general and specific events
Royal Ascot is a major event on the Britain’s social calendar and on Ladies Day it is the visitors who are the stars.
click here to go to the website of Royal Ascot
This year, the team at PAIRFUM have collected a few of the outstanding ‘perfumery’ or ‘floristry’ inspired hats.
Amongst these fabulous hats, we have chosen the best perfumery inspired hat of 2016.
Here is our winner:
The final flower of the day during the British Flower Week 2016, is the British-grown Alstroemeria.
A flower that is long-lasting, colourful and which is not too difficult to grow in English gardens.
Alstroemeria is ready for a renaissance !
Here are links to blog posts with further information during the British Flower Week website:
Click here to go to the article.
Click here to go to the article.
For anybody looking for inspiration on how to grow Alstromeria in their garden, here is a link to an interesting article:
Click here to go to the article.
Foliage is often overlooked when big the blooms of roses and peonies dazzles us with their colour & shape. However, Florists overlook it at their peril! Foliage will always be the backbone or backdrop of any stunning bouquet, giving it a background framework, structure, movement and texture.
Foliage does not have to boring and can be selected from branches of beech, photinia, white leaf, willow, eucalyptus birch or euonymus.
‘Herbs’ can also be used to adds interest and fragrance to a bouquet through the inclusion of mint, oregano, sage, lavender or rosemary.
‘Stems’ offer another source of inspiration to the florist and these are some examples: cow parsley, breezy grasses and stems of trailing jasmine.
Here are links to blog posts with further information during the British Flower Week website:
click here to go to the article
click here to go to the article
For anybody looking for inspiration on how to use Foliage, here is a link to an article:
click here to go to the article
The two common names for the British Astrantia are ‘Hattie’s pincushion’ and ‘masterwort’. This begs the question “who was Hattie ?” and “how did Astrantias get into her pincushions ?”
Here are two links to the British Flowers Week website and the posts about Astrantia.
click here to go to the article
Also known as ‘lace flower’, Orlaya Grandiflora is a flower that not only stands out because of its ‘grandios’ name.
Here are two links with more information about Orlaya Grandiflora:
click here to go to the article
Today marks the start of British Flower Week! A time to celebrate the nation’s flower industry and all the British flowers we love. Day One marks the celebration of the Oriental Lily.
At present, the vast majority of flowers bought on our high-streets are from large-scale commercial growers abroad.
New Covent Garden Flower Market, launched the campaign to highlight British flowers instead.
This annual celebration of seasonal, locally-grown flowers and foliage is uniting the UK’s flower industry and to sparking interest in where our flowers come from.
During the week the focus will be on the best of British cut flowers and the very best independent British florists to show just what British flowers are made of!
Right now, British cut flowers are enjoying a resurgence in demand. Just as interest in locally-grown food has grown, people’s interest is resurgent in locally-grown, freshly cut flowers.
Up until the 1970s, the only flowers you would ever see in the Flower Markets and nurseries came from flower farmers across Britain. Today, the vast majority of flowers in your high street flower shop will have been grown by large scale commercial growers in Holland, South America and Africa and routed through the Dutch auctions.
Here at PAIRFUM, we fully support the British Flower Industry, as we believe in locally produced goods.
Equally, as perfumers we continuously regret seeing flowers being grown for the beauty at the expense of their fragrance.
Lillies are a prime example of how wonderfully scented a floral bouquet can be.
External Links
British Flowers Week is bringing British cut flowers back.
Here is the link to the website set up of this special week. Enjoy browsing the site:
Day One – About the British Oriental Lily
click here to go to the article
Day One – Designs using British Oriental Lilies by The Dorchester:
click here to go to the article
Okishima & Simmonds created a living Poinsettia dress for Poinsettia Day.
Floral stylists Chikae Okishima and Jessica Simmonds (based in London) were commissioned to create a stunning haute couture floral dress with cut poinsettias, for Poinsettia Day 2015 (Saturday, the 12th of December 2015).
The result is spectacular, as you can see in these photos !
Without a doubt the dress is worthy of a Princess! The two designers normally style wedding ceremonies and fashion shoots with plant life. For this commission, they created a gown with over 350 freshly cut stems / leaves of red, variegated and cream poinsettia and graduating these colours from the different Poinsettia types, from the bright crimson of ‘feelings Glitter’ through to ‘feelings White’.
The project was initiated by Stars for Europe, an EU-funded PR initiative for Poinsettias across 16 different countries and the images from the photo shoot in this blog post were taken at Hill Brothers nursery in Chichester.
The project aims to inspire the public and to change the image of this festive plant. The spectecular dress & photos certainly seem to attract the attention of press (The Times, Daily Express).
They are very, very few products in Perfumery, Home Fragrance or Skin Care built around a Poinsettia fragrance or even perfume variants with a poinsettia note.
The olfactive profile of the Poinsettia Flower is a pine-like terpenic scent, frequently with a mushroom note, as they are prone to a fungus.
How can you make a make cut Poinsettia last ?
Dip the cut ends in hot water for 20 seconds, then immediately in cold to seal the milky sap. Then, place them in water and they will last up to two weeks!
This technique was used during the photoshoot to make the flowers last.
Join Florists across the UK & Europe in this coming Saturday with #PoinsettiaDay on social media!
The plant is popular at Christmas in floral displays for its red and green foliage. Its common English name comes from Joel Roberts Poinsett, who introduced the plant to the United States in 1825.
In the 16th-century in Mexico, the legend goes that a girl (usually called Pepita or Maria), too poor to provide a gift for the celebration of Jesus’ birthday, was inspired by an angel to gather weeds from the roadside and place them in front of the altar of her church. Crimson blooms sprouted from these weeds and became beautiful poinsettias.
From the 17th century, Franciscan friars in Mexico included the plants in their Christmas celebrations.
It is said, that the star-shaped leaf pattern symbolizes the Star of Bethlehem, and the red color represents the crucifixion of Jesus.
Here are a few ‘quick facts’ from the RHS
Common name: Poinsettia
Botanical name: Euphorbia pulcherrima
Flowering time: December to January
Planting time: Spring (for repotting)
Height & spread: Up to 60cm (2ft) height; 30cm (1ft) spread
Aspect: Bright but filtered light, indoors
Hardiness: Tender
Difficulty: Easy
Source: RHS
The London Design Week this year ran during 19 – 27 September, and here are a few of our highlights from a perfumery perspective.
We previously mentioned ‘eau de lumiere’ being a highlight for us: lights inspired by perfume
click to read “Eau de Lumiere – a ‘light’ Home Fragrance”
We then spotted the “Iris” pendent lamps by Sebastian Scherer of Neo/Craft: lights that are reminiscent of ‘soap bubbles’. The inspiration for Iris were bubbles blown by children. It comes as no surprise then that they seem to have a magnetic draw for visitors, wanting to touch and explore their semi-translucent form.
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The soap bubble lights take the form of a permanent bubble: perfectly spherical, smooth and beautifully iridescence like oil. The iridescence is achieved through a new coating on the glass being used by the designers.
‘Glass Bubble’ seemed to be a recurring theme during the London Design week: the ‘curiosity cloud’ installation and Lee Broom’s ‘Podium’ vases.
click to see “Curiosity Cloud”
Lee Broom turns ‘Florist’ for the launch of Podium, a collection of vases.
click to see Lee Broom’s “Podium Vase Collection”
click to see Lee Broom’s “Podium Globe”
For a more general review, The Telegraph published an article summarising the highlights:
click to read “LDW – Highlights”
The official website for the “London Design Festival” also points towards the ‘installations’:
We would like to thank all of our customers, PAIRFUMistas, friends, followers and everybody else for voting for the PAIRFUM Home Fragrance Blog.
Your vote ensured that PAIRFUM was shortlisted in the category ‘best luxury blog’ !
click to see the shortlisted blogs
We hear that 35,000 votes were cast for 389 blogs in different categories. This is an amazing number of votes that were cast ! Thank you for your help to make PAIRFUM one of the shortlisted blogs.
We really appreciate it.
Below are the next key dates:
We look forward to the awards evening and will keep everybody updated.
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