Stephan Matthews

Friday, 31 July 2015

The Plight Of The Independent

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there was a town called "Londinium". Now, in this mystical place there were shops selling everything that a person could want. The shopkeepers knew their customers' names, their tastes, on which day the week they shopped, and never competed with each other in a mercenary way. "Competition is the way to failure. You may succeed in a sale but at the price of a friend." In 2015 this description of London is indeed a fairytale, but it doesn't need to be. At least, not totally. Come with me as I take you on a journey to see whether there are lessons to be learnt from the Plum capital of the United Kingdom.

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Sunday, 26 July 2015

The Wedding Fragrance

What will your wedding smell like? You've chosen the flowers and the venue, maybe even scented the church with a myriad of Jo Malone candles, but the most important decision is still to be made. What perfumes are you both going to choose for the big day? You're going to stand opposite each other for an hour, although if often feels considerably longer, so it would be a good start to the celebration if you liked each others' scent. There has recently been a boom in the fashion for speciality "wedding fragrances", but are we missing some true classics in the never ending quest for scented originality?

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Sunday, 19 July 2015

The Vanishing Violet

In 1964 Pete Seeger sang, "Where have all the flowers gone?" Well, for now I'm not concerned with all of them, just one. It was a staple of male and female fragrances as far back as you can remember but this treasure has now sadly fallen out of favour. I am talking about the vanishing violet. This wonderful floral adds a depth to ladies fragrances whilst emanating femininity, hints at a dangerous note in men's scents whilst softening, and in small quantities provides the finishing touch to a perfume by seemingly pulling everything together and then exploding it outwards! It is a truly magical ingredient, so where has it gone?

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Thursday, 9 July 2015

The Scent Of Moving

With a life crammed full of scents, what happens when you move house and disturb your carefully stored fragrance memories? On 3rd July 2015 it happened to me. My boxed up past became alive again, and each lid that I opened brought back a myriad of emotions. They always say that the act of moving house can be cathartic, and what I found was that every item stirred a memory, not all of them good, and each of these also revealed up a scent. When I last moved in 2003 I didn't work in perfume, I was still an actor, and I didn't "think" so much about fragrance. This meant that I didn't have such a connection with my belongings.

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Wednesday, 1 July 2015

The LYNX effect

We've come a long way since the days of Atlantis and Inca, but the 1983 phenomenon of Lynx (or Axe if you live outside of the UK) shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. Originally used with the same gusto as its older relative Brut, it was the staple of every changing room in the eighties and nineties. It's because the products were always so heavily fragranced, and were used to excess by teenagers, that the whole range still carries the unfair stigma of those early years. So, whilst it's still looked down on with derision by many people, is there a place for the Lynx body spray in the perfumed world of 2015?

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Friday, 26 June 2015

PERPHONE - Perfume with a twist

Gadgets are to the twenty-first century what the garden shed was to the twentieth, a plaything and a distraction. Never particularly useful, they always seem to be invented to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. So, it was with trepidation that I approached Perphone. It's basically a casing that fits onto your iPhone, and on the back is a small section that rotates to reveal an atomiser. Designed for the person who wants fragrance on the go, but without the bottle, it's a novel solution to the problem. Currently the male range is in black and the female in white, so pretty stylish, and it doesn't make your phone feel heavy or over-sized.

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Wednesday, 17 June 2015

The Wonderful Witch of Acton

Do you ever hear your parents' words coming out of your own mouth? It always comes as a shock when it happens, and I'm pretty sure that it starts as you approach middle-age! "Mad as a bag of snakes" ... that is how my mother would describe Sarah McCartney, founder of Acton's own 4160 TUESDAYS, and on this occasion I would have to agree. However, I say this with great fondness and admiration because she truly is a glorious one-off.

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Saturday, 13 June 2015

La Maison WORTH est de retour

The House of Worth, still most famous for the fragrances Je Reviens and Dans La Nuit, has in recent years seen the lustre start to fade on this diamond in the crown of perfumery, but could it be about to shine once more? Founded by Charles Worth, an Englishman, and his business partner Otto Bobergh in 1858 on Paris' Rue de la Paix, he was to become one of the greatest names in couture fashion, but the fragrances wouldn't arrive until 1924. By this time the company was being run by Charles' grandson, Jacques Worth, and he saw the potential for a fashion house also venturing into the perfumery market

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Wednesday, 10 June 2015

ENJOLI - A Woman CAN Have Everything

A fragrance for the modern woman who wanted it all; a career, a husband, and to still look sexy as she read her children a bed-time story. My personal experience of the latter is that you're usually exhausted and covered in baked beans! Created by Charles of the Ritz in 1978, Enjoli promised an "eight hour perfume for the twenty-four hour woman". Boasting the female ability to "bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never, never, never let you forget you're a man", the Enjoli woman allowed her husband to think he was in charge, although really she was. So, thirty seven years later, has the perfume stood up to changing tastes?

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After twenty successful years as an actor, I decided the time was right to begin a new career, and that was in the perfume industry. Scent had always been a passion of mine, and working alongside a new group of creative minds ended up being the perfect fit.

As a Brand Consultant, Evaluator, Copywriter and New Business Advisor, the variety of work is exciting, and definitely draws on my acting background. Every day brings new challenges, experiences and delights to a workplace that is crammed full of new releases, evergreens, and fading classics.

This website brings together my ramblings on all aspects of the perfume industry from bottle design to fragrance, companies to noses, and everything in between.

Opinions are my own and do not in any way represent the views of the companies mentioned. Where products or services have been provided by the companies it is stated at the end of the article.

Companies and readers are welcome to contact me by using the Send Me A Message option below.

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Friday, 31 July 2015

Sunday, 26 July 2015

Sunday, 19 July 2015

Thursday, 9 July 2015

Wednesday, 1 July 2015

Friday, 26 June 2015

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Saturday, 13 June 2015

Wednesday, 10 June 2015