January often feels like a month (or two!) of Mondays, so we’re reaching for bright and brilliant fragrances to help us look forward again. From vibrant, luminous florals to lightly frosted but sunshine-filled foresty walks and fruity, opulently warm concoctions; why not seek these recent launches out to try on your own skin? The future is bright(er), so let’s still snuggle up, but also welcome the turning of the seasons, looking forward to these fantastic scents…
BAMFORD
Woodland Moss
We love Carole Bamford’s description that her new fine fragrance duo is ‘layered, rich and uplifting, much like the natural ingredients in which they are so deeply rooted.’ The ingredients in Woodland Moss and its ‘sister’, Wild Meadow, definitely evoke a sense of the natural world, harnessed here in a woody masterpiece that is at once damp and mossy, earthy and intriguing, rendered elegant and soft by an exquisite garland of dew-drenched rose.
From £25 for 10ml eau de parfum
BYREDO
Young Rose
Debuted in China – a country just awakening to the joys of perfume –Ben Gorham refers to this as ‘an ode to the perennial restlessness of youth: an olfactive diary of those who are writing their own future.’ But we’d say this should most definitely appeal to those outside the ‘Gen Z’ or ‘millennial’ age brackets, a joyous clash of Sichuan pepper and Damascus rose, buffed by orris, musk and Ambroxan. What is Mandarin for ‘fabulous’, again?
£122 for 50ml eau de parfum
JEROBOAM
Floro
Jeroboam pioneered downsized flacons: easy on the back, easier on the pocket, now offering this ‘flurry of flowers’. Fruit notes first capture the attention: green and red apples, and luscious pineapple. Then the flowers burst open: jasmine and airy, transparent petal notes, rendered a touch creamy by sandalwood and finished with a flourish of dry woods, white musk and cedar. Eminently shareable, Jeroboam suggest (and oh, we do love flowers, on a chap!)
£90 for 30ml eau de parfum
DUNHILL
Icon Racing Red
There’s some extra pep in this engine – perhaps the sizzle of spicier notes with the warm glow of that rich amber base does it, but nonetheless we can say the red is – racier than its somewhat sleeker Racing Blue garage-mate. Solar notes remind us of driving, top-down, ‘round winding lanes on holiday with a carefree abandon, the citrus speeding leafy fern and geranium before the frankincense-like base kicks in.
£88 for 100ml eau de parfum
JIMMY CHOO
Urban Hero Gold Edition
Luscious pineapple and ripe blood orange offer the most welcome kind of bracing opening, perfectly offsetting the more balsamic sweetness of soothing lavandin and rich, creamy tonka bean (think roasted almonds, lapped in milk) at the heart. This fragrance of contrasts, reflecting the inspiration of street art and free-spirited creatives amidst a city environment, is captured in a special edition golden bottle that will steal the show on his side of the bathroom shelf.
£72 for 100ml eau de parfum
