Spring Perfume Diary

Dates, events and scented moments for the next few months

Diaries out my lovely perfume pals: there are lots of exciting things happening over the coming weeks!

PRADA PICNIC (March 7th-9th)

PRADA Beauty is taking over the Covent Garden piazza with a ‘PRADA Picnic’ pop-up to celebrate the Italian house’s luxurious goodies.

Whilst there will be plenty of gorgeous makeup and skincare to play with, this is your chance to immerse yourself in their fantastic fragrance offering, such as Paradoxe and the glorious Infusions collection - which now includes a new Infusion de Rhubarbe scent. SO springy!

Guests will enjoy complimentary ice cream and the chance to win PRADA Beauty prizes throughout each day.

The PRADA Picnic is open to the public from Friday 7th March until Sunday 9th March, and located in the Covent Garden Piazza, WC2E 7BB.

• Friday – 11am – 6pm

• Saturday and Sunday – 10am – 6pm

The pop-up opens at 10am each day, it’s free and no ticket is necessary. Expect crazy queues though!

MOLTON BROWN BLUEBELL & WILD STRAWBERRY EVENT (March 10th-16th, Windsor)

If you’re based in, close to or thinking of visiting Windsor this month, there is a gorgeous-sounding event at the Molton Brown boutique to celebrate their new fragrance collection: Bluebell & Wild Strawberry.

During the course of the week, from 10th-16th March, you can book a free appointment where an in-house artist will decorate your fragrance bottle, gift bags and boxes with a beautiful bluebell illustration. The boutique has an engraving machine too, which is such a nice finishing touch for a personalised bottle or gift (hello Mother’s Day!). Plus, when you spend £90 or more you’ll get a complimentary goody bag, including a 1.5ml Fragrance Discovery Set (worth £25) and a 30ml Discovery Body Care Set (worth £21).

For more information and the ticket link, tap here.

Molton Brown have a few Bluebell & Wild Strawberry events and other celebrations in various cities coming up, so have a look at their schedule on eventbrite.

NATIONAL FRAGRANCE WEEK (17th-23rd March)

It’s our annual geekfest where perfume lovers and industry professionals celebrate everything about fragrance. Expect a lot of exciting content from your favourite influencers and experts, in-person and virtual events (see the Fragrance Foundation’s National Fragrance Week listings here) and general merriment all round.

PS: Don’t forget to post your #Smellfie on Instagram, on Thursday 20th March, which is National Fragrance Day. This campaign, conceived by Suzy Nightingale a few years ago for The Perfume Society, is a fun way to show off your favourite scent and dedicate a post to it. Keep an eye out on their Insta page for info about how you can get involved… and here’s a round-up of last year’s #Smellfie campaign so you can see some fun examples.

LONDON PERFUME WALKS WITH PERFUME DAZE (March, April and May)

Lovely, talented Olga Petrouchenko, aka @PerfumeDaze, is a fabulous fragrance expert, historian and storyteller, and she hosts magical guided walks around London. She has several coming up:

Sunday 9th March and Sunday 13th April (both 2pm): Explore Roman London With Perfumes by Electimuss

Saturday 22nd and Friday 28th March (both 10:30am): Perfume walk in Mayfair with a smelling session at Floris

For more information, meeting points and tickets for these, tap here.

Saturday 17th May (2pm): Scented Walk around Barnes, as part of the Barnes Fragrance Fair (see listing below!). For tickets, tap here.

IN CONVERSATION WITH ALBERTO MORILLAS (Wednesday 2nd April)

The Fragrance Foundation is basically our industry’s Millennium Falcon: the mothership basecamp that supports us perfume content creators and journalists and generates incredible events, scent guides and all sorts of helpful information on perfumers and workshops. They put together the annual Fragrance Foundation Awards and Jasmine Awards, which determine the best-of-the-best in perfumeland. Their website and Instagram page is also where you can find out everything that’s happening during National Fragrance Week.

The FF team has kindly invited me to host an evening with the legendary Master Perfumer Alberto Morillas, where we’ll be celebrating his phenomenal career (see all those iconic perfumes in the photo’s line-up above? Yes, they are all his creations) and talking through his industry insights. I’ve interviewed Alberto several times and he is not only a beautiful soul and total gentleman, but he has the most outrageously fabulous stories. He doesn’t do a huge amount of audience events, so this promises to be incredibly special and inspiring.

Here are the event details:

Wednesday 2nd April, 6pm until 8:30pm

The Soho Hotel, 4 Richmond Mews London W1D 3DH

TAP HERE TO BUY TICKETS

THE BARNES FRAGRANCE FAIR (MAY 17th)

It’s BACK! And this time, it’s bigger and better. This will be the third annual Barnes Fragrance Fair and I’m so proud to be a part of it again this year. The organiser Amanda Carr has works tirelessly to put together this sensational event - a first and only one of it’s kind - where the UK’s best independent fragrance brands and perfumers come together in one big love-fest to showcase their products and share their fascinating world with fragrance lovers. You can smell, shop and chat away to your heart’s content, and really get to know the brands and founders. They’re all listed here on the BFF website.

The main tent is FREE FOR ALL, and is located in the Barnes Green Centre next to Barnes Pond.

Now listen folks, I’m a bit biased here because I grew up and lived in Barnes for over 30 years, as did my husband (our parents are still there!), and we love it so much we only moved one postcode away. It is such a pretty little village with great pubs (make a note of The Red Lion, The Sun Inn and The White Hart) and excellent restaurants (try The Waterman’s Arms, Rick Stein’s, The Olympic Cinema Cafe or good old trusty Cote, which is located literally on Barnes Green), and plenty of very posh coffee shops and local boutiques.

You can make a full day of it, and why not book a workshop or talk? There is a great selection of events taking place at The Methodist Church just near the main fair (these are ticketed, not free) and this link will take you to the timetable.

There is a roster of the most glorious perfume people hosting these, including Jo Fairley, Haydn Williams, Sarah McCartney and the awesome duo behind the OnTheScent podcast, Suzy Nightingale and Nicola Bonn.

I’ll be hosting two myself. Here are the details:

11am: Barnes Fragrance Fair Round-Up

Smell-along with perfume oracle Suzy Nightingale and me as we present our favourite Spring/Summer scents and treats from the brands showcased at the Fair.

TAP HERE FOR YOUR SUZY+ALICE TICKET

4pm: ‘A Life in Scent’ with Sali Hughes

Get swept away with Sali Hughes - beauty queen, author, award-winning journalist and Beauty Banks charity co-founder - as she takes me through her career in fragrance, some of her most beloved perfumes and joyful scented stories.

TAP HERE FOR YOUR SALI+ALICE TICKET

And now for some top secret things coming up, which I will update you on when I’m allowed to…

Another very exciting pop-up (March 21st-24th)

There is a really, really good one with a ton of incredible brands being showcased in a superb way, including immersive moments, shopping zones and lots of fun bonuses.

Pencil in ‘perfume pop-up in Soho from March 21st-24th, from 10am-6pm’ and come back here at the end of next week for an update.

Me + one of my favourite brands + nationwide events (May & June)

I’m going ‘on tour’ with one of my (and your) most adored fragrance houses, and we’re hopefully coming to London, Cambridge, Liverpool and Edinburgh. It'll be to celebrate a big new fragrance launch, and there will be a London-based pop-up all around it too. Dates and locations aren’t confirmed yet, but I should get more info in the next couple of weeks. I cannot stress enough how mega this one is!

Thank you so much for subscribing. Hopefully see you at one of the events I’m hosting or attending, and have a gorgeously scented Spring.

Alice xxx