Modern perfume, by its very nature, is a luxury. We're well past the era of corseted ladies dabbing on rosewater to mask a lack of basic hygiene (although the Lynx-doused lads at my high school may have been working on a similar principle)
Nowadays, the best perfume for women is not a necessity, but a daily treat, a classy gift, and a bit of designer decadence on the dressing table. And, boy, does its cost reflect that. Have you noticed the £100+ price-creep on your average long-lasting perfume?
There are justifications for this: finite materials, hard-to-produce packaging, employment of niche creators, marketing and all that jazz. But surely someone can crack making a genuinely nice scent that's also genuinely affordable and not (sigh) a 'dupe', which - trust me - never smell like the perfumes they shamelessly ape. As it turns out, they can, and I've been wearing it every day this week.
Why this budget-friendly perfume is our beauty editor's buy of the week
While the liberally-aerosolled lads in my physics class risked going up in bunsen burner flames for the love of Lynx, I was in a fug of my own teenage dream - the '90s icon that is The Body Shop White Musk.
Times moved on, and so did my fragrance tastes via Tommy Girl, CK Be, and eau de Issey Miyake to my current, annoyingly expensive, rose perfume of choice Frederic Malle Portrait of a Lady.
But a heady mix of nostalgia and innate fondness for The Body Shop, plus surprisingly sophisticated packaging, drew me to the brand's Full Flowers fragrance collection, specifically Full Orange Blossom. And let me tell you, she is a sultry, sunshiney cracker.
This is everything a scent for summer should be. The composition is fairly simple, using two different parts of the bitter orange tree - warm, pretty orange blossom and fresh, green neroli - plus a little citrus zip from bergamot and a woody vetiver base.
Full Orange Blossom is grown-up, nicely balanced, gender-neutral and smells like something at least twice its price. It also lasts well; once those citrus top notes dance away, the rounder florals and woods remain. Plus, as a generous 75ml eau de parfum strength (about 15-20% perfume oil), you are getting considerable bang for your buck.
Being a fresh perfume, this is more of a daytime thing for me - I'm back on my silly-money Frederic Malle at night. But I have been wearing this every afternoon the sun's been out, which, happily, has been most of them recently.
And in case you're expecting that old chestnut, nobody has stopped me on the street to ask what it is (does that happen? Not to me anyway, and if it did, I'd consider wearing less perfume.) But this is strikingly beautiful, with vegan, primarily natural ingredients, if that's your bag, at a democratic price.
If citrus isn't for you, I can also recommend the 'English cottage garden of my dreams' Full Rose eau de parfum, and I'd bet there's plenty more in the range worth a sniff, too. Sound good? Great! Let's chat next Sunday.
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