With the current season of heartbreak upon us, I received a plea from my friend Jess. ‘My mother always buys me Margiela Replica Whispers in the Library for Christmas, but it’s no longer made!’ she moaned.
‘What can we do? How do you buy perfume for someone who may not even know what they want?
My own signature scent, Guerlain’s leathery, mossy Derby, launched in 1985, has also been retired. It was the great perfume passion of my life. I still have Chanel’s sublime Sycomore (from £215, chanel.com), a truly markedly seductive wood, to express my public self. However, my private is helpless.
Why is this happening? Perfume authority Michael Edwards is the founder of the Fragrances of the World database (fragrancesdelmundo.com). He explains: ‘I created my first guide in 1984, when only 29 new fragrances were launched that year. In 2023, more than 3,000 were launched. “It’s a cacophony of confusion.”
Many new perfumes are known as ‘flankers’: brands try to tweak and cash in on their established money makers, so your usual concoction – more rose, say, or vetiver – is available for up to 18 months. The more these fleeting fantasies are commercialized, the more beloved masterpieces will be lost.
The three main families of perfumes are: floral, oriental and chypre, writes Hannah Betts.
Or perhaps you’ve simply grown tired of what was once your olfactory obsession? You have changed, or the perfume has changed. Either way, go for it. All is not lost. Choosing a new scent is possible, even for someone else, even at Christmas.
First, determine your gender or theirs. The three main families of perfumes are: floral, oriental (musky, spicy and exotic) and chypre (citrus top notes, floral heart and mossy bottom). Within this there are infinite nuances and subdivisions.
Find out the name of something they loved to wear and look up what category it belongs to in the fragrantica.com directory. Then, research another couple’s crushes and you’ll immediately begin to discern some trends.
For example, Whispers in the Library and Derby sound similar, they are both woody. However, the former is a woody oriental, with vanilla and spice at its base, while Derby is a leathery chypre, a mossy and woody number, with patchouli and animalic notes at its base. I hate vanilla, like Jess hates patchouli, so it’s not the same at all.
If your recipient is a floral woman, does she love a bouquet or a single flower, white hothouse flowers or an English garden, something sweet, green or bright?
Try to establish other elements that make a scent work for you. Is what unites your choices that they have a dusty, old-fashioned quality or a pure contemporary transparency? Is there an ingredient that everyone shares, jasmine, say, or amber? Do they have a creator, an era or a brand in common?
The Perfume Shop has an online fragrance finder, created by Michael Edwards, at theperfume shop.com/fragrance-finder.
Type in a creation you admire and the technician will propose three other scents you should enjoy based on that preference, all available to purchase in-store. Only then, once you’ve done some research, should you head somewhere and play. Look for Liberty or the Salon de Parfums at Harrods. John Lewis offers an unconditional selection and I recommend finding a Chanel or Hermés boutique and getting lost in their specialist collections.
Experiment with Les Senteurs’ online search tool (lessenteurs.com), which will take a favorite scent and offer five alternatives from its glorious niche cornucopia of over 350 fragrances, or dive into its London store. This 40-year-old emporium refers to itself as “a place to fall in love with perfume,” whether it’s Etat Libre d’Orange, Maison Crivelli or Serge Lutens.
Perhaps you’ve simply grown tired of what was once your olfactory obsession? You have changed, or the perfume has changed. Either way, go for it. All is not lost, writes Hannah Betts
Try spills to narrow your search, applying only contenders close to your skin. And let it develop. The top notes will disappear after the first 20 minutes, the middle notes will bloom for the next two to three hours, then comes the base, which will give the fragrance its trail (or trail) for up to 24 hours.
Don’t try to replicate a lost love. Perfumes have similarities, but nothing will be exactly the same. Instead, embrace change and the opportunity to be someone (slightly) different within the comfort zone of your gender.
For once, I followed my own advice. Traditionally, I had only used the smoky, sandalwood-rich Ormonde Jayne Montabaco Intensive (from £60, ormondejayne.com) in summer, its aroma is a party in itself.
Last week, I doused myself in it for a Christmas party and I have never received so many compliments or requests for me to name a perfume. It’s that amazing: comforting, addictive, and my current scent.
One final thought: I have yet to discover a woman – or man – who isn’t seduced by Frédéric Malle’s Portrait of a Lady by Editions de Parfums (from £60, freedomlondon.com). Perhaps this is because Dominique Ropion’s 2010 modern masterpiece slips between oriental and chypre aspects (ripe, fragrantly spicy, but awash in patchouli), while boasting a glorious floral profusion of the absolute best of Turkish rose ( 400 flowers per 100 ml). Temperamental, magnificent, he is as beautiful and complicated as we are.