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2 hours ago
8
The business of modern perfumery can stink. While I accept that the cost of everything is now troubling, large sections of the niche fragrance sector seemingly pluck their prices from the sky. It’s not unusual for a bottle costing £300-odd to launch without any accompanying explanation as to why. An unknown name, a needlessly quirky bottle, an egregious price tag – all serve to underline the assertion that this is a “niche” fragrance for people who take their scents seriously, who should be too in the know to question its calibre.
And so when I see a brand doing things honestly, authentically and with great care, I must give due credit. Essential Parfums is new to John Lewis (and available directly from the brand online) and its aim is to democratise creative perfumery. What this means in practice is an open brief to perfumers, who include such big hitters as Dominique Ropion and Anne Flipo; their total creative freedom; sustainable and mostly natural ingredient sourcing, development and manufacturing processes (using biotech, simple refillable bottles and cardboard packaging containing no glue or plastic); and a fair price – around £86 for a whopping 100ml, which, millilitre for millilitre, is less than half the cost of a pretty average designer fragrance enjoying little of the same treatment, and about a quarter of some of the nonsense I’m pitched regularly.
If 100ml seems like a gamble, founder and fragrance industry veteran Géraldine Archambault has thought of that, too: £25 buys the 11-piece discovery set of 2ml samples that I’ve been enjoying all month and which is now drained completely of Bruno Jovanovic’s Mon Vetiver, a creamy cocktail of juicy limes and wood sap with a touch of dirt to stop it drifting into shower gel territory.
Also empty is Bois Impérial by Quentin Bisch, which gives off a wooden sauna vibe and a slight but addictive whiff of Vicks VapoRub. Néroli Botanica by Anne Flipo is very pretty – an unusually melancholic citrus, as though composed in a minor key. I’m a fig fanatic when it’s carefully handled, and so I’m unsurprised by my fondness for Nathalie Lorson’s Fig Infusion, which avoids that cloying overripeness by adding sharply aromatic, sun-dried green leaves and damp bark.
I was, though, caught offguard by Sophie Labbé’s lush, green, musky Rose Magnetic – one of a tiny number of rose perfumes I can wear without feeling like forgotten pot pourri. I could go on, but I’d rather you visited John Lewis yourself to experience what integrity smells like.
