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May 3, 2011 | Guerlain Idylle DuetNobly (in every sense of the word), Catherine Middleton wore a British perfumer’s creation for her wedding – White Gardenia Petals by the ubertalented Michael Boadi – keeping the Union Jack flying in the same steady-handed way as she did with the choice of bubble-and-squeak canapés, the seasonal home-grown flowers, the field maples now destined [...]  April 21, 2011 | Yardley Lily of the ValleyThe Scent Critic has recently been too frantic to stop and smell the roses. (Hence the lack of postings.) To be honest, I was beginning to get worried. On a crazy-busy book tour, criss-crossing the UK, I did take with me a selection of fragrances in my suitcase, in the hope of writing about them. [...] February 22, 2011 | Hervé Leger FemmeThe Scent Critic is still having a thrifty phase. (Please note: this is because I am poised to review a £12,000 scent, so am trying to introduce a bit of yin-and-yang balance on the pricing front.) At £20, Hervé Leger Femme is around half the price of many fragrances out there, and about a fifth [...] October 29, 2010 | Peace, Love & Juicy CoutureOh, if only The Scent Critic had been born ten years earlier. How I longed to be a real hippie, tuning in, turning on and dropping out – when in fact all I could manage was wearing a groove in Scott Mackenzie’s Are You Going to San Francisco? on the record player in my still-little-girly [...] August 26, 2010 | Guerlain Idylle (Eau de Toilette)Proper, gorgeous, glamorous, grown-up, full-bodied fragrances are what Guerlain is celebrated for – and mostly, that’s what they deliver. Creations which are born, not of marketing-speak or focus groups, but because a genius perfumer, playing at his organ of essential oils and distillations, has come up with something perfect – and decided OK, it’s time [...] June 9, 2010 | Francis Kurkdjian Lumière NoirOnce upon a time, ‘noses’ were invisible. Perfumers mostly worked behind the scenes, rarely enjoying a moment of glory except in an occasional one-on-one interview with a journalist. Now, they are becoming ‘stars’ – and if Francis Kurkdjian’s name doesn’t exactly trip off your tongue then it probably should. Just yesterday I happened in Paris, [...] June 6, 2010 | YSL Rive GaucheRive Gauche is one of two ‘default’ fragrances that I switch between for summer when I am not working my way through all the most recently-launched scents – the good, the bad and the indifferent, but probably 250 in an average year, which gobbles up a lot of scent-wearing days. The black, blue and silver [...] May 31, 2010 | CalyxOne of the many sad things about the disappearance of the Prescriptives brand was the loss of Calyx: one of the freshest, greenest, light-as-a-helium-balloon fragrances ever to have been captured in a bottle. Well, it’s back, sheltering under a different part of the Estée Lauder umbrella (Aramis and Designer Fragrances). Saved for the scent-loving nation(s). [...] |
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