I’m not sure how and when so many perfumes sailed blithely past the £100-a-bottle threshold, but the rising cost of ingredients is, I believe, more excuse than explanation. Only last week, some fragrance-writer friends and I were moaning about a decidedly average perfume that had landed on our desks with a particularly audacious price tag of £230. Conversely, I’ve rarely had so many enthusiastic messages from Saturday readers as when I recently wrote a column on more affordable fragrances – and I’m told my recommendations sold out. So here we are again, this time with an eye on spring scents.
If you haven’t sniffed out Marks & Spencer’s own-brand fragrances, remedy this at once. Its current offering is way better than it could get away with. There’s been much fuss on TikTok about its (admittedly good) Discover collection of designer doppelganger fragrances, but to focus on the dupes (I’m unkeen on principle) is to miss out on its much more imaginative Provenance and Apothecary lines.
