Showing posts with label Houbigant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Houbigant. Show all posts

Thursday, 15 October 2020

GRAVITAS by Naughton and Wilson

Can you imagine releasing your own fragrance into an already oversaturated market? Will anybody buy it? Will the reviewers like it? These are important concerns for the large corporations that launch thousands of perfumes every year, but it’s even more nerve wracking when you’re an independent company. Someone who knows all too well about the sleepless nights is Dan Naughton, one half of Naughton and Wilson. Known to the world as YouTube’s MrSmelly1977, he launched the classically-inspired Gravitas in January 2020 and, in a world that is definitely out of sync, it provides a well needed dose of yesteryear refinement.

Monday, 10 August 2020

FOUGÈRE INTENSE by SP Parfums

The niche sector of perfumery still looks like a rapidly growing market, even in the current uncertain climate. New companies continue to appear, also vanishing with a similar speed, all hoping that they will be become the latest “new young thing.” To many it felt like a certainty that there was room for ever increasing brands but, more recently, it definitely seems like only those with dedication, talent, and drive can succeed. One perfect example of this is German born Sven Pritzkoleit. He’s once again taken the traditions of French perfumery and mixed them with some contemporary magic to create the beautiful Fougère Intense.

Monday, 6 July 2020

OLD SPORT by 4160 Tuesdays

When you buy your latest fragrance from a department store on online, you’re one of the important people that decides if the industry’s idea of what is going to be a “trend” is actually correct. They’ve got it wrong in the past, and it's absolutely guaranteed that they'll get it wrong at some point in the future, but the current explosion of fougère fragrances was definitely correctly foretold. This classic style of scent had been side-lined over the years in favour of the latest and brightest releases but they’ve recently started to fight back. One great fougère that should be in everybody’s collection is Old Sport by Sarah McCartney.

Thursday, 7 November 2019

LE PASSANT by Ormaie

The knowledge that you accumulate as you go through life is always, whether you believe it or not at the time, a valuable resource that can be called upon in later years. This can be even more useful in the fragrance industry because it gives you plenty of inspiration for creations and ideas in an arena where individuality is key. It’s this idea of translating experiences and memories into scent that has seen the launch of Ormaie, the new natural fragrance brand. Created by a mother and son partnership, it contains many jewels but Le Passant was the fragrance that immediately called to me, and I couldn’t resist.

Monday, 15 January 2018

ENGLISH FERN by Bronnley

Somehow we’re already half way through January and, as the New Year sales finally start to finish, the February fragrance launches begin to loom on the horizon. Hot on the heels of Christmas we enter the realm of the Spring scents with a promise of the warmer weather to come, but what’s available if you’ve still got a little bit of that festive money left? Well, we’re going to head back to a classic British company and a fragrance that you might have missed, English Fern by Bronnley. A staple since the 1920s, and loved by both men and women, just what makes this scent such an enduring evergreen?

Thursday, 14 July 2016

NATURAL v SYNTHETIC

Every couple of weeks you see the same topic raise its weary head again. I say "weary" because you always get the same points presented by both sides and neither will budge in their dogmatic opinion. They each try to win an argument that is fundamentally based on the misconception that natural is always good and synthetic is always bad. I've lost count of the number of times that I've heard "everything smells synthetic these days". So, for the final time, naturals and synthetics each have their own place and when used in combination can create truly mind-blowing fragrances. Still don't believe me?

Monday, 6 June 2016

STEPHAN'S SIX - ROBERT HALLMARK


A corporate solicitor is not the first person that you would imagine as the brains behind a new British beauty brand, but that is exactly what Robert Hallmark was. He trained in law, and for seven years worked in Birmingham and London before setting up Gruhme in March 2013. Now, I love his fragrance, Gruhme No.14, but I was interested to find out what led him to release that particular fresh scent. Would the answer lie in "Stephan's Six"?

Thursday, 28 April 2016

THE CELEBRITY FRAGRANCE

They arrive in a blaze of publicity and either hold onto their market share or silently disappear. I'm talking about CELEBRITY FRAGRANCES. There has been a lot of talk about the scourge of this genre recently, but in my opinion the reviewers are missing the point. The world has changed since Guerlain launched Mitsouko in 1919 and L.T. Piver gave us Rêve D'Or in 1889, not least because of the number of releases every year, so are Beyoncé and Rihanna being unfairly criticised? Let's compare a century of perfume habits and see whether twelve months might actually become the norm for a fragrance's life.