THE JOURNAL

Know your EDP from your EDT

Let’s celebrate love. Love for our family, our friends and ourselves. What better way to do this than with fragrance? When it comes to choosing a fragrance, for yourself or as a gift, it is importa...

Does your Perfume match your Personality?

Choosing perfume is a gut thing. You can read as much information about fragrance as you like, but until you smell a scent, it is impossible to know how you will experience it. STORIES Parfums want...

Find Your Family

Discover more about Fragrance Families from the ‘perfume expert’s expert’, Michael Edwards.

Fragrance and Trauma: Our Founder’s Story

Our bodies tell the story of any trauma we have suffered. Limbs ache, headaches persist, stomachs churn and our pain is rooted in places to which we would rather not attend. Creative Director and F...

How I Trained my Sense of Smell By Josephine Fairley

My very first memory of all is a small memory. I’m maybe two years old, with my grandmother’s fingers clasped around mine as she rubs them over a scented geranium leaf in her cracked-pane, lean-to ...

Make Memories with Perfume

Our response to smell is deeply rooted in our psychology. It is individual to us, like a road map of our significant relationships and experiences based on odours and aromas we were exposed to at t...

The Home of Ethical Luxury Leather

Elaine Dobson, founder of Tahlia Leather, handcrafts bespoke Leather Coats, Jackets and Accessories made from lambskin which is sourced from the Emerald Isle, England and Wales. Her passion, eye fo...

Find Your Perfume, Find Your Place

A New Year is a good opportunity to outline the next chapter of the narrative that shapes our lives. Not only are we heralding a new year, we are also transitioning into a new decade. January is a ...

Busting Perfume Preconceptions

When we are born, we have no preconceptions of scent. Our sense of smell is present from the womb and somewhere along the way, we make positive and negative connections to the things we smell. We d...

Scent Your Home This Christmas

Why are we drawn to satsumas, cloves and frankincense at Christmas? For many of us, harnessing the smell of Christmas is an act of nostalgia. We sniff the boughs of the fir trees to find the one wi...

Luxury Perfume that Doesn’t Cost the Earth

This Christmas we want to shop sustainably without compromising on quality. Perfume is a wonderful gift to give but with so many different options from which to choose, how can you tailor your sele...

Tailor Made in Northern Ireland

There is nothing quite so inspiring as someone who leaves the rat race in pursuit of their dream. Dee Graham is such a man. Here, he shares his story and highlights the role scent plays in his show...

Sustainability in the Luxury Beauty World

How can we navigate the beauty industry in a way that honours the environment without compromising on quality?

First Class Luxury in Ireland's Fairest City

Welcome winter with a visit to one of Dublin’s unique Christmas markets.

Is Perfume Art?

There is a lot of debate around whether perfume can be considered an art form. As a luxury fragrance brand, we look at the facts and tell you what we think.  The Tim Walker exhibition at the V&...

A Capsule Wardrobe of Scent

How can you curate your fragrance collection to reflect the changing season? At this time of the year, we’re folding away our frocks and bringing out the woollen wear. We’re thinking about herring...

Scent, Sex Scenes and Success by Melanie Cantor

'It’s a book about hope, friendship and finding your voice'

Stories of Scent

This week we share some of your stories of the ways in which scent has informed your journey.  What does happiness smell like? Is there an aroma associated with joy, well being or inner peace? Wh...

Mind Your Nose

With Mental Health Awareness Week around the corner, we are looking at the connection between scent and emotion. Once upon a time I owned a dressing gown. Then my five-year-old daughter decided she...

The Smell of Hope

In aid of World Alzheimer’s Month, we look at research into scent and memory and some aromas that might bring comfort. I found the bunch of my birthday roses picked clean of petals this week. There...

Don't Grow Up, Only Down

In honour of Roald Dahl Day, we pay homage to the scents that linger long after the book is closed. There is a small polystyrene-clad replica of Roald Dahl’s writing room in a museum in Great Miss...

Writing That Stinks

Pick up a smelly paperback for National Read a Book Day. My mother read me The Hobbit when I was 11 years old. She did all the voices and when I watched the Lord of the Rings as a teenager, I told ...

Is Natural Always Best?

A conversation on the value of synthetics in perfumery. I am not sure who first came up with the idea of harvesting the secretions of a civet cat’s glands for use in perfumery. We can, however, ...

Let's Talk About Scent, Baby

What scents make you emotional? My eldest son has been in a hurry since birth. He arrived two days early, mid nail-varnish removal and my husband barely had time to scent my facecloth with lavender...

STORIES From Belfast: Finding Forever at The Merchant Hotel

Belfast’s Five Star hotel is the last word in opulence. I knew he was going to propose the moment he lifted his coffee cup to meet mine and toasted our future. We were seated in the Great Room of T...

What Shape Is A Smell? written by Award Winning Beauty Editor, Caroline Brien.

Scent and Synaesthesia by Award Winning Beauty Editor, Caroline Brien. When someone describes a fragrance as sparkling, you will, most likely, be able to understand – and envision –what that means....

He Loves me, He Loves me Not...

Jasmine sings to me, its notes climbing like the vine in my memory. It was not until I had time to kill beneath a jasmine vine that I felt the tug to go home. The wall on which it climbed was criss...

Savvy Summer Skincare

With Summer in full swing it’s time to take a rain check on our skin. As tempting as it is to covet glowing tanned limbs, the sun takes its toll on our skin and it is important to protect it. Skin...

Our Scent Map of South Africa by Bethany Joy Dawson

STORIES Parfums Fragrance Writer, Bethany Dawson, charts her family’s scent journey through South Africa from liquid paracetamol to Prickly Pears. Tears welled in my son’s eyes as fireworks of col...

A Traveller’s Dilemma

With everyone’s heart set on their holidays it is not a very popular time to talk about the carbon footprint made by long distance travel.  However, it is important to know the facts so we can mak...

How to Arrive and Depart in Style

Airport attire is currently trending. What should we wear when we take to the skies and what beauty essentials need to come along for the ride? Founder of STORIES Parfums,  Tonya Kidd-Beggs, shar...

Father’s Day: Keep it Simple

Father’s Day has come a long way from its humble origins. How can we keep it simple this year?   Just over a hundred years ago, in a small church in Washington, a young woman made a decision that ...

Sister Jasmine, Brother Bergamot

What is a Fragrance Family and what does it convey about your perfume? Within modern perfumery there are Fragrance Families. They are commonly split into feminine and masculine but brands, such as ...

Oriental Harmony

A closer look at the base notes that make STORIES Nº. 02 such an unforgettable fragrance.  The essential component of a fragrance’s base note is its ability to last. These notes are known as fix...

A Rich History of Scent

The journey of STORIES N °. 02’s heart notes and the spiced, oriental edge at the core of this blend.   The heart notes of STORIES N °. 02 are some of the fragrance world’s most ancient ingredie...

Philosophical Perfumery

How steam distillation gets the best from some of perfumery’s raw materials. In the 10th Century AD a philosopher named Ibn Sina, or Avicenna as he is more commonly known, was born. He was one of t...

Recovering What was Lost

The story of unlocking a happier childhood through the notes of Fragrance N º. 02. I would like to forget some of my childhood memories. They cast a shadow over the happier times that stretches i...

PIONEERING HOPE

The woody notes that bring connection and depth to STORIES Nº. 01. The cedar trees that grow in West Virginia have rust-coloured bark that peels off in strips. The male of the species produces clou...

Turning to the Sun

The legend behind the floral notes at the heart of STORIES Nº. 01. According to Greek Legend, a water nymph named Clytie loved Helios, the God of the Sun. When his love for her grew cold and he aba...

Using Scent to Tell a Story

How Fragrance Designer, Tonya Kidd-Beggs, developed her first Eau de Parfum, Fragrance Nº. 01. My story has a smell. It is impossible to describe the complexity of its scent but a desire to do so t...

Tonya's Story

My grandmother’s pearl necklace hung on my tiny neck and I rubbed one of her furs across my cheek. It was laced with her favourite perfume. I breathed in the scent of a woman I would never know. A ...

The Power of Fragrance

How do you smell the world? This is not a question that is asked very often. We are more likely to focus on our ability to see the world, speak out about the world or listen to the stories the worl...

The Essence of Perfume

Have you ever wondered where your perfume comes from? Who decides the composition of the fragrance and what skills are employed to balance it so delicately? Many of the ingredients originate in far...

From Pomanders to Perfumers, a Brief History of British Perfume

The phrase, ‘keeping at bay’ was coined during the Roman Conquest of Britain when fragrant plants where introduced and used to scent luxurious baths. Bay was believed to ward off the plague. The on...

Take Notes

The raw materials that go into perfume are known as notes. They are either natural or synthetic in origin and can be grouped into different Facets. These ingredients share common characteristics su...

Remembering Things Past

There is no doubt that certain smells evoke memories. They can remind you of a person, a geographical place or an era of your life. Scent brings back both positive and painful reminiscences and as ...

Love our Planet, She’s a Beauty

It is said that birds find their mate on the 14th of February and then set their minds to nest building. Whether this is strictly true or not, there is plenty of evidence that our feathered friends...

Fragrance: How do you wear yours?

Fragrance: How do you wear yours? You might think there is very little to know about how to wear perfume. In fact, there is an art to administering the right amount of fragrance in a way that will...

Stories with Heart

As we approach National Story Telling Week we want to honour our in-house Story Crafter & Author Bethany Joy Dawson. When my sister stood in Casa Batlló in the centre of Barcelona, she had the ...

Sensory Dreaming By Sarah Kennedy

 (Sarah Kennedy is a freelance fashion and lifestyle journalist based in NYC. Originally from the U.K, Sarah previously worked in London and Paris as a consumer magazine editor and editorial consul...