A trip to London

My family and I went to London on Saturday, which was really a spur-of-the-moment decision, mainly just to get away from home and do something a little different for a change. 

London, as always, was extremely busy. Perhaps more so following the recent Jubilee celebrations. It was also the Queen's birthday, so the Trooping of the Colour was taking place down the Mall, so many surrounding roads and areas were closed off for the morning. My older child, Hannah, is currently learning about the Olympic Games and seeing as it is being held in London this year, she is also learning about famous London landmarks. Therefore we concentrated on walking past most of the famous sites, including Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and of course, the London Eye. 

One thing that always strikes me when taking children to London is how un-user-friendly the London transport systems are, particularly the Underground. I know most of the system was built in Victorian times but it is an absolute mission to get anywhere without a hassle, especially when taking along a push chair and two young kids of course. Transport issues aside, we had a great time and the children also enjoyed going to Hamleys, which is a very large toy department store on Regent Street. 

Of course, being in London meant that I had to pay a short visit to two of my favourite perfume stores, Les Senteurs and the fragrance section of Liberty. Whilst at Les Senteurs I picked up samples of the new Bex London perfumes, including SE1 and EC2. At Liberty I tried the new Annick Goutal, Nuit Etoilee, which to my mind is very good indeed. It is very green, particularly at the start and reminded me of the smell of a lush garden, while later it dried down to a fir balsam and pine accord, which fortunately did not recall bathroom cleaning products. My description probably doesn't do it justice, but it is very nice. I see that Liberty is now stocking Santal de Mysore by Serge Lutens. 

Later on I passed a House of Fraser store and purchased a bottle of Guerlain Habit Rouge, which was on special, for Fathers' Day I presume. It was a snap-decision purchase, although I should state that I have tried and enjoyed Habit Rouge for a long time now. As regular readers will know, I don't buy full bottles of perfume very often, and when I do, funnily enough they are almost always mainstream fragrances. I don't know why. I think the only non-mainstream bottles I own are Gris Clair and Tam Dao, and one could argue that Lutens and Diptyque are hardly niche perfume lines these days. Still, when I buy a perfume, I like to think that I go for quality and I really do think that Habit Rouge is an absolute classic. Even nicer is that I am highly unlikely to smell like anyone else in Tunbridge Wells, which is a good thing as far as I am concerned.

Another visit to London

I was in London again this past Monday. Its weird in a way, because 3 months went by without a visit to the Capital, and all of a sudden I've been there 3 times in almost as many weeks.

I had a client meeting in the City of London, in a room overlooking the massive domed roof of St Paul's Cathedral. If that isn't inspiring, then I don't know what is. Less inspiring is what has been going on outside St Paul's (and inside, but that's another matter). My American colleagues are probably not up to speed on this, but for the last few weeks, protestors have been camping outside the Portico of the church, ostensibly under the banner of Occupy London, a group/organisation/whatever that is against capitalism, primarily bankers and banking institutions. Presumably this extends to the clergy and officials of the Church of England. I don't know - I'm total apolitical, so generally don't get into this sort of thing. I only mention it because I've seen it all over the news the past couple of weeks and it was strange to then walk past the scene myself.

On my way to a training course in the afternoon, I passed Liberty and had to pop in for a while to see what was on offer. I saw some interesting perfumes. I sampled Le Labo's Poivre 23 and Santal 33, both of which are very interesting, but I preferred Santal 33. Poivre 23 reminds me, mainly in the dry down, of a more peppery Patchouli 24. Santal 33 is compelling. I can't say why, but it just grabbed me for some reason. I'm not even sure that it smells so much of Sandalwood, but it smells good anyway.

I also sprayed numerous perfumes on scent strips, including the new Blood Concepts (O, A, B and AB). I don't know what it is about these, but they strike me as being very much like something Comme de Garcons would try release. They have that sort of vibe, in my opinion.

I also looked at some of the Prada exclusive collection, such as Cuir Amber, Oppoponax and Benzoin. They smell decent, but I'm not sure I would pay those prices for what are essentially quite straightforward single-note perfumes, no matter what the quality. Not easy to test on a strip either once the bottles are quite empty, as there is no applicator; the bottles look like  apothecary  bottles.

I ended the day having dinner with two old friends and it was good to catch up, but they are going through quite a tough time in their lives, not relationship wise though. I hope they come out well the other end in time...

London and the Roja Dove Haute Perfumerie

Last Friday I spent a day in London, mainly visiting and browsing a number of perfume 'shops', for want of a better word. This was a little treat to myself. Usually I only get up to London these days for work-related courses, squeezing in a hurried half-an-hour or so to pop into Liberty to spray on a few fragrances. As I was on holiday last week, I left the family behind (selfish, I know) and treated myself to a unhurried stroll through the grimy streets of the Capital. I used to live in London and worked in Piccadilly and later around Victoria Station. I started my day by strolling across St James' Park to the Army and Navy Stores in Victoria Street, now sadly just another outlet of the better-known House of Fraser chain of department stores. I think Army and Navy sounds much better - I can't remember which novel it was, but Graham Greene refers to this very store as does Somerset Maugham. Anyway, as far as perfume goes, this store has a decent, albeit fairly bog-standard selection of fragrances. I had bigger fish to fry, so after a quick stop at the wonderful Neo-Byzantine Westminster Cathedral, with its quirky red-and-white-brick towers and domes, I headed on to Elizabeth Street, in the heart of Belgravia. 

Belgravia is the preserve of new money mostly from the east, including Russian and Chinese billionaires who have a few spare million pounds to blow on a modest little pied-a-terre in Eaton Square. Elizabeth Street is home to the wonderful Les Senteurs, which stocks a brilliant selection of niche perfumes. As I've blogged a couple of times before about this perfume store, I won't go into much detail here, suffice to say that as usual, they were more than happy to decant some perfume samples for me. This is the one place in London that will literally offer to give you samples - in the big department stores you'd literally have to sell your mother to get even a sample of the most dreary recent release, in my experience. This time I picked up samples of Parfum D'Empire's Eau Suave and Fougere Bengale as well as three from the Parfumerie Generale line, Corps et Ames, Leau Guerriere and Harmatan Noir. I haven't tested any of these yet, but on paper Fougere Bengale initially reminds me of Arabie by Serge Lutens, with a weird curry note, while Corps et Ames smells like a very smooth, sophisticated chypre. Harmatan Noir is a curious, minty blend. Full reviews will eventually appear here at some point.

I wandered further up into some seriously hot retail districts, heading for Lowndes Street, where one can find the newly-opened Amouage boutique. I am a huge fan of Amouage and was thrilled to be able to visit. I am very familiar with their regular line, but my reason for visiting the boutique was to check out the attars, some 12-16 of them! The sales assistant was very friendly, but explained that he couldn't allow me to buy any attars that day as there have been recent complaints of skin irritations. Needless to say, I couldn't remotely afford to buy one of the attars anyway, but I bravely put on my most disappointed face - when in Rome (or Knightsbridge) do as the Romans do I say. He did provide me with paper strips dipped in a few of the bottles though - two of them were Tribute and Homage, both lovely, while the other two were Badr Al Badour and Al Shomuk. The intensity of these attars is quite astounding and  intoxicating. If only I had the bucks.... If any of you are ever in London, do look up the Amouage store. It is beautiful and the products are set out wonderfully. Incidentally, I also got to have a sneak-preview sniff of the latest release, set for the end of the month. Memoir Man and Woman are being released soon, inspired by Baudelaire, it is claimed. As I only smelled the men's version on paper, I can't quite comment yet, suffice to say that to my nose it represents a bit of a departure for Amouage. It's smelled quite leathery and woody, with a tinge of vetiver. I'm really looking forward to trying both of these at the end of the month.

My next stop on my perfume itinerary was that glitzy, gaudy temple of kitsch, Harrods. Not usually my favourite place, Harrods holds my interest a bit more than it used to since I became  more interested in perfume. It has a wonderful range of perfumes, not least the Roja Dove Haute Perfumerie on the top floor. The amazing thing is when you walk through the main perfume hall at Harrods, you are assaulted by a legion of spritzing sales associates. It represents my worst nightmare - I hate browsing knowing that every one of those people are bearing down on me, with the sole intention of making a sale. I did try a few of the Tom Ford Private Blends, namely Tuscan Leather, Arabian Wood and Oud Wood. To be honest, the only one that made sort of an impression on me was Oud Wood, which smelled very nice. The  other two were very subdued and fleeting really, considering their premium price tag. Once I eventually made it to the Roja Dove room at the top, it was like entering another world. I've got a picture of the room at the top left, which is a sanctuary of perfume like none you have seen before. These days I am quite used to visiting high end perfume shops and trying niche perfumes, but I was blown away by this place. Seriously. If you are ever in London, this is a must-stop, please. I was befriended by a charming man, whose name I can't remember, unfortunately (it wasn't Roja Dove...) and he must have spent about half an hour showing me around, allowing me to sniff various perfumes and explaining the origins of some of the more obscure stuff. This is not an exhaustive list, but some of the perfume contained in this one room includes the Caron Urns, Clive Christian (obscene), Xerjoff, Tom Ford Private Blend, Molinard, Amouage, Roja Dove, Guerlain, Creed, Jean Patou, Grossmith, Profumum Roma, Teo Cabanel, Puredistance, Mona di Orio, Pierre de Velay and Robert Piguet. The lovely thing is that many of these lines include the harder-to-find concentrations and some vintage formulations as well. I was particularly taken with Pierre de Velay, a line that Roja Dove apparently stumbled across in Grasse, managed to buy the formulas and tweaked them for modernisation (ie read exclude oakmoss). Most of these are gorgeous, warm chypres. My 'guide' also allowed me to sniff one of Roja's own chypres (no 5 I think) - preformulated and then the modern, no-oakmoss version. The amazing thing (and this is the first time I have experienced the effect of the oakmoss debacle firsthand) is that the older version, with real oakmoss, smelled totally different to the reformulated version. They literally were different perfumes. While the new version smelled slightly thin, fruity and almost fresh, the old version was peppery, warm, velvety and enveloping. Honestly, it was a real eye opener to me. I also got to smell the new Molinard single-note oils, trying the sandalwood, amber and musk oils, as well as the crystallised rose. This sounds weird, I know, but the assistant had to scrape out some crystals from the vial with the wand and smear them onto a paper strip for me. But the smell and potency! He did warn me. I have never smelled such an intense and forceful rose absolute note before. It literally made my eyes water. Five days later and the strip now smells of exquisite rose!

The rest of my day was spent popping into my favourite haunt, Liberty, where I tried the new L'artisan Coeur de Vetiver Sacre, on skin. I'm not sure what to say about this one. It's intriguing, and unlike any other vetiver perfume I've come across. I really need to try this again to do it justice. For ages it did not even smell like vetiver to me. Strange, but beguiling.

Finally, I spent a calm half an hour in the National Art Gallery in Trafalgar Square, enjoying some peace, before I got on the train and made my way home to the rather more mundane realm of West Kent. It was a thoroughly exhausting, yet fascinating day.

Another visit to Liberty

I have been away for a few days again seeing a client down in Bournemouth. For those of you not familiar with the UK, Bournemouth is a previously genteel seaside resort in Dorset, which is a county sandwiched between Hampshire to the east and Devon to the west. Probably not the information you were anxious to read, but there you have it. I usually travel there by train, which necessitates a change in London. It's a long journey from where I live, but it does mean I can, if I wish, stop in London on the return trip and visit some perfume haunts. You may recall a post last month where I visited Liberty, the department store just off Oxford Circus, and pictured above left. It's a lovely building, but don't be fooled: as quaint as it looks, it isn't a period Tudor building at all, but was actually built in 1924 using the timber of ships. Nevertheless, it is a quirky store full of little rooms and antiquated chambers, a gorgeous wooden staircase and a lovely gallery at the top. It's worth a visit just for the architecture and curiously old-fashioned feel of it. One thing that is certain is that its merchandise is not out of date or old-fashioned; and the perfume selection is excellent. What I also like about Liberty is that its sales staff do not hassle you. They are quite content to leave you to browse, but if you require assistance they are more than willing to help. I can't say that it is very easy to come by samples though; I've only ever had success at the Diptyque counter. 

I tried quite a few perfumes this past Friday, almost all on paper, so any opinion I've formed is very much a first impression. I'll list them briefly.

Diptyque Vetyverio - this is ok, but has that typically light and understated feel that I find very common in the line. There is vetiver in this, but it is quite subdued and a little nutty/sweet. If you are looking for hard-core vetiver I would suggest moving on to the Frederic Malle counter to try Vetiver Extraordinaire.

L'Artisan Dzhongha - I tried this one on skin. Many of the line have less-than-impressive longevity, but Dzhongha lasted through two showers on my skin and was rather tenacious. It is an incense and tea fragrance, a little smoky and even floral. I was surprised by how sweet it wore on my skin too. In a way I kind of prefer it to Timbuktu but that sweetness does leave me feeling a little unsure.

Escentric 01 by Escentric Molecules - I'm sorry, I can't believe this is actually a perfume. Are they really selling water instead? I don't often say this, but this is a waste of shelf space. I think I have a relatively decent nose but I could not smell this one at all. It was literally fresh air on my skin. Honestly. If any of you have tried this, I'd love to get your take on it. Astounding, not in a good way.

Etro Shaal Nur - I quite liked this. A fairly approachable incense fragrance, perhaps a little sweeter than I would have liked but much easy to cope with than the gothic rising-damp monster that is Messe de Minuit, by the same line.

Comme de Garcon Ouarzazate - another incense, which I'm sure is no stranger to some of you, being one of the five in the incense series. It's not as severe and churchy as Avignon, and again, I quite liked this. It wasn't too sweet, and had a bit of a spice and tea accord which with the incense is contemplative and calming.

Maison Francis Kurkdjian Cologne Pour le Soir - I haven't been a huge fan of Kurkdjian in the past, even though I do acknowledge his brilliance, but this is the second in this line that I've tried and it is good. It's a sort of rose-and-light-spice-with-amber/vanilla cologne, not too light but at the same time not at all heavy. It's been composed with a deft touch and is quite interesting for a cologne.

Parfums D'Empire Iskander - it's been quite a while since I tried one from this line, having sampled Ambre Russe and Cuit Ottoman in the past. Iskander is pretty much a slightly aromatic fougere, with predominantly citrus and moss and musk. It's very much in the style of De Nicolai's New York, I think, without the lavender. 

Parfumes D'Empire Equistrius - this is apparently an iris-based fragrance, which it may well be, but iris wasn't particularly evident on a scent strip. The opening was very similar to Ambre Russe I thought, with an alcoholic vodka-like note. Later on it smelled quite ambery to me. It is different and I wouldn't mind trying this on skin next time.

Well, that's about it, I think. Not proper reviews I suppose, and like I said, most of these were only sprayed on paper, so perhaps development on skin would be quite different. I think one thing this blog post hopefully shows is how good a range of perfumes Liberty stocks. I have listed the main players in my previous Liberty post, which can be read here.