Tag: Miller Harris

On a morning such as this, bright, chilled, Spring’s promise still tightly packed up as if in an ice cube just out of the freezer, ready to plop into a long, bright glass of citrus cordial, this is the scent to sum it up.  Miller Harris Le Pamplemousse is the newest addition to the British perfumer, Lyn Harris’s repertoire.

Grapefruit is its first flush and is rich and juicy, as if you’ve squeezed a Californian pink grapefruit to its limit, zest too.  It’s the most fabulous morning tonic, which can’t help but radiate morning-time in early Spring.  The inspiration behind the scent was Marrakesh and the gardens at La Palmerale, where there are grapefruit trees.

Harris has blended grapefruit with rhubarb and green melon, which give way to orange flowers, clary sage and rosemary.  As the scent develops you get vetiver, moss and the woodiness of cedar.  It’s lovely, and would work on both men and women.

I like this idea of citrus offset with the more earthy smell of vetiver and another way to do it is by layering.  I recently tried Dyptique Vetyverio Eau de Toilette layered with L’Eau de Neroli on top.  Both of which work alone, but combined thus, become more complex and longer lasting.

Le Pamplemousse is available mid April as a limited edition, call 020 7079 1234 to pop yourself on the waiting list.

Been desperate for the newly reopened Savoy to reveal news on its spa (which is has to be developing) for an age.  As yet, no news.  I can however reveal one little feel-good snippet, which is that the French trained British perfumer, Lyn Harris will be slipping into every one of its bathrooms, and wafting her magical scent through its sumptuous, Pierre Yves Rochon interior.

She has already snuck into a swathe of hotels across the world with a cologne specially developed for said hotels.  It’s called Cologne 1888 and is a gentle, delectable, elegant thing with bitter orange, bergamot, Sicilian lemons.  Decked with heavenly herbs marjoran, thyme, basil and rosemary.  And with amber and musk as the underlying trail that makes it more serious than just cologne.

Now, with the Savoy part of the big, Fairmont hotel family, 1888 slips into the bathrooms’ soaps, shampoos and bubble baths.  And just for the dear old Savoy arrives Cologne 1888 The Candle.   It should also be making its way into Harris’s delightful shop, Miller Harris, which is at the Berkeley Square end of Conduit Street.  So, if you feel like lacing your home with a touch of old school, Savoy glamour you know where to go.

£36, tel: 020 7629 7750.

Monday 5 July 2010     Leave A Comment

Three lovely summer scents

In the heat, strong scent simply doesn’t wash – not in my book anyway.   When it’s cooler, that feeling of being enveloped by something fabulously elegant, like Tom Ford’s Arabian Wood say, is one of the lovelier things in life.  When it’s hot, they become just too well, wafting.   This is why light, citrus colognes or delicate florals (the heavy gardenia, tuberose and ylang ylang are too stifling) work.  Well, for myself at any rate.

And it’s these three I’ve been diving into as the sun shone this lovely June.  Whether July brings as much is as yet (rather chilly today) open to debate.

Miller Harris Tangerine Vert (followed on close by Jo Malone Verbenas de Provence) – bright, refreshing, this is my morning wake-up call.  Think of Sicilian green tangerines, grapefruit, lemon and marjoram.

Atelier-Flou Paradis Paradis (£115, tel: 020 7893 8797) – it’s got that lovely, fresh, bergamot top note and it has a jasmine scent, which is delicate, not in the least overpowering.  This is seriously lovely and from one of the most delightful new fragrance houses around.

Annick Goutal Ninfeo Mio – last time I wore this my sister-in-law (don’t think she’ll mind my saying) swooned.  It’s a refreshing take on fresh fig and smells to me of South West France.