If there’s one thing we love at Who What Wear, it’s discovering a new fragrance. Whether it’s finding our signature scent or finding out the fragrances that celebrities wear, nothing gets the office talking more than when a new perfume is spritzed.
Fragrance is so personal to everyone. Some of my all-time-favourite fragrances are warm, woody or musky. I love Narciso Rodriguez For Her, Jo Malone Myrrh & Tonka and Byredo Bibliothèque. They’re bold fragrances with an impressive sillage, so they tend to lend themselves more to the autumn and winter months. So as the colder months draw in, I have a seasonal pang of excitement at digging my favourite fragrances back out again.
Like the rest of the Who What Wear team, I’m a huge Byredo fan. While you might know of Mojave Ghost and Gypsy Water, you might not have heard of the five lesser-known fragrances in Byredo’s premium line. But I’ll let you in on a secret—they’re guaranteed compliment-generators.
The Night Veils collection features five scents, which are more expensive than Byredo’s standard perfumes. This is because Byredo uses pure perfume extracts, which makes them smell very intense and very expensive indeed. The collection is inspired by the night and the way that flowers often unfurl their most intense scent at twilight. They make for the perfect evening scents; they’re dark and mysterious and last for hours on end on the skin. You’ll only need a tiny spritz of these (and thank goodness because they are £240 a bottle). Unlike most of Byredo’s fragrances that feature clear juice inside the bottle, the Night Veils fragrances house deep amber and golden liquid, which immediately makes me think of evening tipples like whisky and wine. They’re totally made for evening wear. Curious to find out what the Night Veils fragrances smell like, I put them to the test and documented it below, where I’m giving my honest thoughts on each.
Notes: freesia, plum, amber, cashmere woods, Madagascar vanilla beans, cistus oil. I think this may be my favourite from the Night Veils collection given that my jaw dropped when I first smelled this. It’s so addictive that I could not stop smelling it as I wrote this. Vanilla fragrances tend to have sickly sweet connotations, but this is truly a grown-up and well-rounded vanilla. The vanilla note is warm and slightly honeyed, and very warm from the glow of amber, but it isn’t overpowering. It’s bold on the initial spritz and radiates off of the skin for hours but soon settles down into the cashmere woods base. It’s now a mainstay in my fragrance collection. If you’re a fan of Tom Ford Vanille Fatale or Guerlain Angélique Noire, you’ll love this too.
Notes: blackcurrant, saffron, incense, rose, ambrette seeds, patchouli. The name alone, which translates as “queen of the night,” drew me in and totally makes sense. This opulent scent commands attention. It opens with juicy blackcurrant and velvety rose, which pave the way for heady incense and patchouli. It smells sweet yet sour and almost a little boozy in the chicest way possible. It reminds me a little bit of Diptyque Eau Capitale with the strong presence of rose and patchouli. It’s a mysterious scent that really pulses off of the skin and will have everyone asking you what you’re wearing.
Notes: plum, gardenia, carnation, Indian tuberose, rosewood, honey accord. I first smelled this fragrance in Liberty’s Beauty Hall and instantly fell in love. If you’re a fan of creamy, white florals like gardenia and tuberose, then I’d encourage you to smell this fragrance. I can really smell the honey and tuberose notes. It’s tender and soft, so it’s not as long-lasting as the other headier fragrances in the collection. This is a perfume that whispers rather than shouts.
Notes: cumin, mandarin orange, coriander, tobacco, leather, labdanum, olibanum, sandalwood and agarwood (oud). As the notes suggest, if you love a fragrance with aromatic or spicy notes, then you’re in luck. Juicy mandarin opens as a topnote, but it’s the tobacco and coriander notes that are the heavyweights in this fragrance. All of Byredo’s fragrances are marketed as unisex, but this one is too “masculine”-smelling for my taste.
Notes: cashmeran, black tea, leather accord, tobacco leaves, birch tree, oakmoss. As the name might suggest, this fragrance is all about leather. The brand describes it as “olfactory acrobatics that give the leather fragrance a good whip of the riding crop,” which is fun. It’s smoky and leathery and definitely taps into the mood of sitting in an aged leather chair with cigar smoke unfurling into the air. But it’s given a refreshing uplift with tea leaves and oakmoss. It has also been compared to Le Labo Santal 33 but with much less of the sandalwood note.
If you want to try all of the Night Veils scents, you can purchase all five in this limited-edition box.
