The Four Families:

Our 20 perfumes are grouped into 4 boxes, each containing 5 scent samples from each family. 

Citrus and Chypre, Florals & Fruit-Florals, 

Gourmands and Fougère & Woody.

The Scent Families

The Floral Family Box:

The most popular perfume type, incorporating a wide palate including fruity floral. Some perfumes capture just one flower, from spritz to dry-down, like Freesia. These are the soliflore. More commonly, one flower is prominent, but with complementary companion flowers: 1651 Boscobel Rose is typical. A whole bouquet can open in a flower-extravaganza, or deep, complex flowers unfold gradually. The fruit/florals either have a strong fruit accord throughout or a citrus start to a floral. 

• Interpretation

Any scent will be a perfumer’s interpretation, like an olfactory painting. Not all flowers release a scent, some don’t smell after being cut and some smell unpleasant when extracted. The flowers that don’t produce an oil we can extract are known as mute flowers. Lily, lily of the valley, magnolia, sweet-pea and freesia are all mute. In these cases we can use a mass spectrometer to analyse the constituents and use these to build a similar scent, but you are unlikely to smell a perfume made of the oil of a mute flowers. An exact copy of a flower could be dull and fleeting, the perfumer adds their scent landscape or impression, to fill out the whole flower. A single essential oil, may be made up of hundreds of compounds, but would be one-dimensional, if worn as a perfume. 

The Chypre & Citrus Family Box:  

• The Fruit Mix

This group all have has a distinctly fruity element and tend to evoke freshness and vibrancy. Aroma Borealis, contains citrus, sweet peach and succulent nectarine. Dhoon Glen  has a central vein of wild strawberries. For a fresh citrus TT  has a wide variety of fruit: yuzu, lime, grapefruit and lemon are softened by herbs and sweetened by floral notes. Honeysuckle is a soliflore, which closely matches the freshly picked honeysuckle flower: a warm orange citrus with warm floral aspects. Little Fig Tree is cleaner and greener than typical synthetic fig fragrances. The opening is green, not sweet, the heart notes contain the ripening fig, with a sweet, woody dry-down. 

The Gourmand Family Box

• The Luxurious Gourmands.

 This family evokes the sensations of warmth and pleasure associated with eating or drinking. Typically they have bright or fresh top notes, to balance the sweeter or heavier heart and base notes. Gourmands are often rich, luxurious and even decadent, but can also surprise, Ballure Allure, Under The Blue Moon, The Elder Is Also A Tree, Godred, Sheeanhas a long citrus accord before any of the berries and nuts are detectable.

Wood & Fougère family Box

 Why what you smell may not be what I smell

Gender in Perfumes and Perfume Types

When Natural means Natural.

What goes into perfume is often kept secret, for several reason, the worst is to make it difficult to discover what is in your bottle. Finding the term ‘natural’ in the description, can simply mean that the perfumer has decided the end result smell natural! The industry is improving and putting more pressure on manufacturers to be honest about how they work and what they use. If they buy in ready made accords and perfumes, to combine themselves, (like soap or candle-makers) this should be clear, and so far, it isn’t, unless the brand choose to be transparent.

The perfumery terms: Natural, Niche and Artisan Perfumers tend to refer to methods of productions - small, usually independent perfumers who have been trained to work with oils, resins, absolutes, concretes and extract from nature. Their palate often includes “nature identicals”(NI) these are compounds found in flowers and plants and can also be man-made. Most non-perfumers would notice little difference between them and naturally derived NIs can be twice the price or more, so we need a good reason to use them. We choose then as they usually last longer, they can have a better synergistic effect on other materials and often simply smell more like the natural compound. We use lab-made versions if the naturally occurring chemical comes from a plant that is either endangered or the extraction is undesirable for the ecosystem or the people working with them. Nature Identicals are not the same as aroma chemicals!

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Samples

If you’d like to try before choosing, our 5 Scent boxes contain samples of each of our 20 perfumes, so you can try before committing to a full bottle. 

Please click the link for: Perfume Concentration

Animal Testing: We have never worked with suppliers based in countries where testing on animals is legal. We are vehemently against any cruelty to animals and have lobbied for a ban in the past. It is now illegal to test on animals in most countries - in the UK and USA all perfumes are 'cruelty free' - it is not a choice, it is a legal requirement. There is no need to add this to a labe!

However, manufacturing sustainably is still a choice. We have always chosen to do it this way. We leave the lightest footprint we can and examine our practice and process regularly. First and foremost is the quality of our products and how to produce them using sustainable crops.