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The post strike here in London has left me without perfume for over two weeks now. I am still waiting the delivery of one of my birthday presents. Its no good all the while it's stuck in some local sorting office. Since the only scent left in the house is my four year old daughter's Barbie perfume I am now craving chypre. My friend Andrea gave me a tester of the new Prada L'Eau Ambree. It's very nice, woody and on my olfactory wavelength and was even admired by the chap working the till at the BP in Greenwich. Although perfume I feel should come from a fragrance master or one of those philosophical and sensitive types that have graduated from the art of perfumery in Grasse and that have their own brand to develop and create without constraints .
So whilst doing a trolley dash through Liberty the other afternoon I made a beeline for the fragrance room to spritz up and check out a new brand in store.
Francis Kurkdjian has been producing custom-blend fragrance since 2001 and has worked and created perfumes for Acqua di Parma and Guerlain to name a few.
My favourite in his pret-a-porter collection was Lumiere Noire. Fragrance notes include spicy rose, patchouli and daffodil. Hours later on my coat the drops of fragrance developed into a warm and rich smell. It brought images to my mind of how a bourgeois woman of Rome might have smelt in the early eighties.
I wonder what the sales assistant down the BP would think of it?