The fashionable colour for this year is a vibrant shade of translucent blue with deep glowing hints of mauve and amethyst. It’s the colour of early spring flowers - plants such as scillas, periwinkles, crocus, rosemary, bluebells, violets, anemones and hyacinths. All those flowers that spread like an azure lake under the trees before the boughs even come into full leaf. This is the tint of an April sky in the late afternoon after a cloudless day of radiant sunshine and early heat; of daffodil leaves and stems; of kingfisher's wings and nesting blue tits; it’s the colour of your beloved’s eyes - and it’s the colour of your spring perfume.
This heavenly blue reminds us of a CERULEAN CRYSTAL.
Your fragrance should make your spirits soar in harmony with this loveliest of seasons. Spring for many of us is demanding as well as divinely intoxicating as we try to keep pace with the explosively riotous natural world. This weird and wired mood is called Spring FEVER.
Everything is new, charged with impulses of fertility and vernal energy; the light is dazzling; the clocks spring forward; the rain seems soft and benevolent, freshening the colours of the fields and woodlands and casting rainbows across the heavens.
So! An exciting new perfume is a must for the great adventure of spring! A scent to express renewal and romance; to slough off the staleness and dark of winter and to celebrate the joys of Easter.
How to choose? As ever it depends what you are looking for.
Maybe you would be happiest with a traditional olfactory impression of spring? A delicate picture painted in perfume: “Oh! To be in England! Now that April’s there”.
We’re thinking of such beautiful creations and perennial favourites as L’AMANDIERE, EAU DE MAGNOLIA & EN PASSANT. These fragrances are like water-colours of pathways, orchards and gardens carpeted with dewy emerald grass; arbours and bowers where creamy blossoms are piled high and luminous against the sky. These scents reflect your favourite spring colours through a perfume prism of white, blue, mauve, yellow and green.
But do remember that our British springs are temperamental. We can go from icy winds and snow to fainting heat within 24 hours. And back again! Visits from the Frost Giants and the Ice Saints still manifest disastrously in the small hours. March comes in like a lamb but goes out like a lion. So don’t go for all-out cooling fraicheur, but maybe consider perfumes that reflect this contradictory ambience.
LYS MEDITERRANEE is a parterre of cool fresh green lilies - but as the scent wears on the skin a delicate and delicious sunny warmth emerges to ward off the chill. Then there’s hypnotic NARCISSE TAIJI which combines all the paradoxes of the season : the light and the dark, the fragility and the brute strength of April:- “the cruellest month”.
DON’T CRY FOR ME is very lovely. It graces the skin like a silken gossamer scarf scattered with cherry blossom petals as you sit beneath the trees. It calms you when the furore of spring is overwhelming and Nature’s demands seem too raucous.
And, on the same terms, did you ever try an iris fragrance?
Perfect for all genders, supremely elegant and unusual, iris yields the treasure of orris - that ancient precious ingredient which combines delicacy and style with a velvety powdery intimacy. IRIS EBENE explores all the intricacies of the genre, offering hints of April violets cloaked in accents of soft leather.
Don’t forget the delicious scents of a Continental springtime. Think of exquisite mimosa for instance, lighting up a chilly dawn in Rome, golden against the grey stones and silver olive trees - or ablaze against the midday sapphire sky of the Eternal City. Mimosa pom-poms fluff out like miniature Easter chicks, showering that wonderful warm pollen that is the essence of spring.
FROSTED MOON gleams with a light frosting of late snow. And if you are beguiled by the vision of petals crystallised in ice you’ll adore the Arctic poppies of ALBAURA. The mountain air and flowery pastures of L’AIR DES ALPES SUISSES and ÉNBARR make the heart sing and the blood thrill in your veins. Of all the seasons the months of spring must offer the most thrilling olfactory experiences.
Over the years Olivier Creed has become something of a master of definitive springtime scents. LOVE IN WHITE is an iconic classic of our time, bursting with youthful vigour and pristine freshness; fruity-floral accent in pink and white like buds in an apple orchard.
Now comes WINDFLOWERS, named after the tiny delicate anemones that flutter like butterflies in the April breeze. A gorgeous name for a magnificent scent with hints of orange blossom to lead you gently through Eastertide into early summer. For time never stands still and perfume never sleeps.
Les Senteurs – Dedicated to the Art of Perfumery
