Who knew fragrance-buying was such an emotional, intimate – and thoroughly enjoyable – sensory experience? Candia McKormack follows her nose to The Green in Broadway and emerges with a new-found zen
‘Wayne and I have been in this business collectively for about 65 years, but we don’t consider ourselves experts.’
The knowledge, passion and expertise behind what Margie Shiers and Wayne Heeley do at Scents On The Green is pretty inspirational. If buying fragrance to you is just a matter of popping into a shop and spraying a few different scents onto your wrist – choosing those with the sexiest name and/or bottle – and leaving without knowing particularly why you picked it, then do read on...
Margie’s shop, which dates back to around 1700, is perfectly placed on The Green in Broadway – right opposite The Broadway Hotel – and is a haven for those wanting to choose the perfect scent while being indulged in a sensory experience. From an everyday scent that you’d feel undressed leaving the house without, to something chosen for a very special occasion – such as a wedding – Margie offers a rather wonderful service.
‘The bride can come in with many, many wishes,’ says Margie. ‘First and foremost, she wants to find the perfect scent for her wedding day. When you start digging a little about what she likes, such as citrus scents or floral ones, you have a starting point.
‘Then, as you chat a little longer, she may say “my grandma’s not going to be with us who she used to like wearing floral, and I’d like to have her with me on the day,” so we’ll try to include floral notes in the scent.’
An incredible amount of time is spent getting to know visitors to the shop; discussing emotions, what sort of feelings are evoked by a particular smell, childhood memories, and so on.
When it comes to a wedding or other special occasion, the location is also factored into choosing the perfect scent for the day. As more couples are choosing to get married in exotic surroundings – such as being barefoot on a beach – a scent that’s in harmony with the location is one of the considerations, and so coconut may be part of the complex notes within the scent.
Something else that is taken into consideration on a wedding day are what fragrance the bridesmaids will be wearing. Often, once the bride has chosen her fragrance, the main scent behind it will be sought out in a more subtle form in another fragrance. This way it complements rather than overwhelms the bride’s scent: ‘It’s as if the bridesmaids are embracing her,’ as Margie poetically puts it.
‘Sometimes we can get really deep into the various elements needed to find the perfect scent,’ continues Margie, ‘and then, half an hour later, the bride says she wants something blue and so she may go for, for example, Thameen ‘Blue Heart’.’ I follow her gaze to the stunning back-lit cobalt blue display of the bottles and immediately see how someone could fall in love with the bottle alone.
Watching Margie flit around the shop, from fragrance display to fragrance display, instinctively reaching out for scents to spray onto test blotters, it’s a little like experiencing an alchemist at work. With around 35 years’ experience under her belt, working for the likes of Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Harrods, John Lewis and House of Fraser – as well as independent boutiques around the UK – she really has honed her art.
Margie reaches a hand out to another beautiful display and lifts down a bottle to spritz onto a blotter.
‘‘Carnal Flower’ [Frédéric Malle],’ she says, ‘is all about the tuberose, which is like ‘Marmite’ when it comes to scent. It’s very intoxicating, it’s empowering; it fills the room before you even walk through the door.
‘There are two different ways they extract the oils from tuberose,’ she continues. ‘Firstly, when it has been out in full sun all day so it’s at its most intoxicating, or it’s done first thing in the morning – when the bloom has been closed all night – making it much lighter and fresher. They do a very similar thing with jasmine.’
‘Gabrielle Essence’ by Chanel, she tells me, also has tuberose in it, but it’s blended completely differently. ‘It’s very delicate and subtle... and so you could have a bride wearing the empowering ‘Carnal Flower’ and be complemented by bridesmaids wearing the more delicate ‘Gabrielle’.’
It’s clever stuff.
‘We never push in here,’ she says about the ethos behind Scents On The Green, ‘it’s all about time. Our goal is for everyone to go out of here and really enjoy wearing what they’ve bought. The location for us was never about huge footfall; it’s about the consultation and taking time with people.’
The chemistry of how different fragrances interact with different people’s skin is an incredibly important factor.
‘There's a unisex fragrance that both Wayne and I wear – ‘Tel Aviv’ by Gallivant – and I can honestly say that you could smell it on both of us and not know it was the same scent.’
For my own individual fragrance pairing, Margie floats effortlessly around the shop, asking questions before plucking – one by one – seven different bottles from the shelves; each time gauging my reaction to the scent. ‘People tell a story with their eyes,’ she says.
In the end – although I was initially drawn to ‘Naples’ by Gallivant – I plumped for a heady fragrance by Laboratorio Olfattivo called ‘Sacreste’ that immediately transported me back to Prinknash Abbey and a favourite incense they create called ‘Sanctuary’. Margie and I made eye contact as I smelt the fragrance, and I think we both realised that was ‘The One’.
Choosing fragrance really is an emotional business.
