Penhaligon’s The World According To Arthur Review – Fabrice Pellegrin; 2022

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.]

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