Wealden Times | WT233 | October 2021 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Set to
Work
Josephine Fairley explores try-before-your-big-buy
mini fragrance collections
istockphoto.com/Alena Sattarova
It is one of the great surprises of
the pandemic that fragrances
continued to sell like hot cakes,
despite the challenges of actually trying
a fragrance on your skin, at that time.
At first, stores were shuttered. Even
when they did open up, fragrance
tester bottles were kept under lock
and key, so we couldn’t spray – and
beyond that, even sales consultants
were banned from using them on
customers’ skin. (This was despite
the fact that fragrance is, essentially,
akin to a very expensive form of hand
sanitiser, as I pointed out to a scent
sales consultant when she proffered
me a blotter rather than the longedfor
zhoosh of a favourite perfume that
I’d been looking forward to, on a rare
foray to Selfridges. It was one of the
few times during the whole pandemic
when I actually broke down in tears!)
One of the reasons that fragrance
flourished is that brands savvily
downsized their offering. And thus,
no longer do you have to buy 50ml
or 100ml sizes, to get your hands
(or rather, wrists) on a new bottle of
scent. Today, more and more fragrance
houses are offering 10ml travel sizes
– ostensibly for ease of toting around
in our handbags (now we’ve dusted
those off again), but which are also a
wonderful introduction to a perfume.
Perfume houses are also offering
‘discovery sets’, so that you can sniff
your way through an entire collection
of scents, and identify which you like.
This is something that’s
offered by The Perfume
Society, too, which until
earlier this year I used to
run; they curate a selection
of scents from different brands
around a particular theme (including
men’s boxes) – again, to try before
you buy, at perfumesociety.org.
Sample and travel sizes are a fantastic
way to build your fragrance wardrobe,
because they require such a tiny
commitment financially. When you’ve
lived with a fragrance on your skin (and
clothes – don’t forget clothes!) for a
while, you can really decide if it’s ‘you’,
and THEN you can splurge confidently.
So, I thought I’d start by sharing
some particularly wonderful sets that
have crossed my path recently…
Sana Jardin Discovery Set, £30.
Eight fabulous fragrances (2ml size),
created by Carlos Benaïm, one of the
world’s most revered perfumers, for
the brand founded by sustainability
champion Amy Christiansen, who
empowers female flower harvesters via
fair commerce. It’s a real magic carpet
ride, this box of treats, in which my
favourite is recently-launched Incense
Water, inspired by the East Asian
tradition of anointing guests with rose
water, but with an exotic finale of
sandalwood, patchouli and musk. (Sana
Jardin are among the brands offering
10ml bottles, with a cute rollerball
size available across the range.)
Escentric
Molecules
Discovery Set, £25 for 10
x 2ml. This cult fragrance name was
developed by an enfant terrible of the
fragrance world, Geza Schoen, who
bottles single, genderless molecules
that happen to have astonishing
complexity in his Molecule fragrances,
and surrounds that same molecule with
harmonising ingredients in the Escentric
fragrances. In the metallic box, you’ll
find Molecule 01 and Escentric 01, and
so on, up to Molecule 01 and Escentric
05 (which I LOVE). Google ‘Escentric
Molecules’, meanwhile, and you’ll
find countless people maintaining that
Molecule 01 works like a pheromone
and will have strangers following you
down the street, and I reckon this
discovery set might be just the chance
you need to put that to the test!
Eight & Bob Discovery Set, £20 for
5 x 2ml. These elegant, Cologne-style
fragrances are eminently shareable
105 priceless-magazines.com