Not since Molton Brown’s Geranium Nefertum have I spritzed a scent and really really liked it. I think that my nose has gone on strike, to a certain extent – it’s not that it can’t smell things, it just doesn’t really get that excited anymore. Not much tickles my olfactory fancy. It started when I was pregnant with…
Oh, I’ve been having a right old chortle to myself over some of the stuff I’ve bought recently. Mouse-statue reading lamps and polar bear side tables and silly little notebooks with owls on them. It’s as though the part of my brain responsible for buying things has been hijacked by the spirit of a Victorian…
I appear to have developed a penchant for the sort of beauty packaging that looks as though it’s come straight from the set of an Alice in Wonderland film. I’ve become a real sucker for vintage-style perfume bottles, interesting pots, dainty tins, jars with fancy lids and anything that might look fabulous on my fantasy dressing table….
Excuse my blusher overload in this video – I got rather carried away testing that new Hourglass palette that everyone is raving about. (It’s nice, very glowy, not for everyone. God forbid any of the powders catch you around the eye area – it’s like putting a spotlight on your fine lines! Anyway, it’s not out for…
Needless to say there’s not much in the way of extreme sexiness going on behind my closed doors at the moment – I’m now at the inflated-water-balloon-strapped-to-front-of-the-body stage of pregnancy and am also permanently knackered. However, the nights are drawing in, winter is coming and all of our minds are (mostly) turned to hibernation and/or spending more…
Strange coincidences aplenty this week, one of them being that I needed an extra “something that smells of violets” for a post and along came – well – something that smells of violets. I have this odd habit, when it comes to compiling blog posts, that I can’t just ever think about a singular product;…
Some great candle sets for you here; but don’t think you can start divvying them up into little individual stocking fillers. Oh no. These were not made for sharing: they are little boxes of pure, selfish candle indulgence, each fragrance carefully chosen so that you have a kind of “scent experience” going on*. Take, for example, the Jo Malone…
I’ve sort of restyled my last gift guide video because it occurred to me that I had a million and one things to include in my Gift Guide for Girls, but only some of them were things that I would genuinely be excited to find under the Christmas tree. So this is my pick of the…
1) My friend Lauren has one of the most stylish houses I’ve ever been to. She seems to have a great eye for creating interiors that are both fashionable and homely at the same time – half Country Living and half White Cube art gallery. Very clever. Anyway, I visited over the weekend and had serious mantelpiece candle envy:…
Some gorgeously fresh and uplifting summer smells; I’ve put these items into a special box that I’m travelling about with (alongside my amazing body oil from Aurelia) so that I can create beautiful little “scent environments” wherever I go. (I still have two house moves before I can get back into my own home, believe…
Oh dear. I do sometimes think that Jo Malone gets far too much attention from me in comparison to other fragrance-makers; as a brand, they are kind of like a very cute and confident little girl that can’t be ignored. You know that type of impossibly pretty, curly-haired blonde that runs upstairs to put a tutu on…
For those of you crawling out of hibernation, having a good old stretch, wanting something fresh and light or sunny and new to scent yourselves with: my pick of the Spring Fragrances 2015. Although I have my year-round perfume favourites (Jo Malone’s Oud & Bergamot, Lancome’s La Vie Est Belle, anything dark and rosey) I do quite…
Now that’s a weird old picture, isn’t it? Sorry Jo Malone London, it does absolutely nothing to show off your splendid perfume packaging! But this post was always going to be more about books than fragrance, so in a way, the rather muddled imagery is quite apt. It’s World Book Day today. As a voracious reader (I love…
I think that the new collection from Jo Malone is just lovely; it’s called My Wanderlust and the scent combinations have been inspired by the travels of the brand’s style director, fashion stylist Charlotte Stockdale. There’s a Night Jasmine & Oregano linen spray that evokes memories of summer nights in Corfu, a Lime Basil & Mandarin “scent surround diffuser” (jar of…
Merry Christmas everyone! If you’re reading this on Christmas Eve then you’ll be feeling very festive no doubt – Christmas Eve is actually my most favourite part of the whole deal. It’s just so filled with memories of the excitement that I felt when I was little; there’s something totally magical about the night before….
I didn’t think that I’d like the Silk Blossom scent, at first; but then I had to tell my self not to be uncharitable, because for every one of these limited edition candles Jo Malone sells, they are donating the full value* to their various charity garden projects around the UK. I wrote about Jo Malone’s work…
I mentioned Marni Rose in my fragrance video a few weeks ago but at that time couldn’t find an online stockist. You might be pleased to know, if you were interested in giving this perfume a try, that it’s now available at Escentual.com. It’s an odd little number, in many ways; at first sniff it can smell…
It takes quite a lot to get me excited about a candle but this new release from Jo Malone is really worth taking a look at. It’s from the new home collection that’s been created in collaboration with the talented wallpaper and textile designer, Michael Angove. If you’ve never seen Michael’s work before then do…