Monthly Archives: September 2026

It was somehow very fitting that I got to smell the new ‘L Heure Bleue’ with my best friend Helen. We have a history with this perfume; with this house; as does any true perfumista worth their bath salt. As teenagers we would roam the department stores obsessively, smelling everything: one gravely important day, she discovered her ultimate holy grail, Après L’Ondée. Created in the same classical Golden Era by the genius Jacques Guerlain, the doleful, fresh almond anise pallor of this exquisite scent immediately brought tears to her eyes after we had asked the Guerlain assistant to show us the hidden treasures that were stacked beneath the more current sales desk. At that time we also discovered Jicky (‘No! Too pooey’ our fresh adolescent response; were nonplussed by Mitsouko, which just smelled fusty and old; but I know that although I have never, never been able to remotely pull it off, I was also uttery and totally mesmerized by the thick, mellifluous langour of the powdery paradisiacal heaven that was L’Heure Bleue; viscous with French pastry – almost a fried doughnut aspect in some iterations under the triumphal florals nosing their way up through the trappings of poudre, this was a delicious perfume to me from the very first time that I tried it – and one that could practically make me swoon when anyone walked by in its ardour-leaden trail. Is any perfume, in fact, more gorgeous?

At the Honolulu Museum Of Art, the day after my talk in the auditorium when I was practically fainting with nerves but somehow pulled it off, D and I did a workshop in the courtyard garden; frangipani flowers falling slowly onto spongey grass, the paying punters who had come along to sample perfumes and be led through the varying types of fragrances available in the mondo profumeria – we had made a catalogue; niche brands had sent along bottles; it was a bit of a stravaganza; we had sprayed multitudes of perfumes into little vials to the extent that I had tendonitis; we had labelled everything, and I had written all of the perfumes up in an indulgently described catalogue that was far more effective than my presentation skills (I went to pieces at the beginning of it all leaving it all to Duncan to take over until I pulled myself together), at which point I found myself sitting down with each individual and spontaneously leading them to what perfumes I thought would suit them the most – as long as they didn’t fight over them, punters were free to take home the samples in question with them).

I remember at one point that one person in the group was practically screeching in delight over an eighties L’Heure Bleue edp that Tora had sent me back in the day and was probably the most divine iteration of this illustrious scent I have ever come across: as a result of her hysterie bleue I decided to make everyone present give it a whirl, and, despite the myriad of perfumes available on that day of every possible type – we really did try to make the selections as eclectic as possible – L’Heure Bleue was pronounced the greatest perfume that was there on the lawn. Almost everybody loved it, even those that couldn’t wear it. It was unanimously decided to be gorgeous.

When Helen came to Japan the first time to visit me in the nineties, she brought me a bottle of the edt that I used judiciously when I simply wanted to dive into its pleasures. D bought me an extrait a couple of years ago, that though not as plush as I was hoping it would be, still gets inhaled or worn on the back of my hand on a regular basis. With Emma in Norwich a few years ago I tried the contemporary edp and found it heavenly; we both agreed that that version at least suited me very well; she herself has since acquired a bottle and I would love to know how it smells. I remember our friend Claire rocking it back in the nineties and being practically beside myself; there is something about the iris and the orange blossom and the anisic thrill of the vanilla bed madness; the texturality of this perfume – is there a perfume more textured? I think not – that makes me plume with madness. I love L’Heure Bleue: it is unique, unshakeable; a bastion of the Guerlain gauntlet. One of their sacred pillars. It should have been untouchable.

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As we strolled together through our hometown of Solihull the other day – the first time in decades, as we tend to avoid the shopping centre like the plague for its depressing banality – though we did dance to a Prince 12 inch in a delightful record shop in only old building, the Manor House, which felt like an oasis of sanity and beauty in a desert of soulless commercialism – and realized that I had, typically, left my phone – with its Vol De Nuit zebra stripes its under glass decoration so easy to find – back in her car, we ambled back to where we were going via John Lewis, having just smelled some crap reorchestrations of YSL favourites Rive Gauche and Kouros in one of those Superdrug type tack caverns floor to ceiling full of ugly bright packaging (both were alright; but very defanged (‘I preferred the Kouros pissy’ stated Helen, and I definitely agreed – when you castrate these things they become eunuchs, just as you would expect), and practically spitting on the ground at the new Balmain – Destin or something, which smelled worse than a toilet cleaning product, which is the case with practically every perfume now by any major brand (ironically she was wearing a 70’s Ivoire I had brought in my suitcase, a beautiful perfume we both love, even if it came without a nozzle), but as we were lost – which is often the case – we somehow ended up in the main perfume department section of John Lewis.

Oh my god, the new ‘L’Heure Bleue’! I exclaimed, happy for once to not be late to the party for a brand new release when usually they take months to come to Japan or I just never get the chance. ‘We have to try it’.

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It is boring to be purist for the sake of being purist, and I don’t think I am a traditionalist – and I like the rebellious nature of Delphine Jelk sitting down in the Guerlain headquarters and thinking fuck it, let’s be iconoclastic, let’s renew this bitch for the youth market. Let’s decimate this classic and see if the name resonates strangely with Le Youf (the ‘blue hour’? I am curious as to what this might mean for Generation Z or Y or whatever they are called; is it a call for ‘self care’ in times of inevitable depression? When they are feeling porny? Does it represent some form of Francaise Freshness?)

No matter what they had called this new ‘major release’ – I personally think L’Ocean de Guerlain, Fleur Bleue or L’Iris Bleu would have worked better with the right advertising campaign — and no, I have to completely disagree with some Perfume People who like the bottle. I think it is hideous, as are all the photos, which is why you are getting no picture to go with this post – but if you are basically going to make a Glade Iris Air Freshener with a prominent calone/ ozone top accord then you may as well go for the aquatic sales approach. The Wateries are apparently making a comeback with les jeunes – as are many things pre and post millenial of course. Those of us around the first time either weathered or actively participated in the Calone Crush – I myself went crazy for the most aquatic of them all, Kenzo Pour Homme, which I still think is genius, and D has a secret stash of quite a few of them, in particular Nebbia Spessa by Fillippo Sorcinelli – a brilliant olfactory work of art that makes you feel as if you are actually drowning it is so ocean realistic – but in general I do avoid them like the plague. To add that note to L’Heure Bleue though, of all perfumes, the powderiest of powderiest surely – do you want your cheesecake floating in algae filled brine, do you? To me it just seems the height of stupidity.

So what does this abhorrent aberration actually smell like?

Ok, let me tell you.

My brain smells things instantaneously, almost synaesthestically and I see three simplistic stripes here, just three things (I know there are nasty ingredients like ambroxan lurking in the base, but they are there to simply exacerbate the main atrocity, which comes together geologically like the three different colours of Colgate toothpaste).

There is a clear, perceptible, probably quite high quality, (lab messed with) natural/ artifical iris that probably could have been used quite effectively, were it not melded with a partycrass orange blossom note – that overused floral absolute that has lost so much of its original more mysterious erotica in recent years when combined with disgusting ‘vanilla’ – I just find it tacky and dunce-smelling now.

But imagine this dull and boring floral accord then shot through with acquatica – and probably some nod to the balsamic qualities of ‘L’Heure Bleue 1912’ – the new name for the original- but let’s just be happy they are still going to make it, I am not going to go there – a really horrible insistent, aqueous note than in conglomeration with the unedifying florals honestly smells worse than an industrial airport lavatory cleaner.

In two words?

Vile.

Ghastly.

And even when we had exhausted ourselves with nobly sniffing this rubbish on the tester card (just to give it a fair chance) and Helen had declared that she was just going to put her chewing gum in it instead, the noxious chemicals continuted to linger on my nostrils; a partially lobotomized mermaid I had given no permission to be lying in there.

The after- effects stayed for a long while; I never want to smell it again.

We have just got back from England.

I say ‘just’. Yesterday – but what is ‘yesterday’ or ‘last night’ when you are flying across different time zones, sleepless, then enter a narcoleptic fug for hours on end only to enter it again, headachey, the ‘next day’?

We have a nineteen year old cat, Mori, which makes travelling harder. Her one experience in a Japanese cattery or ‘pet hotel’- yeah right – was so traumatic for her (essentially just fed and kept in a small cage with other animals in the same space) that we have never done that again : we either have neighbours on a roster feed and check on her or – as we did this time – have cat sitters as she gets increasingly distressed being left alone and wails furiously on our return with various toilet revenges to follow at the sheer indignation of not being treated like a queen.

I don’t really like anyone staying in my house while I am not there. It feels invasive. I feel self conscious and probed – our collective hoarding a window into our psyches and predilections – not to mention the terror of the space smelling terrible with an unpredictable, ageing cat.

I of course took precautions. Incense, aroma sticks, small bowls of spiced pot pourris; we did a good clean up before leaving; the house felt bohemianly both haphazard but with its own aesthetic logic; the sitter, my best friend in Japan’s daughter, Lily, an arts student, surely intrigued by all the records, tapes, books, objets, pictures, perfumes ( she is an avid cat lover ).

The garden spaces too.

We have really cultivated the greenery of late – the voodoo tropical balcony ; the ‘bower’ out front with its entangled hydrangeas, wisterias and osmanthus ; our new area round the side, ‘Miami’ with its palms and banana tree and papaya; though it clashes with the landlord’s more minimalist requirements he knows how much we love it and lets us overgrow.

We had been warned about the camellia. My ever sensible friend round the corner, Sachiyo, who helps us out with all manner of crises — lost wallets, phones, malfunctioning washing machines – “You use too much soap !!” said she would never have one in her garden because of the ‘poison’ – something I have never associated with this elegant, regally unassuming flower

I associate the camellia – tsubaki in Japanese – with Chanel, sumo wrestlers – who wear camellia oil in their tresses – and Shiseido, whose nineties-y Tsubaki extrait ( above) I bought recently – as well as their ultra popular Tsubaki hair products – which is practically the National Scent Of Japan.

I don’t associate them with severe dermatitis, dizziness and anaphylactic shock, some of the symptoms that can result from coming into contact with the larvae or adult moths of the species

Arna pseudoconspersa, or tea tussock, a toxic haired moth that apparently has a yen for camellias, although our three shrubs have been growing nicely for the last eleven years without any incident or the least trace of the suckers and all threat of them had receded into a once heard factoid.

That is until we landed at Haneda airport, I got my internet connection back on and had a message from Melanie on our MoriSit Whatsapp group chat that she had an angry torso of itchy red spots spreading over her arms, chest, neck and legs as did a teenage friend of her daughter’s who had come to stay. The dermatologist she had panic rushed to asked if she had been in contact with any moths; M told me I should check in the front garden on our return.

Finally emerging from a taxi, so tired we couldn’t speak to each other; grimier and grubbier than I could possibly bear wearing the same clothes that were suitable for the cooler Autumnal morning in Paddington twenty two hours earlier or whatever it was but not for the muggier Nihon and the bipolar excesses of the British Airways flight which tended towards frigid – d was in hoody and three blankets throughout- but then suddenly reheated at mealtimes having me throw off my triple jumpers, I thought I was going to go mad with my grime and the misguided base notes of what I thought would be a fresh vintage Rive Gauche, so matinal and aldehydic and blue silver in the morning but so glandularly musky and feral a whole day later when melded with my jaded body chemistry, but my eyes, though very very tired, were still, luckily, able to see these creatures writing scathingly on the edge of a camellia leaf that we very nearly brushed past.

Clearly this was quite a dangerous public health hazard ( does anyone know how frequently this happens with camellia trees in Asia ? They are everywhere ) but we were simply too destroyed to deal with it there and then; desperate to shut out everything and everyone there and then and sleep – which we did on and off from 12pm to about 8 the following day.

We both awoke buzzing though with the dangerous awareness of those foul creepy crawlies sending hairs out into the air ( ‘burn them !, advised a Japanese friend – but then AI said no no never burn them as they release their jagged hairs into the atmosphere and down into your throat and chest where they can do some really serious damage (some individuals die in this situation).

So I called Kamakura pest control.

No. no appointments available. Maybe next week?

So I ran round to our J father and landlord, the 87 year old superhero you see above with Duncan in a self improvised Hazmat suit with a plastic bag over his head ( he had called Jiro, his son who is a professional gardener and works at the Meigetsuin hydrangea temple down the hill but he was busy elsewhere).

If there is anyone who is the precise opposite of a procrastinator it is Mr Mitomi; he once came round in seconds to bash down a nest of killer hornets that had taken a fancy to our roof – he is more feisty and energetic than most people half his age – and was raring to go to get chopping off the affected areas – that turned out, according to d, to have at least ten times the number of caterpillars on them than you see in these pictures. They were everywher ; no wonder I also had a mysterious rash just before we went away and was taking antihistamines ; these hirsute camellia multilegged insecto-vampiri were already all over the place and we didn’t even know !

G r o sss!

I would like to keep the camellias – they are soon to bloom and have far more flower heads than usual; they do have a certain prettiness, that though virtually scentless, confers some kind of sturdiness to the general proceedings, but the consensus seems to be that with a potential mothmaggeddon looming every year – and even if the garden will look rather bare for a while just when it was going into autumnal flourish – these prim shrubs, now home to legions of lethal grubs that will soon grown nasty wings, are simply going to have to be cut down.

As she usually is, Sachiyo-san was absolutely right.

‘NO CAMELLIAS!’