The Fragrance Foundation UK

Bvlgari, Jasmin Noir is a balance of masculine and feminine notes, at once deep and evocative yet light and fresh. I first discovered it during a summer spent boating along the Loire river, in the wine region of France – reminding me of gothic villages, heavy red wines and oh my, the cheese! It’s a scent I feel truly comfortable in on any occasion

Hand me a ripe, green-backed pear.  Ask me to slice it in two and bury my nose in its ripe, wet scent and I am six again.   Shy, giggly, knock-kneed little girl.   It is summer.  Late afternoon.  A fire has been lit and its embers are glowing as I sit, cross-legged, with brothers, mother, father, snow-white haired grandfather, golden locked grandmother, a trace of what I now know to be First by Van Cleef & Arpels.

We are at the bottom of their garden in a village 30 miles due north of Enfield.  A barbeque before bed.  A segment from a ripe, just-sliced pear is placed in my hand.  Its scent is a confusing mixture of something new – not apple, not banana.  It is soapy and sweet.  Bubblegum will remind me of it when I first taste it at seven.  A scent by James Heeley called Bubblegum Chic will have a similar, beguiling pull when I am 40.  But of that pear you just cut for me.  I am six, that summer, with my family.  And my very first pear.