Persolaise Review: Noir Extreme from Tom Ford (2015)
Persolaise I don’t know where Tom Ford has been eating his kulfi, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t the same place where I’ve been eating my kulfi. The taste of the…
Uplifting Scents On ParfumPlus
Please click on this link to read my latest piece for the Middle East’s ParfumPlus magazine. Some of you may recognise it as an edited version of my recent post…
Father’s Day Ideas – What To Do If Your Dad’s Perfume Collection Is Already Quite Healthy
Blame the geek in me: I’m always on the lookout for an excuse to make a new list. And I’ve just discovered that I haven’t addressed Father’s Day since 2011…
Goldfish, Rice And Musky Teleporters – Perfume Recommendations For A Sunny Day
Best summer, sunny day perfume selection by award-winning critic Persolaise, with Chanel, Tom Ford, Frederic Malle, Guerlain, Hermes and others
Perfume Mini-Reviews From Twitter – October to December 2014 [part 2]
Part 2 of my digest of mini-reviews from Twitter, spanning October to December 2014 Hommage À L’Homme Voyageur from Lalique (2014)* The violet leaf of the original leads to a…
Persolaise Review: Patchouli Absolu from Tom Ford (2014)
Watch out, the 70s have just walked into the room. Or have they? The first thing that attacks you from Tom Ford‘s latest Private Blend is, appropriately enough, a bell-bottom-wearing,…
Kicking Up A Stink – The Definitive Guide To The Best Oud Perfumes
Guide to the best oud perfumes by award-winning critic Persolaise (feat. Tom Ford, Amouage, Dior, Le Labo, Montale, Nicolai, Ajmal, Francis Kurkdjian)
Bring On The Bling – The Salon De Parfums At Harrods
I’m reliably informed that mere hours before its official opening, a few sections of Harrods‘ Salon De Parfums didn’t even have a floor yet. Well, someone must have worked their…
Harrods Unveil The Salon De Parfums… And Move The Roja Dove Haute Parfumerie
The Roja Dove Haute Perfumerie photographed in July 2014, a few weeks before its transformation If there’s one reason for the enduring success of Harrods, it’s the fact that the…
Prize For Byredo’s 1996 – Winners Of 2014 Fragrance Foundation UK FiFi Awards
Seeing as I provided you with a fair amount of pre-FiFi coverage, I thought I ought to give you the list of winners from Thursday night’s Fragrance Foundation UK awards…
Best Perfumes Of 2013
Don’t look now, folks, but I think we’ve made it to the end of another December. Rose-tinted nostalgia goggles aside, it’s probably fair to say that 2013 has been as…
Persolaise Review: London, Tobacco Oud, Oud Fleur & Oud Wood from Tom Ford (2013)
Back when YSL‘s M7 was worthy of the image of a naked, hairy martial arts expert, I bought myself a bottle of one of the scent’s ancillary products, a so-called…
Not A Middle Eastern Brand – An Interview With Thameen Founder, Basel Binjabr
There’s a new perfume brand at Selfridges and – surprise surprise – it hails from the Arab world… or does it? Click here to read my Basenotes interview with its…
Persolaise Review: Rive D’Ambre, Shanghai Lily, Fleur De Chine and Plum Japonais from Tom Ford (perfumers unknown; 2013)
I confess I don’t find the overarching concept of this year’s Tom Ford Private Blend quartet as convincing as last year’s. In 2012, the house released four scents under the…
Persolaise In British Airways High Life Shop
photo: Andy Barter; set design: Nick Wood Those of you hopping aboard a British Airways flight this summer may be interested to learn that the current issue of High Life…
Wrath In A Bottle – Seven Sinfully Angry Perfumes
This time, I seriously considered throwing in the towel. When Carrie asked us to pick one of the seven deadly sins for our next joint-list project, I immediately claimed ‘wrath’…
Persolaise Review: Sahara Noir from Tom Ford (Rodrigo Flores-Roux; 2013)
Is Tom Ford on a gender-bending mission? Last year he energised the masculine market with the female-friendly Noir (recent winner of the Perfume Extraordinaire award at the UK’s FiFis). Now…
Buttons, Dots And A Whole Load Of Gatsby Dresses – London’s FiFi Awards Ceremony
My FiFi evening began with a wardrobe malfunction. Just as Madame Persolaise and I were about to step onto the red carpet at the entrance to London’s Brewery, I felt…
Persolaise Review: Noir from Tom Ford + Blackberry & Bay from Jo Malone + Loretta from Tableau De Parfums (2012)
Loretta has a secret, but she hides it in plain sight. The first time she digs her claws into your neck, you experience a moment of fear, but you quickly…
Persolaise Review: L’Eau Froide from Serge Lutens + Lavender Palm from Tom Ford (2012)
When L’Eau Serge Lutens appeared in 2010, most fans were up in arms. They felt betrayed, they said, by a fragrance which seemed to fly in the face of the…