Recipe for Lyn Harris’s Orange Presse:

Squeeze the juice of six oranges and one lemon and pour into a glass (careful of the pips!)

Add ice and enjoy in the garden on a hot summer’s day.

NB: In the not unlikely event that a hot summer’s day will not be with us for a while, may I suggest you liberally spritz Miller Harris’s brand spanking new fragrance Le Petit Grain liberally over body and home.  It’s a family cologne made in honour of the humble orange tree, from which Lyn takes the oil from the peel of the fruit, neroli oil from the flowers, petitgrain from the leaves, and eau de brouts absolute, which also comes from the leaves.  It’s enhanced with angelica, bergamot from Italy, Sicilian lemons, some rosemary, thyme, tarragon and lavender, and set on a base of oak moss, vetiver and patchouli. Spritz it on and drink it up.  (The orange presse, that is.  Don’t drink the perfume).

There was a time in Mary Greenwell‘s life when the make-up artist wore so much  of the perfume  First by Van Cleef & Arpels  that she’d scarcely have stuck her toe through the front door before her then flat-mate, the hairstylist Sam McKnight, would shout out, “MARY’S HOME!”

First is a sparkling jasmine and rose concoction with plenty of amber underpinning it, and all the brash audacity of 1976 when it was first created, so it’s no wonder.  But would McKnight be shouting out Mary’s arrival quite so soon if she walked through his door now wearing her new fragrance, Lemon? Perhaps, but it would be over a cup of tea by the time she’d kicked off her heels and settled into the sofa for a catch-up. Which, let’s face it, is much more now and far less 1990s, when I imagine they would have been sharing together.

Lemon is Greenwell’s second fragrance, following the sexy, slightly younger feeling Plum that launched a couple of years ago, (“It’s an over-ripe plum, one that has been sitting in the sun for three days, all warm and luscious”). It has already proved to be a hit with two of her clients, Cate Blanchett and Uma Thurman – the make-up artist is also an ambassador for Chanel. No wonder, it’s pretty much irresistible and came almost as a “gift” to Mary from her perfumer Francois Robert who initially presented her with something he’d once made for his family over 20 years ago, wondering if she could use it in any way.  Nine months later, with a little less of a cologne feel to it and a lot more patchouli, oak moss and amber, as well as a touch of narcissus to link the top with the bottom, Lemon, the fragrance, was born. “It’s divine,” she says. “Everyone loves it.”

Greenwell is the latest in a small but growing line of  make-up artists turned perfumers, which includes the likes of Serge Lutens and Terry de Gunzberg, via women like Bobbi Brown and Sylvie Chantecaille.  But what’s different with Greenwell is that she doesn’t have a cosmetics brand, nor does she intend to have one.  The make-up artist who started out over 30 years ago living in Paris until New York beckoned (where she shared the aforementioned flat with McKnight) is behind some of the key looks of each decade she’s worked in.

What have been her key career moments so far? “Being in Paris in the spring of 1984 was incredible, when all the supermodels rolled up. Linda, Christy, Stephanie, Cindy, Tatiana, they were all babies together, about 15 or 16 years old.  I was a little older, but we all stayed together at the Rue St Andre des Arts.  It was divine!”

“Then there’s working with Grace Coddington, in the winter of 1985,” she continues.  ”We were with (photographer) Hans Feurer in Hawaii, shooting for British Vogue, and that was the beginning of a long period of working with  Vogue. Are you writing this all down, baby face?” Greenwell … wait, enough with this Greenwell –  I can’t keep calling her Greenwell, she’s Mary, warm and lovely and calls me BABYFACE and is not about to be reduced to a surname only –  just doesn’t work.. Anyway, MARY leans across the table and taps my notebook, practically turns the page for me, she’s that impatient and knows she’s talking too fast.  ”Oh and of course, Diana, Princess Diana, with Patrick Demarchelier, shooting the cover for Vogue with Sam (McKnight). That was pretty historic.”

It’s not bad for a first career.  Not bad at all. But I have a feeling that thanks to Plum, and now Lemon, and what next exactly, Mary’s second career might be even more exciting.

This month’s Vogue (June) has a very pretty looking Kate Moss on the cover and a feature by Yours Truly about Summer, which I really loved writing. Not a beauty product in sight, just lots of books, a bit of music, and some happy memories.  I’ve picked out a few of the books I mentioned in the article and attempted to link them to fragrances that also make me think of summer.  Here goes..

BEAUTIFUL RUINS by Jess Walter meet NEROLI PORTOFINO by Tom Ford

“I think some people wait forever and only at the end of their lives do they realise that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.”

Yes, Portofino is vastly different to the small Italian coastal town of “The Whore’s Crack” where Jess Walter’s novel is set, but a spritz of this modern take on a classic cologne (it reminds me a little of the German 4711) will have you wanting to dive off the cliffs and into the deep blue Mediterranean sea regardless. With Neroli, bergamot, lemon and a touch of lavender and amber, it’s zingy, refreshing, and at the same time hot hot hot.

BONJOUR TRISTESSE by Francoise Sagan meet CARVEN LE PARFUM by Carven

“And then one day things came to a head. In the morning my father announced that he would like to go to Cannes that evening to dance at the casino and perhaps gamble as well….. As soon as dinner was over I went up to my room to put on an evening frock, the only one I possessed by the way.  It had been chosen by my father , and was made of an exotic material, probably too exotic for a girl of my age, but my father, either from inclination or habit, liked to give me a veneer of sophistication.”

The House of Carven was founded in 1945 by the diminutive Madame Carven who designed “couture clothes with an off the rack feel”;  she also gave us two world class fragrances, Ma Griffe and Vetiver.  Francois Kurkidjan’s new perfume for the house is perfect for young pretty girls who want a veneer of sophistication; it’s packed with mandarin blossom, sweet peas, jasmine and ylang yang, with sandalwood, osmanthus and Indonesian patchouli underpinning it.

CIDER WITH ROSIE by Laurie Lee meet EAU DE CAMPAGNE by Sisley

“The June grass amongst which I stood, was taller than I was, and I wept.  I had never been so close to grass before.  It towered above me and all around me, each blade tattooed with tiger-skins of sunlight…”

Couldn’t resist it.  If like me the smell of cut grass caught on the breeze brings you straight back to childhood, English lawns, the sound of ice cubes clinking in a glass of Pimms and the ping pong of tennis balls being whacked to and fro, (I was never any good at tennis), then Sisley’s Eau de Campagne is for you. Created by Jean Claude Ellena in 1974, this sharp, fresh, and very green cologne is an essential item for any self-respecting perfume enthusiast, male and female alike.

My daughter Manu is 12.  Just.  She has a whole host of perfumes she plays with, my cast-offs, the ones with lids like ginormous plastic flowers, or that come with a free gilt charm bracelet, the ones which I’m sure must be aimed at teens and pre-teens, they can’t be aimed at grown-ups can they?  She spots the Jiffy bags arriving in the post full of glass and plastic  - samples all – and makes a bee-line for them, unable to resist.  I let her have them, then one spritz later, immediately regret it.  They smell insufferable, overpoweringly sweet and sickly.

With one exception.  Harajuku Lovers Super G, a celebrity fragrance  launched by Gwen Stefani.  It’s an eau de toilette,light enough that we’re not all floored after one spritz, and deliciously fruity and floral. I love that it’s not like all those other celebrity fragrances, Gwen’s endorsement/involvement is not too heavy-handed, it’s unusually not overtly sexual, it’s just fun, and I sometimes think there isn’t enough fun around for young girls. Or old girls – did I say I like to wear it myself? Next week I have an invitation for three celebrity fragrances – Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj, but I’m not into any of those.  I don’t want my daughter to be, either.

What exactly does it smell like? Here’s how one fan put it, on the website Fragrantica:

“It smells basically like (artificial) banana, tangerine, and pineapple. The banana is what adds the sweetness. There’s some coconut but it’s subtle, not like “WOAH coconut.” More like, “Ohh, sweet coconut. Mmmm juice-aay.”

Manu went through the whole bottle and I ordered some more on-line.

Writing this blog, I thought it would be great to include it.  I’ve overlooked it in the past because, well, the bottle is a bit on the young side?

I email the PR.  Any chance of an interview with Gwen?  Or even the nose?  And who is the nose?

Back comes the reply:

“Dear Kathleen

Very sorry but unfortunately Coty no longer have the license for Harajuku Lovers/Gwen Stefani fragrances.  I believe they have now been discontinued as well.  Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

WHAAAAAAT?

Gwen. I’m sorry.  I should have written about them sooner.  We ALL should have written about them sooner.  Super G was great.  It’s just what young women need.  A super-heroine, flying through the sky, smelling of bananas and pineapples and tangerines.

Please say it isn’t so.

Frederic Malle is a perfume legend.  An awful thing to say about anyone because  to be a “legend” you have to be in your 80s and walking up the red carpet to receive your Lifetime Achievement Award; even worse, with a sleight of the hand, the clumsy addition of a “d” to the word perfume, and well.. you’re a perfumed legend, festooned in Parma violets, lavender, your hair dyed a shade of lilac to match.

At 50, Malle is still too young for any of that and although he admits to wearing the fragrance he’s working on while he’s working on it, to see how it changes in the course of the day, he is eminently stylish (brown cord suit from his regular tailor) but he’s no perfumed dandy.  (See for yourself, he’s the one on the right, that’s Dries Van Noten on the left, in a picture taken by Brigitte Lacombe, why are we looking at both of them in this picture?  Stay tuned!).  Nonetheless he is followed in the industry with an almost cult-like devotion, thanks to his collaborations with the great perfumers of today, names like Dominique Ropion, Pierre Bourdon and Jean Claude Ellena.

Under the auspices of Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, he gives them the free rein to compose the fragrance of their dreams, with no expense spared, no compromises made.  No wonder that on a rare visit to London a few months ago, prior to a meet and greet with customers at Liberty, journalists – myself included – waited patiently for their interview slot with him – Malle likes to talk and was running over time, no one seemed to mind.

In fact, although he now lives in New York, making regular trips back home to Paris “because the best perfumers are French” it was in London that his first fragrance was born –  a collaboration with Pierre Bourdon for Mark Birley in 1996.    The young Malle spent a few years here – what he calls his “playboy” years – watching the girls walk by at Birley’s nightclub, Annabel’s, an experience which came in useful as it helped him develop the process by which his staff are now trained to find signature fragrances for customers.

“Each girl that passed me by I’d fall in love with.  I was drawn to their faces,” he explains.  “I realised there was a match between character, look and fragrance, from which you could find a method to help choose a fragrance for someone.”  This formed the basis for a lifetime’s quest to match the right fragrance to the right female, after he added a few more questions his staff should ask, like “Are you a loud person or a quiet person?” and  “Where do you live?”  (“Because if you’re an Eskimo you’re going to want something warm, enveloping; whereas if you’re from Tahiti you’ll be drawn to something fresh.” )

When I admit to not having a signature fragrance he laughs: “That’s because there are no more signature scents!  They all smell the same!  And look at how they sell them, in Duty Free, stacked in rows like supermarkets!  To this they then add either an event or a celebrity, because for £20 everyone can buy a piece of that celebrity. With my fragrances I put the cost of the advertising, the launch, the celebrity straight into the bottle.  That’s why they’re classics of their time, with the same customers coming back over the years.”

So why does he think the French make better perfumers?  (You didn’t think I was going to let that one pass, did you?)  “When you go to perfumery school you are given a white notebook, and you’re shown all the different ingredients and you write down what the note makes you think of when you smell it,” he says. “Carrot seed for example, took me straight back to the Renault 4L with red plastic seats that my grandmother used to drive in Biarritz,”

“A lot of the time, these personal notebooks make reference to what you eat as a child, so if you’re fed hamburgers or tomatoes that don’t taste like tomatoes, or if you’re the kind of kid who feeds yourself by just going to the fridge and helping yourself, it’s much harder.  You just don’t have the references.  On top of that, there is tradition. The French have this great tradition of haute perfumery.”

Tradition which Malle has by the sack-load.  His grandfather founded Parfums Christian Dior; his mother was its creative director for 47 years and gave him Eau Sauvage to wear when he was only eight years old.  (His uncle was film-maker Louis Malle. Let’s face it: he was never going to be an accountant).

There is also the question of seduction.  Talk to any French perfumer and before very long you come back to the purpose of perfume as being about how good it is at getting the object of your desires into the sack.  “For the French it’s all about sex appeal,” says Malle.  “Americans like to smell squeaky clean.  Europeans want some little extra thing that says you’re better than everyone else.” After Eau Sauvage, he graduated to wearing the more provocative Halston Z14. “A masterpiece, with an overdose of Iso E Super in it, which is suave, debonair. These were my nightclub years.”

And the British?  “They’re very good at soaps and toiletries. Floris is the Downton Abbey of perfume.”  He sounds a bit down about Britain but then I realise he means it as a compliment.  “The tradition of the home is extremely important in this country.  English people talk about “going home” and they mean their house in the country, whereas for the French, home is Paris, or wherever they are at the time.  So perfumery in Britain was about making things for the home like soaps; a proper gentleman didn’t smell.”

To help me find a signature scent, he suggests three of his Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle:  “Try Dans Tes Bras;  Angeliques Sous La Pluie and L’Eau d’Hiver.  Let me know how you get on with them.”  I will try these, if only because the names are so captivating.  (Later I read perfume critic Chandler Burr’s take on the latter: “The scent becomes almost an aspect of your body, in a very subtle and I think aesthetically brilliant way”).

His new fragrance, a collaboration with Dries van Noten, sadly isn’t for me, as I’m not a fan of vanilla, but it’s the designer’s first fragrance and technically it’s very good.  Having stocked Malle’s other fragrances for ten years, he and Malle had a mutual appreciation for one another.   It’s unlike anything I’ve ever smelt before, with saffron and sandalwood blending with a warm, rounded vanilla and patchouli and musk rising from underneath.  My nose, usually good at these things, struggles to place the sandalwood, but once it does, I’m back in Burma smelling the small wooden beads strung together with dark red string which they sell at temples. This is a fragrance you could make your own.

I’ve been following the design duo Clements Ribeiro on Instagram and loving all their pictures of Morocco.  Then a friend’s house was put up for rental – Lagoon Lodge, again, more stunning pictures and I wish I could visit right now.

But if Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, you have to bring the mountain to Mohammed.  We brought a little Morocco to NW10 yesterday, painting a wall in the garden a bright Majorelle blue, immediately uplifting and a bargain, at £23 for a pot of paint from NuLine.

And today, look what arrived in the post from My Beauty Emporium: Katim’A Stardust Body Oil, a dry Argan oil enriched with enough shimmering particles to rock any Kasbah.  It doesn’t reek of coconut, like most others, and a little goes a long way – a dab on your décolleté being most effective when wearing one’s kaftan.

A while back I interviewed the indomitable, beautiful, nonagenarian Rose Cannan for W magazine’s website.  Rose is in some circles better known by her first husband’s surname, Evansky, as it was while she was married to him that she owned an influential hair salon in Mayfair, where she trained the hairdresser Leonard Lewis, who in turn trained John Frieda, Nicky Clarke and mentored Daniel Galvin through his creation of Crazy Colour, all of which pretty much makes Rose, Hairdressing Royalty.

It’s also widely acknowledged that she invented the blow-drying technique, something which we take for granted today but lest we forget, has rid women all over the world from the drudgery of having to sit under those cumbersome bulbous overhead driers for hours on end, prickly rollers itching away at their scalps.

Outside the world of hairdressing though, Rose has an even more compelling story to tell, and tell it she has, in a new memoir, entitled, In Paris We Sang.  I was lucky enough to read an early draft and couldn’t put it down.  Rose tells the tale of how she came to live in Britain, a refugee from Nazi Germany, one of the last to get on the famous Kinder Transport that  helped Jewish children escape the imminent horrors of the concentration camps.  Rose remembers London during the Blitz, then as it moves into the heady Sixties, recalls her discomfort at living in such sexually permissive times and her struggles to keep an even keel through an at times emotionally charged, difficult life.

Her memoir feels honest, at times painfully so; she doesn’t gloss over the Sixties but reveals its dark underbelly, warts and all.  I’ve always felt the Sixties are well documented from a male perspective, but wondered what it must have been like for women.  I admire Rose for being brave enough to live through all those times again, and to put pen to paper to inspire future generations of women to never give up, or just go with the flow, for the sake of fitting in with a world you didn’t feel at ease with.

In Paris We Sang is an inspiring, spirited read and I urge you to click on the link and order your copy now; you won’t regret it.

She offered to cook supper.  I suspect because by day three of her visit our feeble attempts to cook Asian food were starting to wear thin on her refined  palette, but also it’s because it’s just how the Burmese are – they like to do things, preferably for others – and Hnin knows we love Burmese food.

I show her my cookbooks, including my new favourite, “Burma” by Naomi Duguid (Artisan) but she puts these politely to one side.  Burmese people don’t need cookbooks, why would they?  Until Nigella et al came along and reclaimed English nursery food as some sort of gastro-delight did our mothers ever use cookbooks to knock up a quick Shepherd’s Pie?

“I’ll cook fish curry. Pork curry.  Lentil Soup. Fried vegetables. And an omelette, for you,” she says (I don’t eat meat or fish).

We set off to Borough market because even though it involves a 40 minute tube journey and Sainsbury’s is only five minutes away I want Hnin to go back to Myanmar with a romanticised vision of England’s green and pleasant land; that we all shop at farmer’s markets and organic shops with in-season vegetables.

It’s coals to Newcastle, obviously – the fresh produce markets I saw on my trip to Myanmar last year were far more colourful, vibrant places, little pongyi monks tripping along with black lacquer bowls to collect food for the monastery; seamstresses taking a nap, their broad-brimmed hats pulled down over their faces; noodles being fried in deep steel pans, everyone sitting around wooden tables on stools for lunch..

(And by the way, have you ever been round London with a tourist?  The stallholders in Portobello are monsters!  £35 for a scratched copy of  The Beatles Abbey Road album and they wouldn’t even let Hnin have her picture taken with it. “You’re mean,” I say to the stallholder.  ”I know,” he says.  ”No really, you’re a Mean Person,” I say.  ”I know,” he says).

Meanwhile, at Borough market, at the fish stall, Hnin asks, “What is this fish?”

“Cod,” I say. “It’s a sort of English fish.”

She laughs.  ”So, we’re having  Burmese Fish curry with English fish.  Usually we make it with river fish.”

“Trust me,” I say.  ”You don’t want fish from the Thames.”

There were a couple of herbs we couldn’t find but otherwise we bought our ingredients and came home.  And here’s what Hnin cooked:

Burmese Fish Curry with English Fish

Ingredients: Cod – enough for four, ask the fishmonger; 6 cloves of garlic; 2 cms of ginger; 2 teaspoons of soy; 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric; 2 tablespoons sunflower oil; 5 Asian shallots (they’re much smaller than French ones); 2 ripe large tomatoes; vegetable/chicken stock cube; Karachi curry powder or similar; 2 tablespoons tomato puree; 2 large red chillis; large handful fresh coriander

Method: Chop the cod into large pieces about 6cm square and place in a medium sized bowl. (In the photograph above the fish is on the left, the pork for the recipe below is on the right)  Chop the garlic and then put it through a garlic press; do the same with the ginger, and add to the fish.  Add the soy and turmeric.  This is your marinade.  Hnin then grips each piece of fish with her hands to help the mix of garlic, ginger, soy and turmeric permeate the fish.  Set aside for an hour or however long you can spare.

Into a frying pan add the oil.  We used sunflower.  Add 4 or 5 finely chopped shallots.  Stir and leave to soften over a gentle heat, don’t let them brown.  Add the tomatoes – Hnin peels them first “because the skin is too hard, not like with Myanmar vegetables”.

Crush the stock cube and stir it in until it dissolves with the tomato and onions, then add the curry powder.  (We bought this from a spice stall at Borough, but you could use any mild curry powder.  Hnin was really particular about all the spices she used – she smelt them all and was underwhelmed by the freshness of some of the items we’d bought). Add the fish and about half a glass of water and stir over a medium heat until the contents of the pan resembles a thick paste, about 20 minutes.

“Not much colour,” Hnin says, momentarily confused.  ”Needs more red. It’s the tomatoes…”  A tube of tomato paste comes to the rescue – squeeze in about 2 tablespoon’s worth and stir well until it dissolves.

Slice the chillis diagonally, removing some of the seeds if you don’t want a very hot curry. You might need to add another half a glass of water if it’s looking a little dry.  Adda  large handful of coriander. Hnin tore her’s, throwing the stems in too.  Turn off the heat and put a tight lid on.  Then leave it until the fish is cooked through. You don’t have to eat the chillis; they’re there to give heat and aroma, but we served it with them as they look so pretty. Serve with rice.

Burmese Pork Curry

Ingredients: Pork fillet – again, you’ll have to ask at the meat counter for precise quantities; 6 cloves garlic; 2 cms ginger; 2 teaspoons soy; 2 tablespoons sunflower oil; 2 sugar lumps; 2 potatoes, peeled.

Method: Chop the pork into cubes about 4 cms square.  As with the fish curry, chop about 6 cloves of garlic and put through a garlic press; do the same with 2 cms of ginger.  Add these to the pork with 2 teaspoons of soy.  There’s no turmeric in this curry and we kept the chillis out of it as we had children eating with us, but you could add chilli if you like .  Again, Hnin squeezed the meat with all the soy, garlic and ginger with her bare hands, before setting it to one side to marinate, again for an hour or as long as possible.

In a pan, add the oil and the sugar lumps, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.  Add the pork and stir until it’s coated in oil and slightly brown.  Add half a glass of water.  After about 20 minutes of gentle cooking add the slices of raw potato – Hnin cut about 2 potatoes as if she was making chunky chips.  Put a tight lid on and over a low heat let it continue cooking until the meat is tender and the potatoes are cooked. Serve with rice.

Lentil Soup

Ingredients: 2 tablespoons sunflower oil; 4 cloves of garlic, finely crushed; 1 onion finely chopped; 1/2 teaspoon turmeric; 250g split red lentils, rinsed.

Method: In a large pan fry half the onion and garlic only until it’s soft but not browned, then add the turmeric.  Tip in the lentils and add enough water.  Let it come to the boil and then leave to simmer until the lentils are cooked through.  In a small pan fry up the remaining onion and garlic, letting it brown slightly.  This is added to the soup at the end as a garnish – it’s a substitute for the herbs Hnin couldn’t find here.  This soup is so delicious I think I could eat it every day, and yet I can’t work out why – it’s just a bag of cheap red lentils and some garlic.

Omelette

Hnin made me an omelette using 3 eggs but she added onion, 1/2 a teaspoon of garam masala and lots of fresh coriander at the end and that’s what made it so special.

Easy condiment:

With a pestle and mortar grind up some chilli flakes with coarse sea salt and garlic.

Fried Vegetables

Nothing over complicated here; take 3 cloves of garlic and an onion and cook in some oil until soft, then add some spring onions, sliced vertically; a couple of carrots cut in a fancy way; mushrooms; French beans; 1 head broccoli (chop it into chunky floret sized pieces first).  Add each ingredient in precisely that order, giving each a few minutes before adding the next.  Give it a good stir as it cooks, then add a little sesame oil at the end.

The fancy way to cut carrots, in case you haven’t been on a Thai holiday and attended the hotel’s fancy veg cutting course, is to take the carrot, peel it, cut a mini wedge vertically from top to toe and repeat 3 or 4  more times around the carrrot. Then slice it in thin circle shapes and you should end up with something resembling a shamrock, without the stem. Got that? We left out the chilli in this one because we had children eating with us, but ramp it up if you like.