The Road to Finding Your Scent

Olivier Creed’s first creation when he became master perfumer at the age of 32, was Zeste Mandarine Pamplemousse.

He gave the scent as a gift to U.S. troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. when they came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With top notes of bergamot, mandarin, and grapefruit, it was a gesture to herald happiness and sunshine.

Creed had just succeeded his father in the iconic perfume company, which was founded in 1760 and has served more than 10 royal houses.

The Catharsis of Scent

Undoubtedly the effect of scent is powerful and not always easy to describe. It may be a the link to a time or place that has etched itself in the unconscious until the moment when you catch a whiff of a certain smell that takes you back in time. There is catharsis in finding and wearing a scent.

So, the process of choosing your signature perfume is not without its perils. A good perfume connoisseur should be able to help you navigate your way to the one scent that blends with your skin as well as personality and becomes part of you.

“The job of a fragrance is that it speaks for you, it tells people a little bit about yourself without you saying a single word, and it could be intriguing, it could be power, or attraction,” explains Creed store director Luis Cavallo. I add that it communicates subliminally, but much more powerfully, than words.

Cavallo explains that our noses are only able to cope with three scents, after which the going gets tough and confusing. If there was one place where you wish you had a few noses, it’s the Creed store where, among other perfumes, you can sample the scents created for history’s VIP’s as they requested them.

A Walk Through Memory and History
“When you come into Creed it’s like a journey, coming here is taking a walk through history, stopping, recognising where you want to be, finding who you are, and that’s how we match your scent, and hopefully we can find a signature scent for you,” Cavallo said. “Coming here is finding yourself through scent.”

Having tried Jardin D’Amalfi (or Amalfi Garden), evoking a lush grove of flowers on Italy’s glittering Amalfi coast, and liking it, Cavallo takes me on a floral journey with Fleur de The’ Rose Bulgare, commissioned by Theodore Roosevelt for his second wife. Undoubtedly rosy, the bottled scent is far more scintillating than when I try it on. The reaction with my skin reminds me of an old fashioned record player stuck on a high note—the rose is there, but it’s screaming at me.

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