A high street fashion label isn’t normally the first place I’d go for fragrance, but I couldn’t believe how good these two new perfumes smell and look, says our beauty editor
Gone are the days of having to spent a small fortune to get a good perfume. While luxury fragrances often still win in terms of complexity and longevity, there are lots of excellent, more affordable scents on the market nowadays, from M&S’s popular £10 perfumes to The Body Shop’s new autumnal offerings.
However, I must admit that high street fashion labels aren’t normally the first place I’d turn to when shopping for a new fragrance, so when popular clothing brand Never Fully Dressed – recently worn by Kate Garraway on GMB – announced that they were venturing into fragrances, I wasn’t sure what to expect – but they totally blew me away.
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Never Fully Dressed has started with new scents inspired by the Balearic islands, both available in bottles of 100ml (priced at £69), 10ml (£19) and little 2ml testers (£4), plus luxury scented candles (£39).
NFD Eau De Parfum 001 is described as ‘a rich, sexy scent, made for golden hour’, with notes of bergamot, coffee, oud and vanilla’, while the brand calls NFD Eau De Parfum 002 ‘a fresh, fruity fragrance for the day’, featuring pink pepper, raspberry, jasmine and patchouli.
What immediately impressed me, before I’d even smelled them, was just how gorgeous the bottles are: luxuriously heavy with minimal branding and stunning quartz-style lids, they already look far more expensive than they are, and have serious dressing table appeal (the bottle design reminds me a little bit of Molton Brown’s £140 eau de parfums).
002 is the lighter and more wearable of the two, and the one I think will be the most popular – it’s a little bit fruity, a little bit sweet and a little bit warm and sunny, an elegant, easy-to-wear summery scent that will still work well into autumn and winter.
001, however, is my top pick, containing a few of my favourite fragrance notes: coffee, tobacco and vanilla. It’s rich, sexy and comforting without being overpowering (don’t be put off by the oud in there – I don’t like typical oud fragrances, and I love this). It makes a gorgeous evening or autumn scent and, although I haven’t smelt the candle, I bet this makes the whole room smell cosy and comforting.
If you don’t want to splash out on a full-size bottle, I highly recommend buying the 2ml or 10ml testers first. Overall, I’ve been super impressed with these two new launches, and it has inspired me to seek out other fashion brand scents. I’ll next be trying Next’s Summer Sun, £10, and M&S Discover Sweet Pistachio Eau de Toilette, £10.