AS WE are enjoying a summer reprise, we have picked for you a delightful selection of some summery scents – featuring British independent perfume houses; mother and daughter-led brands; companies founded by friends; perfumes that create fabulous imaginary worlds, as well as beautiful green verdant and floral scents – and one with a special regal twist.
Chanel, Coco Mademoiselle Hair Perfume
£57 for 35ml – Buy here
Perfuming your hair is a great way to amplify your favourite scent. Chanel has recently launched Coco Mademoiselle in a special lightweight formula specifically designed for hair.
The travel-sized hair perfume riffs on the softer and lighter notes of the original Coco Mademoiselle – created by master perfumer Jacques Polge – bringing out the fragrance’s orange blossom, jasmine, patchouli and vetiver tones. It is also enriched with a protective emollient so the scent doesn’t dry out your hair – you can wear it alone or with your favourite formulation of the perfume.
Guerlain, Jasmin Bonheur
£290 for 100ml – Buy here
Composed by top perfumer Delphine Jelk and part of the house’s premier L’Art & La Matièr line, Jasmin Bonheur was inspired by the incredible colours used by artist Henri Matisse. “I rendered this white flower in joyful colours to create a beautiful fragrance of jasmine, just as Matisse interpreted happiness in a masterful way,” says Jelk.
In Jelk’s masterful, highly skilled and sophisticated hands, Jasmin Bonheur is a subtle, very wearable triumph. Suffused with perfectly balanced high-quality jasmine, orange, apricot, violet iris and rose, Jasmin Bonheur is a charming delight and one to savour for spring and beyond.
Roos & Roos, Malamata
£110 for 100ml – Buy here
Roos & Roos is a French perfume brand established by a mother and daughter team, the mother being Chantal Roos, a legend in the fragrance world, having launched to the market blockbusting scents such as Opium, Kouros and Paris for YSL and L’Eau d’Issey for Issey Miyake, and who has now teamed up with her daughter, Alexandra.
Created by another fragrance legend, Dominique Ropion, Malamata is a recent perfume from Roos & Roos and is a member of the house’s Les Simples collection, named after the medieval practice of growing a “garden of simples”, or a medicinal garden of – sometimes rare – aromatic plants for healing.
Fresh, sunny and verdant, the one-of-a-kind Malamata includes some unusual perfume ingredients like nettles. It also features peppermint galbanum, mastic tree and violet leaves and rose, lily of the valley and green vegetal notes, sage and wormwood in its heart. Hay, patchouli, ambergris and musk accord form its base.
Aubine, To The Fairest
£85 for 85ml – Buy here
From the independent British company, To The Fairest, founded by fashion expert Rebecca Rose along with perfumer Penny Williams, who both wanted to create perfumes for imaginary characters and landscapes.
The floral and dreamy Aubine (a French name meaning “dawn” or “light”) evokes a light-filled daybreak – softly and gently – and is composed of gardenia, frangipani, orange blossom wood and frankincense ingredients. It is perfect for a spring day.
Altra, Dualist
£168 for 50ml – Buy here
Altra is a new British perfume house with a formidably admirable commitment to sustainability. For instance, its sleek, elegantly twisted glass bottles are infinitely refillable; the box the perfume is packaged in is made from a single piece of 100 per cent recycled paper; and each perfume is presented in a refill flask made of recyclable aluminium in a compostable plastic-free pouch.
Now to the perfume – part of its Future Florals Collection, Dualist, as you might suspect, riffs on olfactory juxtapositions.
Featuring mimosa, solar accord, violet leaf, galbanum resinoid, blonde woods, soft and white musks, it is “fresh and dark, light and warm. Crushed green leaves and subtle aquatic notes reveal a dewiness intrinsic with cool shaded concrete,” say the founders. Altra takes you to another dimension.
Ella K, Camelia K
£199 for 100ml – Buy Here
Launched this year, Camelia K comes from French house Ella K founded by perfumer Sonia Constant, who is also the nose behind the range. She also uses head space technology to make her perfumes. The house is named after Ella K – an imaginary figure inspired by female explorers such as Karen Blixen – and embraces the spirit of adventure.
Constant says Camelia K, was inspired by a trip to Vietnam where her “eyes caught on a wild red camelia (camellia) with its scarlet petals, I was overwhelmed … To highlight this floral, humid bouquet, I combined it with the glow of a bergamot and with clean fresh facets. In addition, the sweetness of vanilla and tonka gives this floral fragrance a sensual effect.”
&Other Stories, Moon Fiction
£29 for 50ml – Buy here
Created by leading French perfumer Jérôme Epinette – the brilliant nose behind numerous highly successful scents for Byredo, Atelier Cologne and Frapin, among many – the intriguing eau de toilette Moon Fiction offers you incredible value for money while smelling rather deceptively expensive.
Infused with bergamot, lime, ginger, peach and amboxan, sugared musks, sandalwood, it contains rich and warm wood and fruit accents, which are beautifully balanced with hints of musk.
Penhaligon’s, Highgrove Bouquet
£155 for 100ml – Buy here
Noted heritage British perfume house, Penhaligon’s scent, Highgrove Bouquet, is created in collaboration with King Charles III’s country estate of the same name, and is a celebration of its gardens. Inspired by the plants grown there in spring, in particular the weeping silver lime tree, Highgrove Bouquet includes silver lime, mimosa, geranium, lavender, hyacinth and cedar.
It smells like “earthly sunshine”, according to King Charles. Highgrove Bouquet was made using headspace technology (in which a specially designed glass dome captures the scent of its environment by deploying a technique called gas chromatography-mass spectrometry). Highgrove Bouquet is intoxicating – green, floral, powdery with animalic undertones.
Ten per cent of its sales will also be donated to The Prince’s Foundation.
Fiori, Nancy Meiland Parfums
£130 for 100ml – Buy here
The latest fragrance from Sussex-based perfumer Nancy Meiland, Fiori is inspired by Meiland’s visit to Tuscany. “Something about the landscape liberates you and once again, I fell quickly into its thrall,” she says.
Fiori evokes glorious warm and sun-filled skies and sweet breezes with notes of petitgrain, mandarin, honeysuckle, crushed figs, jasmine sambac, cinnamon bark, Haitian sandalwood and Indonesian vetiver. I am looking forward to wearing this all spring long.
by Caroline Simpson