5 top picks from Barnes Fragrance Fair
The fourth iteration of the annual Barnes Fragrance Fair on May 16th proved the fragrance boom is community driven, and that British indie houses are simply bursting with creativity and passion. What a day! We were quite overwhelmed by the end of it, but let’s take a look at some of the scents the crowds (and our noses) couldn’t get enough of…
WORDS: SUZY NIGHTINGALE
The book of recipes shared with Olfactive O fans who pre-ordered New Earth at Barnes
What’s a collective noun for the coming together of thousands of fragrance fans, we wonder – a waft? Well, however you’d choose to name them, groups of avid perfume lovers gathered from around the world (we heard from On The Scent Podcast listeners flying in from Australia, Canada, America and Portugal to be there!) to descend of the leafy London suburb of Barnes for the fourth year of Barnes Fragrance Fair. This time, the fair featured two venues for stallholders, with double the number of brands showcasing their scented wares, along with a schedule packed with talks, walks and workshops.
Suffice to say, there was a LOT to get our noses on, and while impossible to smell absolutely everything, many discovery sets and travel sizes were being purchased, the better to sample in one’s own olfactory timeframe at home.
And if you couldn’t be there this year, or just didn’t have time to get around all the brands you wanted to sniff out, you can learn all about the founders of several of our must-sniff British houses featured at Barnes 2026 by reading our Meet the Founders article in On The Scent Magazine. It’s also our celebration of the stupendous effort of Barnes Fragrance Fair co-founder and fragrant visionary Amanda Carr. Honestly, the energy and enthusiasm she created could have powered the entire country for months, had we been able to hook it up to the National Grid.
Meanwhile, for this week’s ‘Take 5’ blog feature, we just had to continue the Barnes Fragrance Fair love-in – for there were just so many scents to fall in love with. Indeed, several stallholders completely sold out and had to take back-orders, such was the olfactory onslaught of fans fresh from talks and waving blotters of their chosen ‘must-have’ perfumes. To be perfectly honest, given the quality and quantity of fragrances on offer this year, this could quite easily have been ‘500 top picks’, but we have to at least try to be sensible. Listen to forthcoming episodes of ‘On The Scent’ podcast for more of our must-sniffs, but for now, let’s get up close and personal with these fabulous five…
Extraordinarily sultry, but in the most contemporary way. Meet a rose who’s neither shy or retiring, but swaggers into the room casually wearing a leather jacket over a va-va-voom crushed raspberry colour ballgown. Softly billowing tobacco-like nuances of agar wood and oudh beneath the ravishing rosiness, it’s one to enrapture the senses of even the most hardened rose naysayer, we reckon.
£85 for 30ml eau de parfum (2ml sizes also available) angelaflanders-perfumer.com
Created alongside author Joanna Harris, celebrating the launch of Vianne, (prequel to her bestselling novel Chocolat), this is ‘part chocolatier, part-confessional.’ Evoking a church in Marseilles, plumes of incense (labdanum), nestle alongside cocoa, rose, geranium, salt, Clearwood, and attar mitti, for wet earthiness – a fascinating ingredient, distilling rainwater-soaked clay. Smoochy, not traditionally ‘churchy’, and decidedly delicious.
£75 for 30ml eau de parfum 4160tuesdays.com
Audible gasps of delight were heard when people got to sniff this (founder Olivia told us many ‘On The Scent’ podcast listeners hot-footed it to the Olfactive O stall having heard the rhapsodic review of New Earth on last week’s episode!) And well may they gasp, because this is exactly the wild nature we need to take refuge in right now. Bright with freshly podded peas, rain-licked petrichor’s leafiness and deep, loamy comfort, this is a scent to breathe a HUGE sigh of relief, and smile contentedly while wearing. No wonder Alice du Parcq also chose this (and spoke to Olivia about its creation) during her Scents for Self-Care talk, during the fair. It’s like forest-bathing but in your garden, and bottled for instant head-clearing.
£65 for 30ml eau de parfum olfactiveo.com
Anyone who attended Thomas Dunckley and Haydn Williams’ ‘Scent and Sound’ session at Barnes will have been witness to the emotional immediacy this fragrance can have. It’s one of those almost alchemical-feeling scents that manages to be both crisp pear crystalline and joyously sparkling, like the glimmer of stars twinkling; while also referencing the velvety caress of the sky through clouds of soft suede, iris butter and violet powder. As it warms, a caramel sweetness suffuses resinous cedar – a comedown hug of reassurance to wear whenever you need it.
£135 for 50ml eau de parfum (2ml sample sizes also available) nancymeiland.com
Gazing upwards for inspiration again, the so-clever Mabelle captures an otherworldly feeling of floating through space, suspended on dancing motes of silver glitter swirling through the cosmos. Coolly shimmering with a pearlescent evocation of iris, the powdery feeling takes on the texture of warm skin beneath shot silk, while ambient woods and a tingle of amber in the base evoke the ethereally lunar glow. Think: ‘your skin but… so much more interesting’ and join the fragrance-loving crowds who snapped this up to savour for year-round scented scintillation.
£90 for 30ml eau parfum mabellorama.com
NB Always written by humans, never AI.