Perfume Tour, or Love to Smell Live, 2016 Edition

Penguin burlesque at Bloom Perfumery (representing the ‘daring’ fragrance cabinet, according to the store).

Ever since 2009 there has been a bit of a tradition of a ‘Smelly, Cakey Perfume Meet’ (as it unofficially became known) – the first one was a Basenotes meetup which I helped co-hosted with Grant and Dani and it was such fun that I started arranging tours (almost) every year since. I actually met Nick at the first one, and he has helped co-host the last couple because they’ve been steadily getting bigger. They’re no grand affairs. There’s no ticket price, no formal invites; we all know each other and the theme is very much “we all love fragrance” and that’s a great equaliser – every year the group is a fantastic mix of people.

Since Nick and I have been running our YouTube channel for a few months now, we called this year’s tour “Love to Smell Live” and took some video footage of the day (which you can check out below, though expect a very ‘found footage’ style video rather than high production values).

You’ll find links to blogs written by others about the day in the video description.

I’ve gathered some photos of the day here for your enjoyment and would like to thank everyone who came to have fun with us – I’ve said it many times before and will say it again here – one of my favourite parts about fragrance is smelling things with other people and comparing notes. Smelling through other people’s noses is a fab way to learn more and a great source of entertainment, too.

We visited Fenwick of Bond St, Lalique, By Kilian, Miller Harris, Bloom and B Bakery. Thank you to everyone who hosted us (officially and unofficially).

Ruth took us through her fragrances and had brought along two raw materials to smell, too.

Some people couldn’t smell Javanol.

Fenwick of Bond St were kind to let a group of over 20 people spend a morning occupying their perfumery department.

The cheeky cherub at Zadig & Voltaire. We’ll be reviewing these scents soon at Love to Smell.

Chanel wasn’t part of our official route, but we had some free browsing time at Burlington Arcade, so some of us popped in to shop.

The brand new (2 days old at the time of our visit) Lalique boutique were very welcoming and took us through their brand history. It was the highlight of the tour for many.

Just one of the enormous flower displays at Lalique.

Lalique is more famous for its glass and crystal than for its perfumes, but the fragrances deserve a bit of attention.

Everyone adored Frederick.

We smelled the new fragrance L’Insoumis which had not officially launched yet. A very interesting herbal accord.

We stopped at By Kilian, too, and were shown several fragrances, plus their scented jewellery and candles.

Davina looked after us very well.

This perfume smells of liquorice…

It’s still a Cakey meet as well… so we had afternoon tea at B Bakery, Covent Garden.

Here are some photos from two of the members of our group this year:

Phoebe’s gallery:

Laurin’s gallery: