If you’re keen on some suggestions, my favourites from Black Phoenix include Morocco (warm and spicy), Kathmandu (woody and resinous), Perversion (leathery and smokey) and Zephyr (sweetly clean and lemony); from Arcana include Molly Malone (candyfloss and sea spray, strange but wonderful) and Haint (musky vanilla); and from Possets include Ultramarine Blue (soft lavender), Titanium White (non-air-freshener floral) and Lamp Black (spicy tea) – not all their perfumes are named after paints but that series is particularly good :)

I mostly only wear perfume oils from small companies like these now, they are so affordable and once you get used to not having the alcohol components in your perfume it’s odd to go back. But I do have a few favourites from the mass-market world, the Comme des Garcons Incense series is fantastic, particularly Avignon; L’Artisan’s Tea for Two is a brilliant spicy tea with a raisin-like richness; Diptique’s Tam Dao is a perfect creamy sandalwood (though I hear it’s been reformulated due to the sandalwood shortages so maybe it isn’t great anymore); Comptoir Sud Pacifique’s Coeur de Vahine is a bright sparkly fruity summer in a bottle (the one I have is under the previous name, Enfants du Soleil, but I think the juice is the same); Lolita Lempicka is a descendant of Angel with great licorice and earthy notes; Serge Lutens is a master of the “oriental” genre and I particularly like Douce Amere and Daim Blond.

I recently bought “Perfumes: The Guide” by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez and would highly recommend it, for scathing entertainment as well as information :) “The Secret of Scent” by Luca Turin is fascinating too, though it gets more into science than aesthetics.

Hmmm, it seems I can talk about perfume all day! I hope you find something (or some things) you love!