We were a really anti-cosmetics family growing up. My mum didn’t even own a mascara and the one fragrance my dad could tolerate on her was Givenchy L’interdit because he fancied Audrey Hepburn for whom the perfume was apparently made. I wasn’t even allowed deodorant. My parents were from the hippy generation and were totally comfortable with BO.

The primary scent I can remember is my brother’s bottle of Dior Fahrenheit and once I moved into his room, age six, I kept the bottle together with the Terminator poster and a glossy topless girls Budweizer poster above my bed. I feel growing up in a room that was full of boys’ stuff shaped my aesthetic. I religiously read his FHM subscription back to front every month and will recite an entire page of barroom jokes which I’d rip out and take to highschool. Loaded was also often floating about.

Once I was about eight, my friend and I’d nick flowers from people’s gardens and squish them into small water bottles and check out to flog them as perfume down the road… I feel my friend got a rash on her neck so we needed to stop doing that.

“I actually have at all times wanted to seek out a perfume that smells of wet earth, and finally, I actually have”

The primary proper perfume I ever bought was Cacharel from Debenhams. It was when all the ladies my age were wearing Charlie, So… and Impulse. I used to be sort of secretive concerning the proven fact that I used to be wearing an adult perfume. It had an iridescent bottle in greenish pink and I’d spray it onto my school uniform.

I really like to vary my scent depending on my mood. If I’m feeling masculine I’ll wear something like Chanel Sycamore or Serge Lutens L’Orpheline, which is an element boy, part girl. It is a fragile fragrance but is full bodied and musky. Those perfumes remind me of once I lived in Paris and looked as if it would find yourself in cemeteries quite lots. They’re very warm fragrances. I used to wear numerous tobacco and leather but I started to seek out them one dimensional and predictable. Now I go for more odd scents that work with my mood.

Once I’m working and focused, I wish to wear several fragrances that sharpen your senses and your mind like 1996 by Byredo or Etro Patchouly. I don’t love girly or floral perfumes. I wish to smell serious and alert! I actually have at all times wanted to seek out a perfume that smells of wet earth, and FINALLY I actually have – it’s called Undergrowth by Rook Perfumes. It’s a bit sloppy in its balance, veering on the muddy side, nevertheless it’s so unusual, I find it irresistible.

“Should you’re going to loaf around someone all day, chances are you’ll as well be certain they smell amazing too”

If I’m feeling seductive or romantic I’ll wear something nostalgic. I wish to trick other people right into a false nostalgia. Tom Ford Orchid Soleil is ideal for this! It smells a bit like suncream. You immediately evoke completely satisfied, warm memories on the beach and feel drawn to a false intimacy about that person.

My boyfriend is more experimental with fragrance than me. He wears Etat Libre D’Orange by Magnifiques Secretions. The primary time he made me smell it, I literally almost vomited. There’s something grotesquely carnal about it – almost like fresh rotting flesh, nevertheless it plays a trick in your brain and leaves you wanting to smell it repeatedly. Though I begged him to never wear it around me, he persevered and oddly enough, now I actually love the smell and it carries a very different set of connotations because I associate it with him. Should you’re going to loaf around someone all day, chances are you’ll as well be certain they smell amazing too.

Right this minute I’m wearing Molecule 01, a fragrance that was pretty groundbreaking when it hit the market. It transforms along with your pheromones, giving everyone a person ‘smell’. One of the best thing about it’s that the wearer can barely smell it on their skin, but to everyone else, it’s extremely potent.  

Deodorant, alternatively, is straightforward. My go-to is Old Spice Fiji. It is the only one which cuts through it.