The perfume Dickie buys Marge

And other notes from my week as a scent obsessive

Patricia Highsmith & Italian perfume made by monks

Perfume in Ripley

Like everyone else in April, I watched the moody black and white series: Ripley on Netflix, and then promptly fell down a Highsmith hole. I  bought a 1000-page tome of her collated diaries and notebooks and can confirm: she's as glamorous and morally confused as her characters. Passages include details on ‘3.5 martinis at lunch’ and how she goes on to sleep with a random girl because the one she really liked snubbed her. It’s great. 

I’ve always been a fan, devouring the novel; The Talented Mr Ripley in a single day on a weekend spent in an ancient cherry wood. Highsmith’s claustrophobic words wrapped perfectly around pond dips, silent saunas and the smell of wood smoke.

Although, it was the ‘90s movie that first imprinted itself on my character, watched on repeat in those formative, coming-of-age years when certain books, films and songs can inspire us for life. For me it was the eternal chic of Paltrow’s white shirt and tan, the lure of pretty boys in obnoxious hats and the importance of summers spent in Europe.  

But as a perfume obsessive: my biggest debt to Minghella is the introduction to the brand behind the cologne that Marge requests Dickie to buy on his fateful trip to San Remo.  In the book, it’s a French perfume called Stradivari, someone on Minghella’s team changed it to an iconic Italian label instead, and I am so glad they did, or I may have never discovered the The Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. 

Santa Maria Novella is a pharmacy in Florence which traces its roots back to 1221, when monks set up a garden to grow and produce medical rose waters, (you can still buy them here).

It went on to become the world’s oldest pharmacy and one of Italy’s most important perfume brands. The historical origins of perfume as we know it today is often attributed to the French. Grasse in Provence is still the perfume capital of the world (where our Apotheke perfumes are made), but it was the Italians who first made perfume in the modern tradition: artfully balancing gum resins, barks, flowers, animal extractions and herbs with an alcohol fixative.
History suggests that in 1533, the Florentine, Catherine de Medici married the future king of France, and demanded that her beloved perfumer join the marital entourage. He became known in the French court as René le Florentin, who in turn brought the knowledge of the Italian perfume tradition to France. I’m still waiting to impart this fact around a table of French and Italians, and watch the sparks fly. 

You have to visit the iconic Farmaceutica if you’re ever in Florence, the building is beautiful and the product range and packaging is perfect. When S travelled to Florence for work, I sent him to the pharmacy with a shopping list. Luckily he returned with my order of fine fragrances in the iconic frosted glass, milky soaps and pretty pot pourri. Unlike poor Dickie, who never did get to deliver Marge her perfumed gift. 

And it’s not just perfume that monks are good at, In fact, most things they turn their hands to is chic: I bulk buy hand-rolled black beeswax candles from a monk to give away at perfume events (DM me for the contact, I may give it to you). And, of you haven’t tried it already, you need to get a bottle of the fluorescent green botanical spirit Chartreuse, it’s made in a monastery in the French alps. Who knew a habit signalled such excellent taste?  

apothekeperfume

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If you are going to try one scent from Santa Maria Novella, go for Muschio (Musc). It’s clean and warm, like fresh skin from a shower with hints of green rose and sultry woods. I bought a bottle for my mother a few summers ago. She’s a lifelong wearer of clean laundry scents, graduating from The Body Shop’s White Musk to Keihl’s Musk in her thirties, and hanging around that ballpark ever since. She’s also a formidable person to buy for, my sister and I always joke, we only get her things we will be happy to be given back to us in a few months time. Dear Reader, I’m still waiting for the Santa Maria musk. 

Where do you wear your perfume? 

I’m working on a fun consultancy for a fashion and beauty brand on how to wear perfume now, and I’ve been writing and thinking a lot about ‘zone-ing’ perfumes, which basically mean:  wearing different fragrances on different parts of your body. 

This comes into play more in the summer months, where you might sit cross-legged on the grass and experience your scented leg oil, or your hair perfume might waft gently in the warm breeze. Layering different fragrances isn’t new, like everything in perfume, the rituals we’re ‘discovering’ now in the West, like ‘functional fragrance’ (aromatherapy) and alcohol-free fragrance (perfume oil) have been around since antiquity, after all, the history of perfume is the history of the world. 

In Arabic culture, the understanding and value of fragrance is much more developed than ours. We might spritz an alcohol-based synthetic blend on our necks once a day and not think about it again, however, in some Middle Eastern homes, scent is as integral part of the day as eating: here’s a passage from a very old article in Elle which is worth reading if you are into that sort of thing: 

Throughout the Arab world, both men and women approach fragrance ritualistically, layering on multiple oils, or attars (such as musk, oud, rose, or jasmine), and even infusing their clothing and hair with smoke from an incense like concoction called bakhoor before spraying on perfume. 

I first discovered Bakhoor when I lived in a Turkish and Arabic neighbourhood in Berlin. A man called Mohammed sold me rose and sandalwood oils, and taught  me how to mix them. I even went as far to learn some words for some flowers in Turkish, as both our German was rudimentary - it was the only way to ensure I knew what I was buying before my nose learnt how to guide me.
He introduced me to Bakhoor in the form of  gummy chunks of incense that look a bit like a brick of jelly, and as wood chips soaked in scented oils.  I preferred the gummy chunks, packed full of scented resins, ouds, frankincense and rose. He taught me how to break off a small square, and  pop one on top of a shisha coal (the black disks you light and smoke in a shisha pipe), when it gets hot enough, heavenly-scented smoke pours out and permeates the air. Perhaps don’t do this inside with the windows shut, they can be quite intense, like 20 incense sticks at once. It’s a great way to scent an outdoor party: go for a rose and oud blend if you are not sure, and put the hot coal on something heatproof like a tile.

Sun & shopping habits

In the latter part of my twenties, due to a broken heart and the general toxic culture of that time, I got a little lost.
I think about those years now (with regret, but also with kindness for her) as my Sad Capitalist Era.

In my Sad Capitalist Era I rebound-dated a cruel banker, sat in hair and beauty treatment chairs for way too many hours,  drank something called a Porn Star Martini and ate so many oysters I made myself sick. And that was the ‘fun’ part.

For work, I spent my days in luxury fashion houses in Chelsea and South Ken, and in the white offices of NET-A-PORTER. I may have looked like an immaculate fashion doll, but if you looked closely at my eyes you could see I spent a great deal of time crying in the disabled toilets.
In between the tears, I did manage to learn a lot about our collective shopping habits. My key takeaways from that time are, nothing can make it heal quicker (the heart) and no celebrity endorsement or payday affects sales like a few days of sun can (shopping habits). 

We had those few days of sun in the UK last weekend, which, as it always does on our grey little island, rolled back to icy rain again by Monday morning. However,  that glimmer of hope was enough to see a rush on The Traveller, the most exotic perfume in our collection.

The Traveller is a fragrance for those who live for sun-soaked adventure in the shape of palo santo, suntan-lotion notes and earthy frankincense. 

I love the British. We are nothing if not hopeful. 

As I dropped the parcels packed with the tropical scent at the post office, I pulled my Aaron knit against my cold skin and imagined the portals of incense and spice showering sunshine and hope against the brutalism of English garden parties in the rain.