There are three new-to-me scents, which I am having trouble choosing between because they are so lovely.
The first is by the Paris based scent company, Memo and it’s called Irish Leather. I met co-founder, Clara Molloy this morning chez Harvey Nichols and we had a lovely time nosing through its key notes and talking leather stories (did you know that leather gloves were once sold with scent, because the leather smelled so awful? Thats why the original glove makers were prized as highly for their perfumes as their kid gloves, hence the 17th century term Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier. It was the leather industry that gave rise to the perfumery industry – scent-centre Grasse was about leather first and perfumery followed.).
This is a new style leather scent in that it’s lighter and perkier. It has an iris note (warm, elegant), mate (from the Japanese tea – velvety – which translates to soft, clean, earthy), a leather accord. And fourth, pink pepper for a piquant kick. Three hours later and on my skin it is like soft, warmed suede gloves – elegant with no sweetness.
As Clara and I chatted and she took me through her collection (from a leather trunk, go see it, it’s in Harvey Nicks) we came upon one called Moon Safari. Interesting that its name has to change at Air’s request (it’s the name of a song by the French band for those who’re imagining elephants on the moon). It will become Moon something else – the name escapes me. Not quite so lyrical, but what’s inside is what counts.
The second is Lemon, from make-up supremo turned scent connoisseur, Mary Greenwell. If you love Ô de Lancôme (which I do) then you will love this. There is, like her first scent, Plum, something of the delicious, elegant, decadent late 70s early 80s about it. It’s filled with bright lemons, a few flowers but nothing too overtly floral, and a dry down of oakmoss and patchouli.
Third in brief and back to Memo and Inle, named after the lake in Burma. ’It is inspired by the mist as it rises from the lake,’ says Clara. Inle has bergamot, mint, osmanthus and jasmine. It is light, refreshing, pretty and delicate – kind of like gentle mist rising from a Far Eastern lake.
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