Perfume Articles

I have always believed that committing to a full bottle of a complex niche fragrance without a proper introduction is rather like marrying someone you have only met in dimly lit restaurants. It is a terribly romantic notion, certainly, but it is statistically fraught with risk. We are all susceptible to the grand theatre of the perfume counter. The...

Victoria Ashwood — Published March 18, 2026

A Splash of Sunshine: On the Cheerful Persistence of Limoncello in Perfumery There is a moment, after a languid dinner somewhere on the Italian coast, when the day’s heat finally begins to soften. It is then that a frosted, slender bottle often appears, containing a liquid of an almost alarmingly vivid yellow, a colour that seems to have been inve...

Victoria Ashwood — Published December 24, 2025

There is something distinctly heroic about tackling a perfume exhibition of this magnitude. One wakes up with the best of intentions, promising oneself to be selective, to take notes, and perhaps, if one is feeling particularly disciplined to limit the number of test strips tucked into one’s jacket pocket. Naturally, all such discipline evaporates...

Khalil — Published November 30, 2025

To the uninitiated, the word “musk” can be confusing. In modern parlance, it might evoke the clean, warm scent of fresh laundry or the soft, powdery aroma of a cherished cosmetic. Yet its origins are anything but clean or simple. The story of musk is the story of perfumery itself: a journey of human desire, incredible beauty, ethical reckoning, and...

Khalil — Published August 17, 2025

I often receive messages from people who are just beginning to feel the first stirrings of a passion for perfume. The sentiment is almost always the same: a mixture of excitement and sheer terror. I recall my own first forays into a grand department store's perfume hall. It felt like a magnificent, yet utterly daunting, library where all the books ...

Victoria Ashwood — Published August 17, 2025

There is a growing and often oversimplified narrative that synthetics are the clean, sustainable, and ethical future, while naturals are relics of an outdated and irresponsible past. While the innovation of aromatic chemistry is undeniable and essential, I believe this view is incomplete. It risks severing our connection to the very soul of our cra...

Khalil — Published August 15, 2025

There are certain names in perfumery that inspire a particular kind of confidence, the sort that might lead one to commit the cardinal sin of the fragrance enthusiast: purchasing a bottle entirely unsniffed. Cécile Zarokian is one such name. Her work possesses a signature richness and complexity that I find endlessly compelling. So, when I learned ...

Victoria Ashwood — Published August 15, 2025

One can hardly browse a perfume counter these days without being confronted by the word ‘Oud’. It is whispered in reverential tones, emblazoned in gold on the most imposing bottles, and carries with it a certain mystique, a promise of the exotic and the profound. For many, the journey began with Tom Ford’s magnificent Oud Wood, a fragrance that has...

Victoria Ashwood — Published August 15, 2025

There are few better reasons for a spontaneous trip across the Channel than the whisper of a new Creed fragrance, especially one as portentously named as Oud Zarian. My recent visit to Paris happily coincided with a chance to have a sniff at their boutique, well ahead of its official release on the 18th of August. One tries to walk into these situa...

Victoria Ashwood — Published August 14, 2025

There’s a particular quality to the first truly warm day of the British summer. It isn’t the brash, sun-baked certainty of the Mediterranean; it’s more of a gentle, hopeful suggestion. The air smells of damp earth finally drying out, of distant lawnmowers, and of the collective sigh of relief as we dare to put the winter coats away. It’s the season...

Victoria Ashwood — Published August 13, 2025