The Slow Burn – Top 10 Best Tobacco Perfumes
Persolaise Smoking may be a socially dubious activity these days — and rightly so — but there’s no doubt whatsoever about the allure of tobacco perfumes, which is why I featured…
Serge Lutens
Top 10 Best Perfumes For Winter 2025 – A Light In The Darkness
Perfume as a light with which to combat the darkness — that was the theme of my latest seasonal Top 10 broadcast, in which I presented my scented recommendations for…
Serge Lutens Bois Roi D’Agalloche, Zurafa, Sidi Bel-Abbes, Tarab and Cracheuses De Flammes reviews (Christopher Sheldrake; 2015, 2020 and 2025)
– Reading between the lines, it would seem that Royaume is the brand’s update of the Section D’Or range, which launched in 2014 to loud protestations about its exorbitant price…
Scents For Classic Halloween Characters – Top 10 Perfumes For 2025
For this year’s Halloween list, I paired perfumes with some classic costume ideas, and enlisted a bit of visual assistance from Google Gemini. Here’s a link to the video: Top…
Top 10 Perfumes For Autumn 2025 – Celebrating Simple Pleasures
Regular readers and viewers invariably tell me that autumn is when they enjoy pulling out the more baroque scents in their collections: the rich, Mitsouko-esque chypres, the darker florals, the…
Chanel Chance Eau Splendide, Serge Lutens Le Perce-Vent, Puente Aurora and other reviews – 2025
Chanel’s Chance range – the most insouciant in its portfolio – welcomed a new member a few weeks ago: the purple-hued Eau Splendide. I reviewed it in a recent set…
Top 10 Perfumes For Spring 2025 – Scents Of Peace
It feels as though peace is in short supply at the moment. And although it’s probably safe to predict that no perfumers will be winning any Nobel prizes any time…
The Top 25 Perfumes Of The 21st Century… So Far
As 2024 came to an end, many of you asked if I’d compile a rundown of the best perfumes of the decade so far. I found the idea appealing —…
Balmain and Bottega Veneta 2024 re-launches, Dior Tendre Poison and Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist reviews
The gremlins were out in full force for this year’s final set of Love At First Scent broadcasts. The audio at the start of one of the videos turned out…
Top 10 Perfumes For Halloween 2024 – Scents Of Darkness
It’s that time of year again when demons, witches and goblins take over the world. I’ve never been one for ‘celebrating’ Halloween, but as you know, I can’t resist a…
Top 10 Perfumes For Autumn 2024 – Scents To Bring Us Together
If all the spam advertising emails are to be believed, autumn is the time for curling up on a sofa with a warm blanket and a mug of hot chocolate.…
Serge Lutens Point Du Jour, Penhaligon’s The Dandy, Akro Smile and other reviews – 2024
Given that Love At First Scent has been off the air for several weeks, it was perhaps appropriate that the first post-summer review was of a scent inspired by daybreak:…
Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan Review – The Favourites – Christopher Sheldrake; 1993
— I’m pretty sure our first encounter was at a perfumery in Nice. It was part of a large Lutens display — an austere assembly of those slim, rectangular bottles,…
Top 10 Perfumes For Summer 2024 – Energising Scents
As I type these words, the summer solstice is just a few hours away, which means it’s the perfect time to present my latest seasonal list: Top 10 perfumes for…
Top 10 Tuberose Perfumes — All Our Favourite Divas
It was time for a bit of diva domination over on YouTube the other day when I presented my list of the Top 10 best tuberose perfumes — a compilation…
Chanel Comete, Frederic Malle Acne Studios, Serge Lutens La Fille Tour De Fer reviews – 2024
It was time to roll out the big guns over on YouTube the other day, with new releases from Chanel (Comete), Frederic Malle (Acne Studios) as well as Serge Lutens…
Hermes Oud Alezan, Diptyque Do Son and other reviews – 2024
It was a mix of old and new (in more senses that one) over on Love At First Scent the other day, when I reviewed the latest addition to the…
Top 10 Perfumes For Valentine’s Day 2024 – Paint The Town Red!
For this year’s Valentine’s Day list on Love At First Scent I decided to take a synesthetic approach and present a rundown of the Top 10 perfumes that evoke the…
Top 10 Baroque Perfumes – Rich, Detailed, Ornate Scents
Few things can dispel the winter gloom as effectively as perfume — especially if you choose a scent that’s distinctive, dramatic and full of striking contrasts. A Baroque perfume, you…
Top 10 Best Perfumes For Winter 2023 – Scents Of Timeless Wisdom
Everyone needs a Gandalf in their life. Or an Athena, or an Atticus Finch. Sadly, such figures aren’t always easy to find, so perhaps that’s why I’ve recently been drawn…