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March 16, 2012 | Puredistance MPuredistance M photographed at Kettner's by Jo Fairley on a slate tabletop Perfume doesn’t bite. It won’t kill you. So at fragrance press launches The Scent Critic is eternally gobsmacked, frankly, when fellow journalists don’t bother to do more than waft a blotter under their noses when being shown a new perfume. Fact: they’re not everyday [...]  November 3, 2011 | Clinique Aromatics Elixir Perfumer's ReserveThe Scent Critic always wanted to be older than she was. (Until recently, anyway: that ambition’s definitely lost its allure.) So, looking back, my fragrance choices were ludicrously sophisticated for a teenager. While my friends were swathing themselves in Avon Honeysuckle, my tastes were distinctly more mature – and that’s where Clinique Aromatics Elixir, currently [...] September 11, 2011 | Chanel No. 19 PoudréThe Scent Critic has experienced one of life’s little detours, and hereby apologises profoundly for a prolonged absence. The pulse-point on my right wrist, you see – not to mention the rest of the wrist itself – has for some weeks been encased in plaster, my ‘scent-trigger’ finger rendered weak and useless, too, all because [...] June 21, 2011 | Christian Dior VétiverIt’s downright weird how one fragrance can lead you to another, like a sort of olfactory tennis-elbow-foot game. The Scent Critic would have put money on Dior’s Vétiver – the second in the Collection Privée that I’ll be reviewing – taking me in the direction of, say, Guerlain’s legendary Vétiver, or maybe the bestselling Grey [...] May 6, 2011 | Hermès Eau de Pamplemousse RoseThere is a day, in early summer, known simply and jubilantly to me as ‘The Day’, when you can throw open the windows upon waking to find the world is already warm outside, with the leaves everywhere you look unfurling in that reach-for-your-sunglasses shade of spring green that’s perfect for foliage. (Though pretty terrible for [...] April 26, 2011 | Nez à Nez Atelier d'un ArtisteOnce upon a time, in her slightly misspent youth, The Scent Critic was an artist’s muse. (She is now slightly at that oh-heck-I’d-better-buy-up-all-those-nudes stage in life, but since the artist went on to become rather collectible, that’s not really an option.) What I’m leading up to is that I know only too well what the inside [...] December 20, 2010 | The 12 Scents of Christmas No. 12: Guerlain MitsoukoThis is about saving the best till last. You know, the way you leave the biggest present under the tree, to enjoy the anticipation. And so, on this 12th day of my Christmas perfume countdown, I reached for my bottle of what I consider to be my ultimate fragrance. Yes, The Scent Critic can be [...] December 7, 2010 | The 12 Scents of Christmas No. 5: Chanel No. 5Now, what else could I have chosen for No. 5 in the 12 Scents of Christmas…? But even for an old scent-hack from way back, it’s challenging to put digit to keyboard about the most famous fragrance in the world. Ever. In all of creation. Still a bestseller, getting on for 90 years since Ernest [...] October 19, 2010 | Organic Glam So OudOne of the great, magic-enhancing mysteries of the fragrance world is of course that we scent-lovers can never find out exactly what’s in a perfume. It’s Above Top Secret info, for commercial reasons. (Fragrance, unlike other areas of cosmetics, is not bound by the need to label anything but any potential allergens – limonene, geraniol [...] September 24, 2010 | Roja Dove DiaghilevIt’s not often that The Scent Critic sends another (straight) female writer into such a swoon that she all but makes a pass when getting within sniffing distance. (My colleague’s precise comment: ‘Whatever you’re wearing, it could really make me go for you…’) We have not, however, run away together (despite the fact that The [...] |
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