Say what you like about the French, they certainly know their way around perfume, and the L'Artisan Parfumeur is a great place to start if you're looking for a new scent. Established in 1976, the brand has a range of over 20 scents, each appealing to different senses and combining incredibly unique notes. Ingredients such as Absinthe and the dusky dry notes of the Arabian desert can be discovered nestling inside the attractive looking bottles, and choosing one that suits you can be a very enjoyable task. They've just opened a boutique in Covent Garden, and I headed down there to check them out. The bottled are laid out in beautiful lines, with mirrors everywhere and little tasting teapots in front of each bottle to allow you to fully experience each scent. After an enjoyable olfactory session with the master perfumer, I settled upon Havana Vanille as my personal favourite, as it combines heady notes of sweet vanilla with an earthier musky base. It moves away from traditional vanillas in that there is a lot more depth to the scent, it settles on the skin and the throat in a delicious manner, and as the perfume unfolds, richer notes of rum and spice become apparent. It's a scent that reminds you of summer holidays and sunsets, with the mellow notes making it more mature, think evening in Monte Carlo, rather than sunrise in Ibiza. As the scent develops on the skin, you start to notice a smoky woodiness enfold you, with the notes of rum teasing the lips and blending with the vanilla to create something more mysterious and decadent. I've worn this three times, and everytime I've been asked what I'm wearing by people who seem bemused that they're so intrigued by a Vanilla scent. I know that the packaging is a very small, small part of the whole fragrance process, but I just have to mention how beautifully my scent was wrapped up- in lovely black paper with a metal key attached, and placed in a very pretty black bag. It just added to the whole experience of luxury and was a great finishing to touch to the experience.