The NEW WAYS to fall in love WITH SCENT
Shopping for the perfect perfume is about to get a lot easier
New attitudes are making finding a new perfume fun and easy
Of all the categories in beauty, fragrance is the most magical… and the hardest to shop for. An ephemeral thing of loveliness, full of fruits and flowers, smoke and spice, isn’t easy to ask for in a crowded department store. But new attitudes – from transparent communication to online exploration – are making finding a new perfume fun, modern and easy. Here’s how…
Lost for words?
The problem with shopping for perfume has long been this: we just don’t have the words. ‘A balsamic oriental with plenty of sillage, please,’ said no one ever. (Translation: ‘a soft, warm perfume with plenty of spice, which leaves a trace once I’ve left the room’.) Yet that’s the official language of smell – some 19th-century French, a bit of marketing jargon and a handful of fragrance families no one really understands… do they?
Michelle Feeney doesn’t think so. Glossy, animated and straight-talking, she’s the founder of Floral Street Fragrances, a brand we’d describe as disruptive if it wasn’t so dreamy, where ‘Floralistas’ in Giles Deacon-designed aprons talk easily about vibrant scents with names such as Wonderland Peony and Neon Rose. ‘I just thought the way we sell perfume hadn’t come very far,’ says Michelle. ‘It’s all “notes, accords and fragrance families”. The concepts we’re asked to understand are so complicated, and because price points are high, we might only buy it once a year, which doesn’t give us enough opportunity to learn.’
Keen to give women access to fine fragrance at a fair price, Michelle opened a beautiful boutique in London’s Covent Garden (plus counters across the UK), introduced 10ml sizes for £24 and developed a new way to talk to her customers. ‘We’re about bunches of flowers, not bouquets; moods rather than fragrance families,’ she explains. ‘You don’t have to know the difference between a floral and a chypre. If I ask if you prefer your perfume “light or dark”, you’ll know what I mean.’
A digital world
‘I call it removing the mystique but keeping the magic,’ laughs Lorna Mckay, co-founder of The Perfume Society, an online portal into all things scented, including bookable events and workshops and helpful glossaries and articles about raw materials, fragrance houses and the history of perfume. A scent obsessive, her aim has always been to empower and educate. If ever you’ve leisurely browsed unattended shelves on a perfumery floor, misting your wrists from full-sized bottles, it’s Lorna you have to thank: nearly 30 years ago at Liberty of London, she introduced the UK’S first self-service perfume department, allowing customers to shop for scent on their own terms; smelling, loving, buying. She’s now doing the same in the digital sphere, encouraging women to be their own experts; a modern phenomenon if ever there was one. ‘It’s an exciting time for fragrance,’ she says. ‘Women want to know more; I can see it from the questions they ask on the website and the comments they leave. Take the perfumers. Once you understand that well-known “noses” create fragrances for many different companies, you’re already a step ahead. It’s a bit like following well-known chefs. If you learn their signature style, you’ll always know what you’re getting from their recipes.’
Here’s an example: you love the elegant baby-powder smell of Narciso Rodriguez For Her? A quick online search will tell you it was created by Christine Nagel and Francis Kurkdjian. Another click and you’ll discover that Francis Kurkdjian has his own line, and Christine Nagel now designs perfume for Hermès, including the new Un Jardin Sur La Lagune Eau de Toilette, which someone on a fragrance blog describes as ‘soft and dreamlike’. Click again and you’re at johnlewis.com, where it has five-star reviews. Pop it into your basket or pop into town for a sniff: the (educated) choice is yours.
What’s in the bottle?
If you’ve ever read an article about fragrance or listened to an expert talk and wondered what a ‘note’ is, you’re not alone. ‘I doubt many women know what “notes” are,’ says Michelle Feeney. ‘I certainly didn’t. At Floral Street, we talk about ingredients. It’s a more realistic way to describe a perfume, and also starts a conversation about what’s actually in it, how it’s made and whether the production is sustainable.’
It’s a conversation that’s been slower to open up in fragrance than in skincare or even food; perhaps because it’s hard to think of something so ephemeral being made from ‘stuff’? But it’s happening. Over on Lancôme’s website, you can find out which three female perfumers created the brand’s newest perfume Idôle and also how the petals were sourced (sustainably, by the way, as part of a Fairtrade programme that supports communities and local industry in Turkey and India) as well as how they’re processed. It’s the kind of detail smaller brands have often shared but bigger companies have historically kept behind the scenes, preferring to focus on beautifully shot campaigns and aspirational faces rather than the nature of the product itself. Now, they can’t afford not to get on board with the new transparency. It’s a thoroughly modern movement that’s transforming the way we shop… and smell.
Getting personal
Perfume designer Azzi Glasser (she’s the one you’ll see in magazines, in a chic pencil skirt and Bella Freud jumper) creates bespoke blends for musicians, artists and actors such as Helena Bonham Carter. She sees fragrance as a scented signature, as much a part of you as the way you talk, dress and move, so an appointment with her is almost like therapy, delving into your past, your loves, your quirks and character – all of which Azzi translates into smell. It’s a luxurious and personal process with a price tag to match, but for anyone not on a Hollywood budget, there’s Azzi’s off-the-shelf range, The Perfumer’s Story, which organises fragrance according to character traits. Are you charming, confident, creative or loving? Sophisticated or bohemian? ‘I use style and character as a way in, so buying a perfume is more about you than about the fragrance families or industry buzzwords,’ says Azzi. ‘Your fragrance should show the world who you really are.’
Sylvie Ganter, founder of Atelier Cologne, also encourages her customers to find their perfect scent by exploring their psyches, but through an online fragrance finder. ‘We guide people through the process by helping them tap into their emotions, but our philosophy is more about a wardrobe of scents for different moments rather than one signature scent,’ she says. ‘I wear one in the morning, another at night and a third when I’m travelling. It’s a matter of how I feel at the time.’ Having the prerogative to change your mind? What could be more modern than that.