London Trip - non fragrance photos

Wearing my River Island pink fluffy coat, Topshop roll neck jumper and Topshop dungarees. 

A road off the King's Road

& Other Stories

Liberty

The new Kate Spade shop - Regents Street

Anthropologie window - Regents Street

Fortnum & Mason tea display

Laduree - Burlington Arcade

Powerpuff Girls bags - Selfridges 

Sophia Webster bag display - Selfridges

Le Labo - a great concept!

Whilst I was doing some research in London, my group and I decided to go to Liberty's. When we were there, we went to the Le Labo concession. I did not know much about the brand but I had seen their simple bottles before. The fragrances on offer were lovely and sophiscated and I loved the concept of the brand. 

The fact that each fragrance is made there in the store for you is amazing. You get to watch the fragrance you will be wearing being made in front of you. 

The packaging of the fragrances are very simple with a table with typewriter typography on the label. The brand believes that the fragrance inside the bottle is more important than the packaging. I think this is so true and the packaging looks quite rustic that I would happily have on my dressing table. 

What is interesting is that Le Labo has been established for 10 years but has gained a lot of publicity and popularity over the last couple of years. 

Soraya x 

Photo Credit: Me

London Trip with the FCP girls

Yesterday our course took a trip to London to do some primary research for our fragrance module. My day started early with a 5am alarm going off! As I live in London, I knew my way around the beautiful city. Here are the places I went in pictures!

Frederic Malle

Fortnum & Mason

Le Labo - Liberty's 

The Burlington Arcade

Penthaligon's 

Selfridges

Soraya x 

Photo Credits: Me

Making our own fragrance

Last week we were lucky enough to have a guest lecturer - Karen Gilbert, a perfumer. She took our 9am lecture, which was rather technical, learning about how fragrances were created with different types of top, middle and base notes. Interestingly we were told that there is a lot of creative license when marketing a fragrance. Usually males fragrances are fresh, spicy, herbal or woody and female fragrances are mainly sweet, floral, powdery and fruity. 

Later that day, we had a fragrance workshop with Karen. I wasn't quite sure what to expect; but I certainly didn't expect to create our own!

The process of our fragrance making was to come up with a story within our groups. My group decided to create a wardrobe fragrance. The woman that would use the fragrance would be an ordered woman who treasures and takes pride in her wardrobe. Possibly someone who orders her clothes in colours. It would be her social area when her friends come over. A Carrie Bradshaw/ Serena Van Der Woodsen/ Blair Waldorf kind of woman. This girl loves luxurious and exclusive products. Competitors to this fragrance would be Jo Malone and The White Company. Both of these brands have simple and clean looking packaging. 

After creating our fragrance story we started using our noses!

Step 1 was to choose the heart notes, the character of the fragrance.

e.g. iris, rose, jasmine, orchid, spicy, narcotic, muguet, citrus and herbal

These were our base notes. We chose , which were orchid, muguet and jasmine. 

Step 2 was dressing the heart notes up with the accessory notes. These were to enhance your fragrance. We chose Vanilla as it was lovely and sweet. 

Step 3 was making the fragrance last with fixatives. The fixatives shouldn't overpower the character. We could choose 1 to 2 fixatives. We had musk and mossy as our options . We decided to go for mossy as it was fresh. 

Step 4 was blending the rough edges together. These were the harmonisers. These add the magic sparkles and smoothness. These were 1 to 2 materials. My group decided to go to Iso E Super. It was quite strong but it was also fresh. 

This was such an amazing experience and a great insight into the perfume industry. 

Soraya x 

£300 Alexander McQueen Perfume!

On Tuesday, Alexander McQueen's new luxurious fragrance was put on the market . McQueen, Parfum for Her is exclusively sold at Harrods for £285 for 50ml. McQueen is one of the few European luxury brands currently without an existing perfume business. The luxurious fragrance was developed and distributed by P&G which makes you question why is 50ml's so expensive! The packaging of the bottle is absolutely beautiful with the glossy black bottle with gold feathers crowning the bottle which reflects the bespoke craftsmanship that is pure McQueen. 

Harrods describes this luxurious fragrance for the woman who blooms at dark, shown by the bottle. It is inspired by classic perfumes with strong floral signatures, the fragrance takes a rich, vintage spirit and gives it  stunningly modern architecture. I can't wait to go to Harrods to smell this luxurious fragrance!

Soraya x

Photo Credits: Harrods, Alexander McQueen