perfume’s like going twos on a fag with a cheerleader and stubbing it out in a cherry jelly.

No competition for the challenge of the indies, the decadance of the luxuries, or the pure choice of the High Street, I’m not really sure what Floral Street’s USP is. Fun lino can only get you so far.

Ylang Ylang Espresso and Black Lotus are available for £55 for 50ml eau du parfums from floralstreet.com. Or from the Floral Street store in Covent Garden, which is on King Street. Not Floral Street (SMH).

What to wear in Summer – top scents for the beach and beyond

ONE TO WEAR IN A HEATWAVE You Or Someone Like You by Etat Libre D’Orange

When the mercury’s rising, this scent is like taking a dip in a mojito. It bursts with freshness – lovely ripped mint leaves mixed up with citrussy zest and stirred together with ice. After a few minutes the frosty edge melts off and a beautiful pinky rose starts to emerge. For such a top-note-dominant fragrance this has (at the risk of sounding like a Colgate commercial) freshness that lasts and lasts. And I love its deviation from the heaviness – both in formulation and connotation – that so many of ELDO’s scents are burdened with. Effortlessly cool.

£82 for 50ml, £115 for 100ml from Bloom

ONE TO WEAR HOLDING A BUCKET AND SPADE What I Did On My Holidays by 4160 Tuesdays

This is a message in a bottle straight from the British seaside. Every sniff rockets me back to sticky 1980s summers, mostly spent buried up to my neck on a Lyme Regis beach. I’ve never experienced a perfume that evokes such a true sense of nostalgia. This is the scent of the seaside shop where you go sandy-footed to buy your crabbing nets and your lilo. Mint rock, vanilla ice cream, coconut suntan lotion and fresh salty air…it’s sweet in every way.

£15 for 9ml – £90 for 100ml from 4160 Tuesdays

ONE TO WEAR WITH A BIKINI  Soleil Blanc by Tom Ford

This is a super-sexy scent, perfectly mimicking the sultriness of sunkissed skin. It’s suntan lotion on overdrive; beautiful coconut oil blended with blooming white flowers, radiating melanin-production and fun. A slightly cheap (sadly not in price) but glamorous scent, designed to pair perfectly with red lipstick on the beach – in Saint Tropez, not St Ives. Save it for sundown.

£139 for 50ml, £207 for 100ml from AllBeauty (amongst others)

ONE TO WEAR AL FRESCO Pure Azure by Phaedon

I’m desperately after a full bottle of Pure Azure. It’s so delicious – a big, beautiful, complex fig fragrance, full of lovely warm orange blossom and sun-drenched florals. According to the lovely guys at Bloom, the neroli at its heart is ‘derived through steam distillation of orange tree blossom as opposed to much spicier and honeyed absolute obtained through CO2 extraction’. However, they’ve done it, the result is gorgeously and truly Mediterranean. This is one to be savoured under grape vines and warm dark skies, at a table of mouth-watering mezze that keeps coming until you say stop. A real wrist-snuffler.

£112 for 100ml from Bloom

A cuddle from a mandle – Seven Scents Cuban Tobacco and Oak review

I bloody love scented candles. They have a bit of an unfair rep as a cop-out gift, but not in my present pile. I’ve invested in a Muji fragrance diffuser, which is VMR (Very Much Recommended), but for creating atmos, there’s nothing like a flickering flame, throwing out fragrance willy-nilly.

So I was squealy-chuffed when my friend Verity sent me a whacking great Cuban Toboacco and Oak candle from her home-made and beautifully-packaged range – Seven Scents.

Pre-lighting, the scent is surprisingly clean, almost soapy. Set it on fire and it comes to life. It has a beautiful, sweet woodiness, almost musky. There’s some whisky-spiciness too. After half an hour or so the scent takes a little turn, becoming broader and slightly candied.

The throw is gentle, but pervasive. After an hour, it fills the room comfortably. And, as I’d hoped, it was still hanging around like a good smell the next morning.

Verity describes this with a cheeky portmanteau –  ‘mandle’ (man candle), but this is not a smoky power-scent that divides the room. This is a cuddle in a candle.

It’s not for Summer. But get one now and save it for September; for that first chilly day when you get the fluffy socks out of the drawer; light it and let it mingle with that cosy dusty smell you get from a newly-switched-on radiator. VMR.

Seven Scents candles are made in Market Harborough, hand-poured and made with soy wax. My limited edition 220g Cuban Tobacco and Oak candle is available here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BLIND BUY – Goodbye Piccadilly from 4160 Tuesdays

It seems crazy to buy a perfume you’ve never smelled.

But last week, ‘Goodbye Piccadilly’ waved hello to me.

Violet, iris, lavender, leather, vanilla and patchouli.

Three reasons I jumped in:

1. The story behind this scent is that it was made for the London Transport Museum; made exclusively with materials available in 1914, it’s ‘a scent for suffragettes’. Got to support the sisterhood.

2. This is a leather scent. Leather sends me a bit crazy.

3. It was half price (4160 Tuesday’s Scent of the Week). Yes, we’re all suckers for a bargain, but seriously, 30ml for £20? You can barely get Katie Perry’s latest unicorn juice for that. And not just EDT – this is perfume strength.

So blindly, I pressed the BUY button.

As per 4160 Tuesdays usual charming arrivals, it turned up a couple of days later, nestled with the customary layers of scented tissue paper, hand-written letter and cheeky extra sample (Tokyo Spring Blossom – thank you!)

So, first impressions….

There’s no initial ‘burst’ of fragrance with this one, as if it skips the opening and goes straight to the heart notes. It’s incredibly soft, becoming pervasive. There’s a strong leather, a short-lived gleam of citrus, and a fresh lavender – not a dried, grey National Trust gift-shop kind of lavender; a garden lavender with bees buzzing round it.

As the lavender deepens and the scent settles, I realise quite how softly blended it is.

There’s a rubbery note in here – an almost petrolly smell – that reminds me of dolls. I’ve recently discovered ‘doll’s head’ is a proper perfume note. A mix of vanillin and heliotropin – an aldehyde that can appear to have a cherry or almond lilt.

Then a little while later, a surprising sweetness creeps in. It’s a defined candyfloss note and it gives the scent a lift that continues as it dries down. And the dry down lasts FOREVER. Super staying-power.

There’s an excellent and evocative vlog review by Smurfygurly where she describes Goodbye Piccadilly as a ‘hot wet pavement with a lavender bush nearby’. But for me, this is most indefinitely an indoors smell. A drawing room with dust catching the light coming in from a crack in the heavy curtains, or maybe even a library – there’s a paperiness in this scent too.

This feels very vintage – but it’s definitely not an old lady perfume. This feels wise and serious. It’s warm and dusty. Like snuggling into cats’ fur or being wrapped up in an old coat… Moquette bus seats.

 

That’s it! This is a fabric smell – like scent trapped in the pile of velvet. And the colour’s definitely a dusky blue.

 

 

 

This is a really unusual scent, and a great example of Sarah McCartney’s signature transportation through time and space.

This is not a perfume, it’s a costume.

I’m glad I tried it on.

Goodbye Piccadilly is available from 4160 Tuesdays. Samples from £4 up to 100ml for £90, with lots of options in between.

 

 

 

Fathom V from Beaufort London

 

“Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange”

Beaufort’s Come Hell or High Water collection is dark, moody and fuelled by testosterone. Inspired by Britain’s seafaring history, the fragrances – 1805 Tonnerre, Couer de Noir, Vi et Armis and Lignum Vitae – are full of adventure and high treason, wth a yo ho ho (and dare I say it, a bottle of rum) thrown in for good measure.

But then there’s a fifth – Fathom V – a siren that sucked me in from the moment its top came off in Bloom in Covent Garden.

It boasts an overwhelming notes list – blackcurrant, green leaves, juniper, tangerine, cumin, ginger, mimosa, jasmine, thyme, black pepper, ylang ylang, lily, amber, patchouli, atlas cedar, vetiver, moss, frankincense, sea salt – this is a shrieking chord of weirdness that just….sings. Maybe it’s the olfactory equivalent of jazz. I’ve never understood jazz.

And don’t for a second think the spices or amber bring warmth to this fragrance. This is an icy cold scent; a frosty white lily swirling down, down into the depths.

Although you’d expect this to be a defined marine fragrance, Fathom V is super-green; it’s freshly-cut stems from a flower shop and the most accurate representation of lilies I’ve ever experienced in a perfume.

And despite the long list of ingredients, Fathom V is surprisingly linear. Where you might anticipate a rollicking voyage from opening to drydown, the promised ‘sea-change’ doesn’t occur. Instead, every moment is constant, but deep and weird and impossible to explain.

I appreciate the grammatical aberration in describing this as totally unique. But it is. Totally unique. And I don’t want anyone else to wear this, ever.

This one’s mine.

White Queen from 4160 Tuesdays with CaFleureBon

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”

Created by 4160 Tuesdays to celebrate CaFleureBon’s 8th anniversary, White Queen is also one quarter of 4160T’s Spring Scents collection – a set of limited editions, crowd-funded by fans of the fragrance house.

I ordered 9mls of each, and eagerly testing the four, I wrinkled my nose a little on first sniff of White Queen. Odd. Spicy incense with bagfuls of fruit. Not for me.

Still, three out of four ain’t bad, and I’d read enough enthusings to know someone’d be up for a swap. I could tell it was special. Shame it wasn’t my type.

AND THEN I KEPT COMING BACK TO IT. Ah, here we go.

Having initially written it off as deep and interesting but not for me, just a couple of wears later, it’d taken off its glasses and shaken its hair out. I was hooked.

Thing is, White Queen is one of the finest examples of a non-linear scent I’ve experienced, with three distinct stages of development. And that intriguing complexity is what rocketed it out of the friend-zone and into my heart.

It starts off boozy and woody, like a rum cocktail spilt on an old bar-top. There’s something faintly medicinal there too.

As the booze develops, the fruitiness comes in, along with warming spices. This is no light and breezy spring scent – this is a Dickensian Christmas in a bottle. There’s a marshmallowy-ness there too. This must be how my nose understands the Methyl Laitone, which others have picked up as a creamy note.

Some hours later, it all of a sudden turns very wet and earthy (this must be down to the vetiver and maybe the veramoss), just like sticking your nose down a rabbit hole. How topsy-turvy. How clever.

Actually, I think it’s one of Sarah McCartney’s masterpieces. Well worth a try.

And then another one, just in case.

 

Truth and Beauty in Eden’s Garden from 4160 Tuesdays

Join the 4160 Tuesdays News group on facebook, and you step into a world of temptation.

Populated by true passionistas for all things Sarah McCartney (the house’s Nose), their enthusings have turned my handful-sized collection of 4160T scents into a fragrant drawerload.

So it’s apt that Sarah’s latest venture, fan-funded via Indiegogo, is called Truth and Beauty in Eden’s Garden; a collection of four Spring scents. And the hum on the 4160T facebook group has been building for weeks.

Silk scarf to complement the range, designed by James Skinner of Dalliance & Noble. Image from 4160 Tuesday’s Indiegogo page.

That hum turned into a buzz I couldn’t resist. Four 9ml spring scents plucked from the tree and eagerly awaited.

Will report back.