Harvey Nichols x The Perfume Society Discovery Box

[unpaid/sample/affiliate/ad] This seems very much like the Rolls Royce of fragrance discovery boxes with a mix of names you’ll know already and newcomers.

As you can see, it features a series of drawers – in fact, you get 12 fragrances to sample as some of the brands have offered more than one discovery.

The packaging is extremely high quality – you’ll want to keep the boxes and repurpose them. When it comes to brands, you’ll find Atelier Materi, Maison Crivelli – both newcomers – as well as Ramon Monegal, Juliette Has A Gun, Maison Francis Kurkidjian and Creed.

Something that discovery sets have changed for me is attitude to new fragrance brands. I very much used to be of the opinion that if I hadn’t heard of it, I wasn’t interested. My dad used to bring bundles of Ma Griffe samples home from his travels (not quite clear whether he got them from hotels or airlines) and I was never terribly interested but when he brought a sample of Poison by Dior I was really excited – because I’d heard of Dior! Somehow, it seemed much more credible with a ‘name’. Now the pendulum swings the other way – I’m actively interested in things that are new to me – and I’m clearly not alone because the niche fragrance industry is on the rise.

I’m wearing Juliette Has A Gun Lipstick Fever at the moment – I don’t know if I love it. I always consider myself unsophisticated when it comes to fragrance so perhaps I am missing something – I needed it to smell more simply of lipstick I think but it has wood and leather going on which are distracting. If you love sweet fruits over woods however, you’ll be in 7th heaven!

There’s a mix of male, female and unisex perfumes so perhaps this is something that can be shared. I remember a friend was sent a discovery box of exotic chocolate flavours which she and her partner really enjoyed so I think maybe this is a no-cal version of that if you want it to be.

There’s a QR code on the inside of the box that takes you to the Perfume Society Smelling Notes – definitely worth doing to discover things like in the Atelier Materi Cuir d’Iris, it takes 6 years to produce the iris essence that’s used in the fragrance and that Romano Ricci, who creates Juliette Has A Gun, is the grandson of Nina Ricci. Anyway, definitely a luxy buy at £45 (£90 value) but a lot of fragrance fun, I think. It’s HERE, non affiliate HERE.