Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

Another family member joins Penhaligon’s fold — the patriarch’s globetrotting brother, Arthur. His perfume is the somewhat evangelical sounding The World According To Arthur, and it was reviewed by yours truly in a recent episode of Love At First Scent. Here’s a link: Penhaligon’s The World According To Arthur review.

The brand’s Portraits range, to which this new scent belongs, remains confusing. It presents potential buyers with an animal head which is then (tenuously) connected to a name which is then (tenuously) connected to a story which is then (tenuously) connected to a scent. The four elements tend to be noteworthy not for how well they meld together, but for the very opposite: the glaring lack of cohesion. But lo and behold, in defiance of this apparent absence of logic (or perhaps because of it) the ever-so-expensive Portraits are doing extremely well and remain a lucrative aspect of the house’s output.

Arthur is no less perplexing than any of the others, but at least its dragon-head sits atop an interesting scent: a Fabrice Pellegrin composition centred around the fuzzier, woodier, more meditative aspects of vanilla and incense. I wanted to love it, but although I admire its opening and the finesse with which the initial tendrils coil themselves around you, I can’t shake off the view that it ought to announce its presence a touch more forcefully. To be sure, its balsamic-woody drydown is attractive – indeed, as a whole, Arthur is never anything less than pleasing – but it’s hard to imagine the eponymous character being so irredeemably seduced into a life of travel by something quite as demure as this. For the story to work, the scent needs to linger. And this one retreats into the shadows too quickly.

Persolaise

[Penhaligon’s The World According To Arthur review based on a sample provided by the brand in 2022.]


If you’ve enjoyed this post, please consider supporting my work
by ‘buying me a coffee’ using the panel below.

Thanks very much indeed.

Penhaligon’s The World According To Arthur review by award-winning perfume critic Persolaise, 2022

Discover more from

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

I love hearing from my readers, so please feel free to write a comment or ask a question.