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I have recently come to the conclusion that flankers have been designed with one purpose: to confuse men buying fragrance for their significant others. It almost always ensures he will choose the latest launch and leave the perfume department in a confounded state. As more flankers launch, it is becoming increasingly difficult to explain them and their differences. The further explosion of launches available as Eau de Toilette, Eau De Parfum, Absolus, Eau Fraiche and so on does nothing to slow down the rate of launches or simplify things for the consumer. Especially with the new concentration quite often being a very different fragrance to the “parent” product (Chanel Chance, I'm looking at you!)

On that note, we'll take a look at the recent designer launches – dominated by flankers, with a few new ones thrown in. (Plus read on for your chance to win a prize)
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I love it when I hear people say they “love” a fragrance. Who couldn’t love a good odor vibe? The lucky of us who go searching for fragrances instead of wearing only the ones others give us know the joy; of the many scents out there, created in corporate labs, it’s a sudden shock when something seems to suddenly belong to us and fit us personally.

But there are many ways to “love” a fragrance, including learning and gaining a love for it. Best of all is that it is in the end it isn’t the scent we love, instead it’s something in us that the scent touches, and with each scent we love there’s a different thing in us touched.
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Perfume selling, like all intellectual activities, makes you famished. I have observed this closely over the past quarter century in assorted olfactory milieus. Lately I advised two young ladies of my circle to visit a certain exquisite scented boutique. They responded by post card - "The women in there were eating biscuits!" Frankly I was not surprised. The oddest juxtapositions I have known are the smoked eels (thoughtful customer's Christmas gift) on a Guerlain counter; the 5lb of home-grown tomatoes lost in Harrods - never found; and the steaming cup and saucer behind Rochas. The a l'anglaise, served on the floor, hot and strong.
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I did attend my first Sniffapalooza earlier this year and wrote about the overall experience. Now that I have had a month or so to live with the samples I acquired and the sneak previews I was given it is time to collect them all for your sniffing pleasure.

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When Mark pulled me aside at our international meeting last summer, I wasn’t surprised at what he had to say: “We have decided to close B.”

“I see,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. Perhaps he’d been expecting a stronger reaction. I had just spent a few weeks on the road, pouring my little heart out to the B Never Too Busy to Be Beautiful sales teams about the magic of perfume. “You guessed?” he said and I nodded.

“We have given it more than a fair shot. The business was never going to be profitable. It was time to do this,” Mark continued. “It’s very sad for all of us. Don’t worry though – we have plans. All your work won’t go to waste. And there’s plenty for you to do in Lush.”
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Win a sample set from Ayala Moriel! Ayala is giving away a miniature fragrance set, featuring the fragrances mentioned in the article (worth $360). We will pick a random winner from the comments for Ayala to send the prize to. (closing - end of May 2010)

Wholemeal pasta. The texture is all wrong. It is eaten by worthy, try too-hard long haired types. They are well meaning, it is true, but ultimately they are too wrapped up to know that you can eat white pasta and still get enough fibre in your diet. Some time ago, I began with an assumption that natural perfume must fall into the same category. It would be worthy but somehow stodgy. Maybe, like some whole foods, it would be full of goodness which I don't enjoy enough to use enough to benefit from the goodness. The thought would run something like this: fragrances are about smelling good, and good can be created by human endeavour as well as nature. Nature gives us clay, human beings fire the clay into bricks, and bricks build stronger houses than sticks and mud.
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Spring has sprung here in the Northern Hemisphere and that means we are seeing a number of perfumers release what they believe will be winning warm-weather fragrances. This month I’ll round-up a few of the latest releases that are ready for you to welcome the sun back into the world.
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Welcome to the return of New In Niche where we round up some of the latest offerings from the niche side of the perfumed world. The idea here is to highlight some of the fragrances from the smaller perfume Houses out there. One thing I am not going to try and do is to define Niche in this column. My rule on whether I include a fragrance is going to go like this; if it smells like niche and looks like niche, I’m going to call it niche.
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The London I know best is not the London of the glittering aisles of Mayfair or the exuberant affluence of the back streets of Piccadilly. It is the smoky grey of normal suburban streets all surrounded by four-storey modern yellow brick boxes. Here, the only building older than fifty years is the church, held one step away from tumbledown by patchwork repairs. In these environments where most Britons pass their lives, the small splashes of colour mean everything. Flowers are planted in the front gardens to claim back a small corner from the lifeless tar and concrete. The ubiquitous purple sprouts of lavender provide small clouds of aromatic respite amongst the pungent mixture of oil, refuse and human output, organic and mechanical. This world-in-a-city hosts an infinite variety of people, all unique beneath the uniform warehouse accommodation. Their clothing, adornment and decoration of themselves are as diverse as their genealogy.
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