Imagined by Daphné Bugey, this interpretation opens on the peppery freshness of pink pepper, stirring an aromatic heart guided by eucalyptus and rose. At the base, a fiery chili accord meets the smoky depth of incense and the richness of cashmere wood.

An exploration of a sunken garden… where the ocean seems to reveal nothing more. A place shielded from the surface, where the seasons pass differently, where light hangs suspended, and the elements transform with a mineral slowness. In this preserved darkness, the garden has never stopped blooming. The flowers have changed color, the resins have grown denser. The corals have taken on the appearance of plants, and the stones seem to hold a warmth rising from the abyss. In the intensity of the depths, the materials have changed in nature.

Eucalyptus resin keeps its aromatic brightness, but its freshness turns denser, more mineral. Incense immediately unfolds smoky facets, while rose reveals itself in a new light, balmy and carnal. A different intensity takes hold. The woods draw closer around the composition, anchoring the accord in an ample, resinous presence. Cypriol brings its dark texture, sandalwoods wrap the fragrance in a creamy softness, and ambergris lets a discreet light surface, passing through the shadows like an endless breath.

Abyssae L’Extrait is available for €320 (75ml).

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Guided by a desire for emotional sincerity, Northern Love writes a love letter to modern romance. A bittersweet embrace, warm and comforting, set against a cool, nostalgic undertone. The courage to feel.

Northern Love is a composition that embraces you in the truest sense of the word: it wraps around you and doesn’t let go. The intention was to find, through the ingredients themselves, a way to hold the person wearing this fragrance. An amber built around an extraordinarily milky sandalwood.

If it were a season, a time of day, a look, it would be autumn. When the sun grows shyer and loses its intensity, especially as the day winds down. As that light fades, Northern Love steps in, restoring the warmth you’ve been waiting for.

Master Perfumer Bruno Jovanovic signs an amber-woody composition that moves between opulence and refinement, classicism and modernity. Northern Love elevates an exceptional sandalwood essence, drawing out the naturally creamy facets of this precious wood. Lifted by warm spices, the sandalwood settles into the enveloping roundness of vanilla, leaving an intimate, deeply comforting trail.

Blending visionary creativity with a deep love of tradition, Bruno Jovanovic showcases his craft in a fragrance built on masterful texture.

Top note: Speculoos
Heart note: Vanilla
Base note: Sandalwood

« My intention was to find, through the ingredients themselves, a way to embrace the person wearing this fragrance. An amber built around an extraordinarily milky sandalwood. »
Bruno Jovanovic

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Against porcelain-fair skin, lips move between deep matte and lacquered shine, precise contours and softened lines. Each look reveals a different character somewhere between restraint and intensity, beauty and performance.

Through sculptural shapes, refined textures, and a carefully composed palette, Byredo’s lip collection treats color as a space for expression and transformation. Every application leaves its own imprint.

Lucia Pica designed the Vinyl Liquid Lipstick as a liquid material meant to shift with a person’s mood and feelings. Its fluid, creamy texture delivers a sophisticated, high-impact shine that lives and evolves with the wearer throughout the day. Available in a range of neutral and luminous shades, this liquid lipstick draws on the power of natural tones to highlight each person’s individual beauty.

The Vinyl Liquid Lipstick delivers intense color and a mirror-like shine in a single swipe. Its highly pigmented, perfectly buildable palette of natural shades comes in a vegan, velvety formula built on oils and shea butter for lasting comfort. Long-wearing and non-transferring, the formula ensures a flawless finish as pleasant to wear as it is to look at.

Understated by design, the color palette draws on the power of natural tones to highlight each person’s individual beauty. Discover a range of 10 neutral and luminous shades from the total transparency of Fantôme to deep browns and beiges, by way of subtle reds. There’s a shade suited to every skin tone, every mood, and every occasion, letting you express your personality in a thousand different ways.

€48, available at byredo.com

The post Byredo turns to Isabelle Huppert to explore the many expressions of the lips through color and texture. first appeared on Not Just A Perfume.

Originally from southern Italy, broccoli from the Latin bracchium, meaning « branch, » a nod to its shape actually encompasses three related vegetables: annual broccoli, the strikingly geometric Romanesco, and the rarer sprouting broccoli. Remarkably low in calories (just 30 kcal per 100g), broccoli is an excellent source of vitamin C. But it’s best known for its associations with lower risk of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and age-related eye degeneration.

A member of the cruciferous vegetable family, broccoli contains glucosinolates compounds that convert into biologically active molecules once ingested along with two natural carotenoid antioxidants: lutein and zeaxanthin.

Broccoli and Cardiovascular Health

Homocysteine, sometimes dubbed « the new cholesterol, » is an amino acid produced by the body that contributes to blood vessel deterioration — a risk that increases with age and is of particular concern for postmenopausal women. Research suggests that eating broccoli three to five times a week may help reduce this risk.

Broccoli and Cancer Risk

Broccoli has also been studied for its potential preventive role against certain cancers including ovarian, prostate, and kidney cancer as well as a lower associated risk of colon, stomach, lung, and (in pre-menopausal women) breast cancer.

It’s worth noting these findings come mainly from population studies showing correlation, not proof of direct cause and effect and this protective association appears to extend to cruciferous vegetables as a family, not broccoli alone. Research into broccoli’s active compound, sulforaphane, is ongoing, including in the context of existing cancers, but this remains an active area of scientific study rather than an established treatment.

Broccoli, a Boost for Eye Health

The body cannot produce lutein or zeaxanthin on its own, yet both are essential to vision: lutein is one of the dominant pigments in the macula the « yellow spot » at the center of the retina responsible for central vision while zeaxanthin makes up roughly two-thirds of the retina’s carotenoid content. Since both must come from diet, that’s reason enough to make room for broccoli on your plate.

On top of all this, broccoli remains an excellent source of vitamin C and the icing on the cake: it’s remarkably easy to cook. Just don’t over-steam it, to preserve its nutrients.

There’s no shortage of ways to enjoy it either baked into a gratin with potatoes, folded into a savory tart, blended into a velvety soup, or given the stir-fry treatment, Chinese-style.

The post It’s cheap, easy to cook, and packed with more health benefits than its humble reputation suggests. first appeared on Not Just A Perfume.

Growing it in your community garden is out of the question baobab only grows in sub-Saharan Africa, a matter of space and climate. Its fruit, encased in an oblong shell up to 30 centimeters long, holds numerous seeds coated in a white pulp.

A nutritional powerhouse

That pulp is already creating a buzz across the Channel. Packed with soluble fiber, it’s a vault of vitamins including vitamin C (reportedly up to six times more than an orange), calcium (several times more than milk), and potassium (multiple times more than a banana), alongside compounds traditionally credited with anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties. Monkey bread, as it’s also known, is said to nourish, soothe, and help prevent while being rich in antioxidants. It’s not for nothing that the baobab tree is nicknamed « the tree of longevity. » All of this comes wrapped in a delicious citrus-like flavor.

Its high vitamin C content makes it a natural ally against fatigue, giving that well-known energy boost which is exactly why some manufacturers have started adding baobab to energy drinks and athletes’ snacks.

It’s also making its way into cosmetics: baobab oil is remarkably rich and nourishing, even for the driest, most damaged hair.

While baobab is only now becoming known in the West as a superfood, it has long been valued in Africa for its many traditional uses. (Worth noting: several of these traditional health claims are still being studied by modern research, and haven’t yet been fully confirmed clinically.)

Where and how to find it

Its one real drawback: it doesn’t exactly grow between parked cars over here nor in the UK, for that matter. Which explains why it remains a relative luxury for the wallet. A more affordable option is the natural powder form, which preserves much of its nutritional value and flavor. Otherwise, there’s always the option of booking a trip to taste it fresh, straight from the source.

How to eat it

Conveniently, it requires no lengthy kitchen preparation. Stirred into yogurt or a dessert, dried baobab pulp adds a pleasant tangy note. It’s also available as a dietary supplement, sometimes used to help those recovering from illness regain strength.

One word of caution: baobab is very high in fiber higher than recommended daily intake if overconsumed. A measured, occasional treatment is fine, but it’s not meant to become part of your everyday diet.

The post You won’t find it on every street corner, but the baobab fruit is, without question, a genuine health powerhouse some even call it the next big superfood. first appeared on Not Just A Perfume.

If someone told you that trees could speak to one another, exchange information, and communicate would you believe it? It sounds like the stuff of children’s fables. And yet, science has recently confirmed that this particular fairy tale is, in fact, real.

« Trees exchange information and nutrients with one another »

Suzanne Simard, professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia (UBC), has demonstrated through more than 80 scientific experiments that trees are able to communicate with their neighbors. The results made a significant impact upon publication.

Simard had been fascinated by forests since childhood. Over 25 years, she and her colleagues repeated experiments in Canadian forests to determine whether trees genuinely communicated with one another.

The experiment worked as follows: three types of trees pine, birch, and cedar were each covered with plastic bags. Radioactive carbon-14-tagged carbon dioxide gas was injected into the birch’s bag, and carbon-13-tagged gas into the pine’s. Researchers then measured the exchange of radiation between the birch and pine root systems.

Within an hour, the birch and pine had exchanged their respective carbon isotopes through their roots. The cedar, not connected to the birch-and-pine root network, showed no such exchange with the other species.

Prof. Simard confirmed that trees use sophisticated mechanisms to exchange not only carbon, but also nitrogen, phosphorus, water, defense signals, allelochemicals, and hormones.

Even at a distance, trees stay connected through an underground network

According to Prof. Simard, while trees may appear independent above ground, an entire invisible world exists below the surface one where roots spread in every direction, and where the vast reach of fungal networks appears to weave a kind of « symbiotic web. » A single tree can be connected to hundreds of others. Information and nutrients are regularly exchanged through this mycorrhizal network the symbiotic association between fungi and tree roots between trees of the same species, different species, and even different types of plants. Some trees even act as « mother trees, » functioning as hubs within the network.

A « mother tree » recognizes its own offspring and develops larger mycorrhizal networks with them. It sends significant nutrients to its saplings through this underground network and even clears root space to make room for their growth. When a « mother tree » is wounded, it sends chemical warning signals carbon-based defense compounds to its offspring, helping them build greater resilience to future stress.

A more controversial chapter: the « Backster effect »

Long before Simard’s research, one man had already claimed to detect communication in plants: Cleve Backster, an American polygraph specialist, who in 1966 attached lie-detector equipment to plants and reported that they reacted with what looked like fear and distress. In 1968, Backster published his findings in the International Journal of Parapsychology, sparking wide public interest at the time.

It’s worth noting, however, that Backster’s experiments have never been successfully replicated by independent researchers, and his conclusions were ultimately rejected by the broader scientific community unlike Simard’s peer-reviewed, widely replicated work on mycorrhizal networks, which remains one of forest ecology’s most significant discoveries.

The post It sounds like something from a fairy tale but science has confirmed that trees really do talk to each other. first appeared on Not Just A Perfume.

There are books you read, close, and immediately reach for the next one. The Perfume Collector is not one of them.

Kathleen Tessaro’s novel follows Grace Monroe, a young woman from London’s polished social circles, quietly bored with the life expected of her until a letter arrives from a lawyer, informing her of an unusual inheritance. To claim it, she must travel to Paris. It’s the beginning of an unexpected journey.

The inheritance comes from a woman named Eva d’Orsey someone Grace has never heard of. Her only lead is an old, abandoned perfume shop, where she slowly uncovers the story of her mysterious benefactress. Madame d’Orsey, it turns out, lived an extraordinary life: from the jazz clubs of 1920s New York to the casinos of Monte Carlo, hers was a world of glamour, reinvention, and secrets secrets that still echo into Grace’s present.

I usually move from one book to the next without much thought. This one, I couldn’t. I read it with real passion, gripped by its suspense and its mystery, genuinely marked by Eva and Grace’s intertwined stories. And when I turned the last page, I simply wasn’t ready to start another book. I needed to sit with it a while first which, for me, says everything about how good it is.

Woven around three evocative perfumes, The Perfume Collector explores memory, desire, and the complex bond between muse and perfumer. If you love a story with genuine mystery at its heart, this one deserves a place on your shelf.

The post The Perfume Collector first appeared on Not Just A Perfume.

Listen to the wind, hear birdsong, feel the rustle of leaves, catch the cries of animals, make out the lapping of water all without needing trained ears or straining to listen too hard. That’s what three megaphones installed in an Estonian forest make possible.

A student idea, built at full scale

Birgit Õigus, one of the students behind the project, imagined installing three giant megaphones in the forest each over 3 meters in diameter, built from wood in a decagonal shape designed to amplify the sounds of the forest. At the center of these three natural sound amplifiers, the acoustics are said to be extraordinary. Hannes Praks, who leads the Interior Architecture Department at the Estonian Academy of Arts, explains that « the megaphones are placed at a calculated distance and angle; the blend of sound coming from three directions produces a unique acoustic effect at their center. »

A place for silence, not noise

In place for over a month now, the site welcomes hikers, campers, daydreamers, and anyone in search of a little poetry and stillness. There’s only one rule: stay quiet, and open your ears.

Photos by Tõnu Tunnel.

The post Deep in an Estonian forest, three giant wooden megaphones invite visitors to simply stop and listen. first appeared on Not Just A Perfume.

The rise of wellness culture and alternative medicine, alongside the growing popularity of yoga classes even in the office and juice bars, has given way to a new way of traveling: hybrid destinations that sit somewhere between the boutique hotel and the meditative retreat. A welcome pause from stressful environments, hyper-connected lives, and increasingly frantic rhythms.

Indeed, in a world where disconnecting has become a daily necessity for managing one’s emotional intelligence pairing spiritual and physical development for a healthy mind in a healthy body choosing to step away for a few days, far from the noise of the world, to reconnect with oneself, is an option drawing a growing number of devotees. Women, but increasingly men too, living demanding city lives, are seeking the perfect combination of disconnection and self-reflection: kindness, relaxation, coaching, and healthy food, all in one place.

Slow travel, premium format

In line with the slow travel movement, but in a premium format, the retreat is no longer reserved for devotees of fasting and meditation. Far from silent monasteries and stripped-down mountain lodges, a new generation of retreats with the aesthetic codes of contemporary boutique hotels is opening its doors to the public, often launched by former high-powered executives turned wellness entrepreneurs. Their goal: to meet the demand of a clientele that wants to disconnect in order to better reconnect all within an inspiring, worldly setting. Think locations deep in nature or on remote coastlines, far from mass tourism, paired with yoga, qigong, and meditation practice with green juices and poke bowls to enjoy (and, of course, photograph) along the way.

New destinations are emerging in India, Mexico, Bali, and France.

Where to go

At Somatheeram, in India’s Kerala region, stays are built around Ayurveda a tradition rooted in Indian medicine and considered the oldest holistic healing system in the world. Set within a tropical garden overlooking the sea, the property offers Ayurvedic treatments alongside yoga and meditation sessions, in the purest Indian tradition. (somatheeram.in)

Yoga, massages, and healthy food: that’s the program at Mexican eco-lodge Amansala. At the foot of the hotel, an endless beach and crystal-clear water await for long swims or diving lessons. Culture lovers can take a trip to the ancient Mayan city of Tulum nearby. (amansala.com)

Nestled in the Balinese jungle, between a river and a vast clearing, Como Shambhala Estate combines spiritual and earthly nourishment. Guests can take Pilates or qigong classes, go hiking or climbing in nature, and enjoy Asian cuisine at its healthiest. (comohotels.com)

Smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other screens: all banished. Located at the foot of the Auvergne volcanoes, Vichy Célestins Spa Hôtel is a pioneer of the digital detox retreat. On the program: sophrology, behavioral coaching, sport all washed down with organic fruit juice. (vichy-spa-hotel.fr)

The post As always on lifestyles push people to their limits, a new kind of getaway is emerging somewhere between the boutique hotel and the meditation retreat. first appeared on Not Just A Perfume.

Far from reassuring gourmands, this sharp spicy edge gives depth to the dark berry before melting into a carnal trail of ambroxan and musks. A vibrant, biting juice — as bold as a swipe of red lipstick — built to bring color to September’s grey.

Available September 24.

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