Leading ‘scentfluencer’ Alice du Parcq tells Sophie Farrah how the perfect fragrance can really turn your day around...
Somewhat unsurprisingly, when multi-award-winning fragrance expert Alice du Parcq opens the front door of her East Sheen home to greet me, she smells incredible.
“I’m actually wearing two perfumes today – one on each arm,” she explains matter-of-factly, like this is a perfectly normal thing to do.
“I am testing their longevity, because if you’re going to spend £220 on a fragrance, you want it to last for six hours, at least!”
This kind of experimentation is all in a day’s work for Alice, who is widely considered the UK’s top ‘scentfluencer’ and an authority on all things fragrant.
Sitting in her garden in the early spring sunshine, Alice, who grew up in Barnes, tells me that her olfactory aptitude first emerged when she was a child.
“When I was about five or six, my dad used to take me mushroom picking, and I was really good at sniffing the mushrooms out. I could find the ribbon of scent and follow it,” she recalls.
Alice du Parcq
Years later, self-confessed ‘fume nerd’ Alice followed her nose once again as she began to forge a career as a journalist.
“One of my first jobs was at Tatler as a fashion assistant. I was dealing with couture, and all I could fit into were the shoes. But fragrance always fits, no matter what you look like.”
Twenty years on and Alice’s highly acclaimed beauty and fragrance writing has been published in Vogue, The Sunday Times Style, Glamour, The Telegraph and more.
In 2018, she began to focus solely on fragrance, and in 2020, she moved her work exclusively to social media, where she now creates her own olfactory-focused content online.
Her knowledge of scent is unparalleled, but it is the uniquely creative and charismatic way in which Alice describes fragrance that has really captured the imagination of her 26K Instagram followers, as well as the world-leading brands that are now queuing up to work with her.
Alice du Parcq
“Just listing ingredients doesn’t make sense to anyone– no one speaks like that,” she explains.
“I vividly remember, years ago, trying to tell my sister what sandalwood smells like. I said: ‘Imagine that you’ve chopped down a big tree and stuck your nose into the damp, milky heart of its trunk.’
She got it immediately, and from that moment on, I changed the way that I spoke and wrote about fragrance. I really started to enjoy the challenge of creating metaphors and finding the right analogies and adjectives.”
Among my favourite recent ‘Alice-isms’ are her description of one perfume as smelling like “hot skin smothered in suntan lotion and flower nectar”, another as “the perfume equivalent of a smudgy kohl eyeliner paired with a velvet suit and high heels”, and her likening of a third to “a squidgy, slightly underbaked almond frangipane tart topped with a dollop of extra thick double cream”. Yum.
“I love bringing fragrances alive in a fun and relatable way. It’s like storytelling,” she smiles.
“Sometimes I try and create scenarios for fragrances, or even give them personalities.”
Alice du Parcq
Through her deliciously descriptive content, Alice provides advice on how to wear, smell and shop for perfume and scented candles, whilst sharing the stories behind new launches, brands, perfumers and even the raw ingredients themselves. Her approach is fun, friendly and surprisingly accessible.
“I’ve probably sold more £6 bottles of M&S Discover fragrances than anyone else!” she laughs.
“I’ll talk about perfumes that are £300 and perfumes that are £3.50. It’s not my job to tell people what I like and don’t like – I just explain the inspiration, the intention and the story behind a scent, so it’s never judgemental or intimidating. I mean, I was wearing Glow by Jennifer Lopez the other day, and what a fragrance! It’s the OG clean fluffy towel scent. It’s unbeatable!”
During lockdown, Alice created ‘Desert Island Spritz’ – a fragrant take on the famous radio show format – which saw the likes of actor Richard E Grant and beauty journalist and author Sali Hughes join her on Instagram to discuss the fragrances that mean the most to them.
“We laughed, we cried, and we had some really meaningful conversations about fragrances that had marked important life moments in the same way that a photograph or a piece of music can,” she explains.
“Fragrances can explain who you are, and they can also act as a time machine to remind you of who you once were, which is so crucial. Maybe you have small kids, or you’re looking after an ageing parent, or you’ve just simply lost your way. A specific scent can remind you of the person who is there inside, and that gives you confidence.”
Alice du Parcq
Through good times and bad, Alice believes, fragrance can be a powerful tool for boosting wellbeing – something to which she regularly refers on Instagram as ‘scented self-care’.
“You can create little emotional chapter breaks in the day just by smelling the top of a fragrance bottle. I used to do it with a Diptyque fragrance during lockdown because I found the whole thing incredibly difficult. I had a toddler who was sleep regressing, I was homeschooling my older daughter, and my husband, who is an NHS doctor, worked every single day, and it was very tough,” she recalls.
“Smelling something can really shift your mood. It can pull you out of a dark spell, and when you repeatedly sniff a particular fragrance, your brain will start to associate it with the feeling of your cortisol lowering. Self-care doesn’t have to smell like a spa.”
Rather than reach for a particular ‘signature scent’ – which she likens to “looking at just one painting in an entire art gallery” – Alice encourages her followers to experiment with a variety of fragrances.
Alice du Parcq
“Having a choice can make you ask yourself: ‘How do I feel today? Why have I reached for that?’ It’s a great reminder of how you’re feeling and what you need,” she explains.
“One day, I might want to smell like Beyoncé standing on a mega yacht in the Med, drizzled in suntan oil, the next I might be feeling more like a moody old Parisian lady smoking Gitanes on the Left Bank. I have various fragrances that make me feel different ways, and they are all like shields of protection.
“If you find something that makes you feel safe, grounded, confident, sexy – whatever that feeling is you’re chasing- that’s the right fragrance for you. If it makes you stand a little bit taller and pull your shoulders back, go for it. That’s self-care. Scented, of course!”
You can follow Alice on Instagram at @aliceduparcq and find her at Barnes Fragrance Fair
