Ormonde Woman – fresh and powdery and feminine

I remember the year my husband and I celebrated our anniversary with a trip to London. We met with friends, ate in good restaurants and took in some sites. One day, we were walking to a gallery in Mayfair when my niche nose picked up a strange and beautiful scent coming from a woman as she passed by us. For the rest of the afternoon, my mind kept drifting back to the smell of that perfume, and where could I find it?

On our way back to the hotel, we walked through the Royal Arcade, and as I passed by the open doors of Ormonde Jayne’s flagship store, I caught the mystery scent in the air. I wish I could tell you my nose is just that good, that I could identify a scent I caught from a few molecules coming off a passing stranger in the street, but I’m afraid it isn’t. There was a very simple explanation for my new superpower. I went into the shop and told a sales associate what had happened in the street that afternoon. She smiled knowingly and said they had had a big promotion for Ormonde Woman that day, and everybody in Mayfair smelled of it. Well, at least that made it easy to find it. I walked away with the bottle of Ormonde Woman and the excitement of discovering a new fragrance line.

Ormonde Jayne is the British niche fragrance line founded by Linda Pilkington in 2000. It’s a line I’ve come to know and respect, yet it is often overlooked. So, let me tell you introduce you to Ormonde Jayne with a few facts:

Ormonde Jayne is one of the few niche perfume houses of its size that are still privately owned by its founder.

Next, Pilkington has never wavered from her commitment to finding and using rare, exquisite ingredients seldom used in perfumery. For example, she was the first to use oud in a fine fragrance, Ormonde Man.

And, Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez give Ormonde Man and Ormonde Woman five-star reviews in Perfumes: The Guide. They also included them in their book of 100 “classics” in perfumery.

But let’s get back to Ormonde Woman. On me, it opens with the smell of freshly cut grass. It comes from grass oil, that’s unctuous, vegetal and deeply green. It’s balanced with spicy warmth from cardamom and coriander. Cardamom has a sweet aspect that borders on gourmand, while coriander is fresh and herbaceous. Just when you get used to it, Tsuga or Black hemlock joins in. Part of the pine family, it’s forest-fresh and balsamy, and it gives Ormonde Woman a hypnotic headiness I find quite beguiling. A note of violet snuggles up to the Black Hemlock. Soft, powdery, feminine and dusky, it adds a sense of mystery to the blend. A seductive and lush white jasmine note quietly echoes the headiness of the Black hemlock. It all rests on a base of balsamy cedarwood and creamy sandalwood gently sweetened by amber.

Ormonde Woman dries down to a beautiful intermingling of fresh and powdery and woody notes that’s a one-of-a-kind fragrance.

Check out Ormonde Woman in our Shop.