For when it blooms – which experts predict should occur in the next few days – it will release not the fragrant scent of most flowers, but a revolting stench rather like rotting flesh.
And to make matters worse, two Arums are due to flower at the same time – a first in Kew Gardens’ 250-year history.
— Two Titan arums, aka corpse flower, are expected to bloom at Kew Gardens soon. Read more at Kew! What a giant pong - two of the world’s smelliest flowers are just about to bloom at Daily Mail.
B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful (the staff call it ‘B’, a habit which I’ll gratefully adopt here), is the sister company to Lush, and takes the same stringent no-animal-testing approach to the goods it sells.
Where Lush concentrates on soap and bath products, B is mainly about makeup and scent. There’s the same whimsical quality to the names of the products, but the experience is much more glittery and girly.
There are currently two ‘B’ shops in London — one in Oxford Street and the one I visited, which is in Covent Garden…
Santa Maria Novella believes in discretion. Tucked away in a (plush) back street that’s off-off the Fulham Road, the sight of me and my notepad has the sales assistants squirming.
“We don’t advertise,” says the chief assistant, slightly scandalised.
A steady stream of customers suggested that they probably don’t have to. The wealthy residents of Kensington know all about Santa Maria Novella. It’s essentially their local Bath & Body Works.
Santa Maria Novella — the mother shop — is the famous Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica in Florence, Italy, one of the world’s oldest pharmacies and the creator of colognes and unguents whose recipes have been handed down for hundreds of years…
French jewellery and perfume house Réminiscence have few shops outside France — a couple in Belgium, one in Kuwait and another in Saudi Arabia. It’s therefore a treat to find the Réminiscence shop in the heart of the King’s Road, London.
The interior of the shop is vivid aqua green, with counters on each side sparkling with silver and costume jewellery, and crystal chandeliers overhead. It’s a little like walking into an undersea treasure cave. Réminiscence is all about fantasy and playfulness, a theme that’s carried through to the fragrances and their presentation. Pastel colours abound, especially in the new Les Notes Gourmandes set of four scents…
If they ever had a contest for the smallest retail perfume space in the world, the Parfums de Nicolaï shop in London would surely be a hot contender.
Barely six feet by twenty, the shop is tucked into a corner on the plush end of Fulham Road. There’s no time for spacy minimalism here — every spare inch of the space is packed with goods. It’s like a treasure cave.
The main window display holds glass shelves of fancy perfume bottles, while the inside walls are crammed with personal fragrances, room sprays, candles, scented oils, soaps and toiletries and large bottles of lampe perfumeur liquid…