Friday Favourites - Perfume Feature

Here at The Amazing Blog, we know how important a signature fragrance can be to your personal beauty routine. After you've fixed up your hair and applied your makeup, applying a bit of fragrance can be the perfect final touch to your ensemble. We all have a favourite fragrance that won't let us down, but sometimes we want to switch it up, and we're sure you do too. To give you a few suggestions for your next fragrance purchase, we've compiled our four newest discoveries that will please and entice your senses.

The new Heritage Collection perfumes from Crabtree & Evelyn are abolutely fabulous. In particular, our favourite scent was Parisian Millefleurs, which is inspired by floral scents of 18th century France. These include narcissus, rose, tuberose and violet. It comes in a simple glass bottle inside of an elegant baby blue box, which is delicately painted with fresh flowers. This fragrance is a must-have since spring is on the way. We found that it was a bit too strong to wear to the office, but loved wearing it out on dates and out with friends. It costs £31.50 and can be bought on the Crabtree and Evelyn website here.

The perfumes from Rouge Bunny Rouge smell simply amazing, plus they are vegan, phthalate-free and paraben-free. We got a chance to test out two of their lovely fragrances from the Fragrant Confections Collection. Lilt by Rouge Bunny Rouge incorporates the scents of nature, including fig leaves, peach, coconut and violet. It is the perfect balance between fruity and musky. The scent is perfect for any occasion and everyday wear. Incantation by Rouge Bunny Rouge has more of a woody scent with a hint of fruit. The smells of black fruits, fig leaves, mint and rose are infused to create a fragrance that is exquisite. You can purchase Lilt and Incantation on the Rouge Bunny Rouge website for £72 per bottle.

The Organic Glam fragrance collection from The Organic Pharmacy has created yet another enticing fragrance we couldn’t wait to get our hands on. The new scent, called Rose Oud, stands out with top notes of lemon, bergamot and lavender. Of course, notes of rose and oud are included in the mix, as well as jasmine and sandalwood. All of the scents combine beautifully to create a warm and sensual floral amber. The simple design of the bottle is classic, sophisticated and timeless, so it will look elegant atop your vanity. Add this scent to your collection and start your own fragrance love story. Pick up your own bottle here for £139, and feel the romance with every inhale of this glorious blend.

Let the As Sawira fragrance from Penhaligion take you on holiday with one simple spritz of fragrance. An exotic and sensual blend of carefully selected ingredients make this aroma a worthy scent for your vanity. The Moroccan-inspired top notes blend of bergamot, davana, saffron and absinthe had us longing for the beach. The bitter herbal notes combined with the radiant and gentle notes make for a perfectly balanced fragrance combination. With heart notes of rose and jasmine and base notes of sandalwood, myrrh and cedarwood, among others, it brings variety and offers a unique fragrance experience. Every detail of the perfume, from the scent to the vintage-style bottle, is well-thought and beautifully designed. You can get your own bottle here for £150.

Friday Favourites - Perfumes

According to some psychologists, the way we smell can alter how attractive we are to the opposite sex, so obviously upon learning this, The Amazing Blog girls decided to test a bunch of perfumes and create a list of some our favourites. A few of our top picks come from Yves Rocher, L’Artisan, Rouge Bunny Rouge, Grasse, Penhaligon, and VZ Hair and Glamour (a slimming perfume!).

The Yves Rocher Neroli Secrets D’Essences is simply gorgeous. It’s filled with botanical-based ingredients and oozes an orange scent. This fruity fragrance has a lot of personality and is a fun perfume to wear during the day to attract some attention. It’s a good choice if you’re stuck for present ideas this Christmas as it's very aesthetically pleasing. We love long lasting fragrances here at The Amazing Blog and that’s exactly what we get from Yves Rocher. The bottle base is glass and paired with a thick plastic lid, both of which are clear, giving an overall elegant design which looks lovely no matter where it sits in your house. We are drawn to the shape, it’s comfortable to hold and the lid is easy to remove. The bottle also has an added size benefit, perfect for both handbag use and bathroom. Brilliant! It’s only £20 on offer at the moment and can be found on their website.

We have tried L’Artisan perfumes before and you can read about it here. We have been impressed before and still are as they have fallen into our perfume favourites again with the La Chasse aux Papillons Giftset. The beautiful packaging is enough to make you want it anyway, you might not even need to look at the perfume. The smell reminds us of a flower garden as you are bombarded with an infusion of wonderful, exotic smells to consume. It is strong so would make a great evening perfume if you are heading out. With a sweet name like ‘Chase the butterflies’ it’s hard not to adore this fragrance. You can purchase this set for £65 on here.We also had a little experiment with three perfumes by Rouge Bunny Rouge. These have a unique smell which may be not be of interest to everyone as they do not follow traditional flowery smelling perfume guidelines. Each has a spicy aroma infused in it. The Embers scent smelt to me like cinnamon, which is an interesting one to have on the skin, making them exciting presents this Christmas if you have friends and family who like more quirky items. Being unisex sets them aside from lots of other perfumes and just brings out a little individuality and edginess.  There is also Cynefin and Silvan which are herbier, with a blend of lavender. The three scents make up the Provenance Tales collection and are each £110.09, and found on their personal webpage.

The Grasse Au Parfum ‘Sexy Party’ is another popular one with us, apart from the name which we were a little unsure about. The bottle itself is really lovely and ideally sized to have for travelling if you want. The clear bottle and black pump work well together and give the fragrance a simple yet classy feel. The smell is very fresh and youthful and offers a French countryside ambience with with its unfamiliar but charming array of smells. It’s a great daytime perfume as it lasts and isn’t too overbearing. They ship to the UK so have a browse here.

The Penhaligon Iris Prima perfume is possibly one to appeal more to an adult population. Although we don’t think this scent would be popular with teens, it’s definitely one for audiences with a more sophisticated taste in perfumes. Created by master perfumer, Alberto Morillas, you’d expect a brilliantly elegant perfume like this. The blend is inspired by ballet and you feel this through the pretty and simple charm the scent gives off. It does come with quite a heavy price tag, which again suggests it’s probably more appealing to adults but will be one that lasts as stronger perfumes don’t need as much application. Its £85 for 50ml and £120 for 100ml and you can purchase this on their website.

VZ Hair and Glamour has an interesting perfume especially designed to reduce and eventually prevent snacking and ultimately lose weight! We were instructed to apply the perfume on our wrists and inhale the scent for 5 minutes before every meal and whenever we got the urge to snack. This application can be repeated up to 5 times a day. It smells very strongly of citrus scents and if anything made us think of eating oranges rather than junk food. The jury is still out on whether or not this product will really work in the long run, but for its modest price, it is certainly worth a try if you are desperate to quit snacking. To get your hands on your own bottle of Diet Slimming Perfume then visit the VZ Hair and Glamour website where you can purchase the perfume for £22.99 for an 8ml bottle.

If you are on the move a lot, then get hold of a Travalo to make them easy to travel with. You can dispense some perfume into these little containers and keep them with you without having to lug anything heavy around. They are comfy to hold and spray easily, just what you need in your handbag.

Vaara by Penhaligon's

 

While we love young and innovative new brands here at The Amazing Blog, we know that sometimes heritage means a lot more. We are firm fans of Penhaligon’s, a London perfume house that has been around since 1870, creating beautiful fragrances. Their scents are timeless and very unique. Recently, their new fragrance, Vaara, was launched to the public, and we just had to try it out here at The Amazing Blog.

Vaara is a fragrance designed for and inspired by royalty. His Highness Gaj Singh II of the Royal House of Marwar-Jodhpur had a passion to create something that showed his love for Jodhpur in Rajasthan, and commemorate the birth of his granddaughter Vaara. Bertand Duchaufour, of Penhaligon’s, took a trip to Jodhpur to experience the place for himself, and capture the spirit of India so he could transform it into a fragrance. It is a very captivating scent consisting of a blend of Rosewater, Freesia and Peony. Overall, it is very floral, with hints of coriander seeds and sandalwood. It is a complicated scent, very sweet, but with a hint of spice. I found it quite sultry, and thought it would be the perfect fragrance for an evening out.

Penhaligon’s has some of the most iconic perfumes available in London, if not the world. Vaara is a classic scent inspired by royalty that is sure to delight the noses of many. This will make a perfect addition to any collection of perfumes, and if you are looking for an exotic new scent, this will take you on an Indian getaway. To learn more about Vaara, visit the Penhaligon’s website, where you can purchase it at £120 for 100ml.

Penhaligon's Cornubia Eau de Toilette

There are few times when atThe Amazing Blog we have the chance to review fragrances, so whenever we come across a fragrance that we adore, we just have to write about it. Let's just say that as with lipsticks, I'm very picky with perfumes. The scent has to be intense, musky and quite sweet; my best friend once told me that my perfume taste was like a granny's - its scent must be really rich. It's not that I like my perfume to be very strong when I wear it, it's just that I like full-bodied fragrances. Penhaligon's is a fragrance house that has always intrigued me everytime I walked down Regent Street - I was always tempted to pop into their shop and have a look, but for whatever reason I just didn't end up doing it. So when a package from Penhaligon's came through our office door, I had to be the one who unboxed the bottle. And there it was, Penhaligon's Cornubia - pure luxury and boldness in a bottle. I fell in love with Cornubia in the same moment that I smelled it... it automatically became one of my all time favourite perfumes. Penhaligon's Cornubia was created in 1991 - it's an oriental, musky scent comprising notes of wood, cherry-sweet vanilla and heliotrope. The fragrance is seductive, intense and dark - perfect for those of you who love to wrap yourselves in your perfume. Cornubia was chosen by the designer Meadham Kirchhoff to scent his SS13 Collection at London Fashion Week earlier this year.

Penhaligon’s fragrance bottle is simply beautiful; designed by William Penhaligon himself it's a simple yet elegant clear glass with a distinctive ribbon-wrapped top. Today Penhaligon's scents are still made in England using the finest and rarest ingredients - from hand squeezed bergamot, to jasmin at twice the price of gold. The frangrance house offers 34 unusual and distinctive fragrances, so if you have the chance visit their shop on Regent Street - at The Amazing Blog we can't express our love for Penhaligon's enough.

Penhaligon's Cornubia is available in two different sizes - 50 ml (£58) and 100ml (£80) - in our opinion it is a worthy investment.