The Fragrance Foundation UK

The smell of roasting sweetcorn at Notting Hill Carnival takes me back to my childhood in Kenya; clutching my mother’s hand as we wound through the bustling Maasi market. Though the memories have been diluted by time, the redolence of those blackened kernels instantly transforms me into that excited child again.

I grew up the daughter of a pharmacist – my father owned shops throughout my early childhood so fragrance was in my blood from the very beginning.  My mother ran the shops and did the buying and loved fragrance.  Her personal favourite was Youth Dew by Estee Lauder and every christmas my father would treat her to something from the range – she loved the body lotion and cream, the body powder, the soap and so on – you could say she was an early adopter of what we now call layering.  The smell of that divine fragrance filled the house and even now reminds me of Christmas … and of my childhood – the close-knit and loving family I was so lucky to be part of and of course, of glamour & beautiful things.