Vetivert oil is such a multi-faceted material that people in some countries wear it as a complete fragrance all by itself. It’s capable of appearing both woody and green, earthy…
Is mint becoming the new lemon? Perfumers are wary of using excessive quantities of the latter in their formulae because years of cultural conditioning have persuaded Western noses that its…
The house of Amouage – one of a tiny number of international brands with bona fide Middle Eastern credentials – has often produced dazzling perfumes by taking classical, old-world structures…
I think I ought to start charging for perfume shopping consultancy services. The other day, another close relative – a young woman who recently left home to go to Uni…
How do you make a fougère that has enough fougère-ness to justify the label but not so much that it smells like a disappointing cliche? That’s precisely the challenge faced…
Grossmith Phul-Nana, Hasu-No-Hana, Shem-El-Nessim review by award-winning perfume critic Persolaise (2010)
A few weeks ago, Madame Persolaise and I were on an escalator, descending into London’s Tube network. She was wearing vintage Diorissimo; I’d dabbed my wrists with a few drops…
I confess this one had me fooled for a while. The initial impression it made was undeniably positive; in fact, the sweep of citrus, woods and irones had me making…
I spent a couple of hours wandering around shops the other day, trying to find some excitement in the glittery Christmas parcels that the major brands are desperate to thrust…
Any artist who manages to breathe new life into an old form deserves praise, but if you’re not especially fond of the form itself, you might find it difficult to…
My experience of living in the Middle East taught me that Gulf Arab men tend to have no qualms about wearing scents that would be considered far too heady and…
Some truths are worth repeating: excellent fragrances feature a delicate harmony of all their disparate components. Few contemporary perfumers are as acutely aware of this as Andy Tauer, creator of…
A few years ago, Swiss aromatherapist-turned-perfumer Vero Kern released three extrait-strength fragrances that have since developed a loyal following. She has now formulated distinctly different, eau de parfum versions of…
Some fragrances impress you with the coherence of the entire package in which they arrive: the name, the colour of the juice, the bottle, the poster… they all interlock into…
More often than not, a spray of a new men’s perfume leaves me sorely disappointed. Most of the recipes follow the same, cardboard-cutout pattern: a mono-dimensional burst of citrus leading…
As far as I’m aware, Mugler’s key scents (Angel, Alien and A*Men) are still serious commercial contenders. So I don’t quite understand why the firm insists on diluting their impact…
Ah, the dangers of prejudice. When I saw that a sample of this new flanker had made its way into one of my shopping bags, I immediately condemned it to…
When I found out that Escape For Men has been discontinued, a triumphant smile appeared on my face. Sadly, that’s now faded, because CK have played around with the formula…
What’s the smell of the modern dandy? Does a metrosexual wear one of the generic woody cocktails that flood the market at the rate of twenty a week? Does he…
When Idylle hit the shelves late in 2009, the response from Guerlain acolytes was muted. The realm of the soft-focus floral was, they felt, best reserved for flash-in-the-pan celebrity fragrances,…
Persolaise