#Scent Memories

As part of our membership of The Fragrance Foundation, we're thrilled to play a part in National Fragrance Week (5th -11th March 2018). Celebrating all things fragrant, as a fledgling luxury brand we are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the ‘Big Powers of Flowers’ - that’s the giants of the Fragrance Industry to you and me! The campaign aims to connect us all to our favourite fragrance memories...

So, let us share a couple of favourite nostalgic aromas with you...

#ScentMemories Number 1

Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium: to own a bottle was the ultimate.

To be glamorous and grown up in one intoxicating hit - the incredible power of an amber liquid! The epitome of everything I wanted to be, packaged so enticingly and advertised? Well, so daringly!

The potent, sultry fragrance was like nothing before; voluptuous and sensual, intense and forbidden. The warm and spicy concoction of fruits, flowers and a woody base  - now the benchmark of an exotic, oriental aroma - the original’s complex scent is hard to beat in the nostalgia stakes for me...

But, is that the favourite of my #ScentMemories?

Not quite. Simpler pleasures have to win. Harder to date - an entire swathe of childhood, in fact: one whiff of Cussons Imperial Leather soap and I’m transported back to my grandparents 70’s bathroom...repeated marble effect tiles and warm, fluffy towels waiting. Tucked in its pillow-like cardboard box and bought, for some reason, in bulk.  A ‘signature scent’ before the phrase really existed.

Re-visited, there’s a whole lot more to the aroma than I ever realised. The root of the fragrance goes back to 1798 when Royal London perfumery Bayley’s of Bond Street created ‘Eau de Cologne Imperiale Russe’, at the request of a visiting Russian nobleman who wanted a fragrance reminiscent of the distinct aroma of the Russian Courts. Every day’s a school day!

And the scent? Though inexpensive, the aroma is surprisingly sophisticated. Civilised, with a masculine redolence, notes of leather emerge over the layers of aldehydes and woods.

But for me, this is the one time where it’s not ‘all in the detail’ - it has to be a full inhalation of the whole aroma, eyes shut, to feel the comfort of my grandparent’s home and love.

So what’s your fragrant trip down memory lane?

Tell us at nostara.com or on any of our socials  #ScentMemories