This week: We keep noticing how much work fragrance is being asked to do before anyone smells it.
This week, Channel 4 is building four fictional women around four Sol de Janeiro scents. It is almost the inverse of work Azzi Glasser has been doing for years, creating private fragrances to help actors locate the characters they are playing. One starts with the character and finds the perfume. The other starts with the perfume and writes the character.
Elsewhere, the object around scent is doing more work too. Byredo is moving into Finnish glass with Iittala, Perfumer H has handed its bottle to a ceramicist and Diptyque has turned an advent calendar into a woodworker’s toolbox.
None of this replaces the fragrance itself, yet it builds a world around something that cannot travel through a screen.
what’s in the air
The fragrance stories worth knowing this week →
Diptyque’s 2026 advent calendar contains 25 scented products and takes its shape from a craftsman’s toolbox imagined with artist Jean-Simon Roch. The £420 calendar includes fragrance, candles, body care and home scent. (Diptyque)
Selfridges’ first fragrance advent calendar launched at £225 and sold out online on launch morning before returning to stock 4 days later and selling out again. Copies moved almost immediately onto the reseller markets, with completed sales upwards of £400 — a premium of over 70%. (Selfridges)
Jo Malone London’s Tartan Tales collection brings back Ginger Biscuit alongside Vanilla Scotch and Orange Bitters. The Christmas collection also includes a 200ml Cypress & Grapevine Cologne Intense exclusive to Harrods at £250. (Harrods)
Escentric Molecules has released the Core Edit, a £105 set of six 10ml fragrances: Escentric 01, Escentric 02, Molecule 01, Molecule 02, Molecule 01 + Patchouli and Molecule 01 + Champaca. (Escentric Molecules)
Lyn Harris has launched Clay and worked with Aaron Angell of London ceramics studio Troy Town on ceramic versions of the Perfumer H bottle. Clay starts at £145 for 50ml; the ceramic vessels will be displayed in Perfumer H stores in London, Paris and Seoul until 31 October. (Wallpaper*)
Creed has opened a standalone boutique at 56 King Street in Manchester, inside a Grade II-listed building. The house describes it as its first standalone UK boutique outside London. (Retail Times)
Joe Wright directs Chanel’s latest Coco Mademoiselle campaign around Café Mademoiselle, a Parisian café created for the film. Coco Mademoiselle Crush Absolu is now available in the UK at £160 for 100ml. (Chanel)
Merit’s second fragrance, New Wave, is an extrait de parfum built around what the brand calls an Ambre 83 structure. It launches on the UK site on 22 October, with formats priced from £30 to £79. (Merit)
Phlur is extending Heavy Cream beyond its body mist with an eau de parfum by perfumer Gil Clavien and a body butter. Both are due at Space NK on 20 October, with the eau de parfum listed at £99 for 50ml. (TheIndustry.beauty)
Marks & Spencer has released Percy Pig Berry Bliss Eau de Parfum. The retailer describes it as taking inspiration from Percy Pig’s signature scent with a berry twist, extending the character beyond confectionery and into fragrance. (Marks & Spencer)
From 24 October, 4160Tuesdays says qualifying orders from its Current Collection and The Vault will receive the next bottle size up. Its retirement sale and standing discount code will be switched off during the promotion. (4160Tuesdays)
Fugazzi’s Angel Dust Extrait de Parfum has arrived at Selfridges at £205 for 100ml. The extrait marks the fifth anniversary of Angel Dust and gives the fragrance a higher-concentration counterpart. (Selfridges)
scent about town
Where fragrance is happening in London →
Floraïku Opens Opening Night at Harrods
Floraïku’s Opening Night pop-up celebrates the house’s new Harrods-exclusive fragrance with scent consultations, complimentary samples and a prize game with fragrance purchases.
Until 16 October · Harrods, Door 3 · Free · Harrods
SCREEN Launches in Hackney
Jouissance Parfums and artist and writer Ella Fleck launch SCREEN, a limited fragrance presented in three numbered artist-designed bottles made with London Glass Blowers.
15 October · Apoc, Unit 41 Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Road, Hackney · Free · FLO London
Find Your Signature Scent in Woolwich
SoniasChanels runs an interactive evening around finding a signature scent, with fragrance families, perfume oils, blending and layering on the programme.
16 October, 6.30–10.30pm · Clockhouse Community Centre, Defiance Walk, Woolwich · £16.96 · Eventbrite
Jo Loves Serves Fragrance Tapas
Jo Loves takes its Fragrance Tapas format to John Lewis Bluewater for an hour exploring the collection through the brand’s established tasting-style approach.
16 October, 5–6pm · John Lewis, Bluewater, Dartford · £25 · Eventbrite
Autumn in a Bottle at Angela Flanders
Kate Evans leads a morning exploring the Angela Flanders autumn collection at the Columbia Road perfumery, with tickets redeemable against purchases made on the day.
17 October, 10–11.30am · Angela Flanders, Bethnal Green · £16.96 · Eventbrite
Diptyque Teaches Home Scenting
Maison Diptyque hosts a session on perfuming the home, covering scent pairings, candle care and the principles behind building fragrance through a space.
17 October, 11am–12.30pm · Maison Diptyque, 107 New Bond Street · £63, redeemable · Eventbrite
Candle-making at Hornsey Town Hall
Muswell Hill Creatives brings scented candle-making into its Make and Mend Festival, with an essential-oil vegetable-wax candle to take home.
17 October, 12pm & 2pm · Hornsey Town Hall, Crouch End · £35; festival entry free · Muswell Hill Creatives
Dior Reformulations, Discussed Online
Victoria Frolova looks at the major fragrance launches and trends of 2026, including Guerlain, Matière Première, Lapot Studio and Dior’s reformulations of its classics.
17 October, 5–6.30pm · Online · €60 · Bois de Jasmin
Azzi Glasser on Scent and Character
Azzi Glasser hosts a sensory brunch exploring art, identity and character through scent, including fragrances she has created for actors and film roles.
18 October, 11am–1pm · Fair Play Art Fair, One Marylebone · £65 · Fair Play Art Fair
Behind the Scenes in Fragrance
The Fragrance Foundation UK opens up the workings of the industry, from perfumery and packaging to fragrance houses, market trends and brand-building.
20 October · Shiseido’s London offices · £95 + VAT members; £150 + VAT non-members · The Fragrance Foundation UK
Penhaligon’s Brings Christmas to Selfridges
Penhaligon’s brings its Christmas fragrance collection into the Selfridges Beauty Hall for a week-long pop-up where visitors can explore and sample the festive range.
22–28 October · Selfridges Beauty Hall, 400 Oxford Street · Free · Selfridges
in rotation
What we’re reaching for now →
Byredo × Iittala
We’re watching for LJUS, the limited-edition collaboration bringing Byredo together with Finnish glassmaker Iittala. The collection spans objects for incense, candles and diffusers, with more arriving this month.
Scented Purses
Autour du Parfum’s fabric purses are home-fragrance objects filled with scented volcanic stones, designed to be refreshed rather than replaced. They come in linen, patterned and embellished finishes, turning home scent into something closer to a textile object.
Zara’s Perfume Bag Charms
Zara has built miniature handbag charms with a compartment specifically for carrying perfume. The current collection clips onto a full-size bag, turning the travel spray into part of the accessory rather than something hidden inside it.
counter culture
The ideas changing how we think about fragrance →
When the Character Gets a Perfume
Azzi Glasser has used scent to build fictional roles for years. Channel 4 is now reversing the process, building fictional characters from fragrances.
Some actors have a fragrance that nobody watching the film will ever smell.
British fragrance designer Azzi Glasser has spent years creating character perfumes: scents made for performers to use while constructing a role. The perfume is not merchandise and the audience does not need to know it exists. Its job is to give the actor another route into the person they are playing.
Glasser has spoken about creating scent for Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange and Princess Margaret, for Johnny Depp’s vampire in Dark Shadows, and for Laura Linney when she played two separate characters in The Little Foxes.
That makes Channel 4’s new project with Sol de Janeiro more interesting than another beauty-brand content collaboration.
The Guest List, which premieres across Channel 4’s TikTok, YouTube and Meta accounts on 24 October, is a five-part vertical drama about four young women working in London. Channel 4 says it is the broadcaster’s first commissioned vertical drama. Each central character draws inspiration from a different Sol de Janeiro Intense Perfume Mist.
Aisha, a photographer, is linked to Cheirosa 91. PR professional Amaka takes Cheirosa 62. Fashion assistant Mika maps to Cheirosa 74; finance intern Bella to Cheirosa 59.
It’s not quite what Glasser does, instead it turns the process inside out.
Glasser starts with a fictional person and creates a fragrance capable of helping an actor find them. Channel 4 and Sol de Janeiro start with four existing fragrances and construct fictional people capable of expressing them.
Perfume has always borrowed the language of personality: confident, mysterious, romantic, rebellious. Here, those adjectives acquire jobs, wardrobes, friendships and a plot.
The fragrance brief becomes the character brief.
The timing makes the connection more visible. On Sunday, Glasser sits down at Fair Play Art Fair in Marylebone for a session about art, identity and character through scent, including the fragrances she has created for film roles. Six days later, Channel 4 begins releasing a drama in which fragrance characterisation has moved from backstage into the content itself.
Scent once helped build a fictional person without the audience knowing.
Now the audience is being invited to meet the perfume first.
notes to self
If a perfume is a story, it is none other than my own.
