The scent of this lush flower is full of crisp, earthy textures – ginger peel, pear skin, and peach fur. Their zest, juice and nectar are crushed into the colour of cool white opals, and their collective freshness accumulates in a grand, glistening melon cut into crystal slices and complemented by refreshingly tart and translucent gooseberries.

The aroma is like sea breeze in the way it comes over you like a wave that uplifts and transports with a lightness and sheerness reminiscent of stray sands, drifty weeds, and the dreamy breath of a sleepy ocean when the sky is a cool, calm dove-grey and the beach is blissfully empty.

In the corner of your eye though, there is still that glimmer of a lovely salmon above the sea, the pretty pastel coral glow, the sandstone chalk smudge. It’s the joyous colour of the juicy geranium that has enriched your every cell, revitalised your heart, and mesmerised your mind with its holiday haze.

Jasmine. What is it about this small, simple flower that makes it so loved around the world? Why is its fine fragrance a universally irresistible favourite?

I woke up one morning recently feeling quite under weather, and was surprised to find myself instinctively needing to rush into my garden and meditate on the scent of jasmine. I did, and then realised why this wonderful flower speaks to the hearts of so many.

The scent of jasmine is just so sincere and like the heartfelt purity of the apple fruit. Its dewy freshness gives it a magically reviving quality that soothes the sorrows and uplifts the spirits massively. Jasmine also has an undertone of enchanting woodiness which is incredibly calming and strengthening, and a muskiness which fuses with every cell and absorbs you in a halo of heavenliness.

So the enormity of this tiny flower lies in the fact its sweet perfume is a potent medicine: it lightens a heavy heart, dispels clouds in the mind, spreads a sweet smile across a salty face, and fills the soul with serenity.

Source: Simply Organic

But here’s the curious thing. Immortelle L’amour doesn’t stop at dessert, but works backwards onto the main course. Once on the skin, the bold vanilla spice of the dessert unfurls to reveal a full-on curry herb at the heart meal. What you have to remember about curry herb, or immortelle, is that it’s not a full-cooked-curry kind of spicy. It’s actually a fresh, autumnal spice with notes of cordial chamomile. So while the combination of vanilla and curry herb is definitely daring, the two work very effectively towards one appetising, warming and reassuring whole.

Complementing the main meal and the sweet dish is a nonintrusive, delicately oriental and spiced red tea. It comes in little sips that intensifies the warmth of vanilla and the comfort of curry herb, while orange peel lightly ‘pickles’ the intriguing mix, its stimulating citrus balancing the sweet and savoury characters. Underlying both is a soft myrrh-like quality, resinous and earthy and possibly woven by the golden hay notes of broom and wheat.

The name ‘Immortelle L’amour’ immediately suggests to me ‘immortal love’, but I don’t interpret the scent as either romantic or spiritual. I feel it represents passion rather than love, a celebration of the temporary sensory appetite rather than an everlasting transcendental bliss. It is extremely gourmand, presenting itself like a plate of delicious possibilities, and very adventurous in composition. As such, its virtue is rebelliousness, not faithfulness. The fragrance does retain a precious quality because of the sheer intensity and deliciousness of the flavour and the golden earthy and liquid ruby notes that enrich it. But, this preciousness is not the eternal flame of love, it’s the finite spark of life.

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Source: Waitrose Recipes

For the scent is wholesome to the point of being dangerously indulgent, its brownness comforting to the point of pushing you into a heart of pure pleasure. The delicious enchantment of vetivert seems to come from a magical mix of dark cocoa and addictive coffee, plus a fluid, dreamy touch of amber brandy. The bewitching trio creates something curiously accurate to a smooth, romantic tiramisu.

The whole experience is intimately kissed with a warm, smoky character like sparks on raw stones or the bonfire’s perfume lingering in a starlit dream. This special scent can really take us ‘down the rabbit hole’ and make us feel as though Earth were a mesmerising galaxy, and the cosmos a cosy cup of mocha.

Indeed, vetivert really sinks into the earth like a submarine, its roots reaching up to 10ft. The grounding yet uplifting essential oil offers us stability and vigour, as it soothes anxiety, strengthens the nerves, and stimulates red blood cells. The earthy and aphrodisiac aroma is also reflective of the oil’s benefits to digestion, appetite, and love.

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I have always found lily-of-the-valley to be an exceptionally cute flower with an incomparably angelic scent. The delicately sized, ornamentally shaped blooms have a strikingly thick texture, as though to emphasise the weight of their preciousness.

Their perfume comes through like divine light streaking through heavenly clouds. There’s a soft, breezy hint of frozen raspberry, that reminds me of a romantic, pink-veined sky, free and alive with passion. The scent is incredibly purifying and elevating – soapy, but in no artificial way. In fact, this clean ‘soap’ is more like dew-drops condensed into candlewax by the magical moon, allowing the enchanting, bell-like flowers to ring with an ethereal light that refreshes the senses profoundly.

It’s amazing how a flower so adorably tiny can take you so far into another dimension. But, lily-of-the-valley is not all charm and wonder. In fact, like many of the things that captivate the mind and heart, it is also deadly. The plant contains cardiac glycosides, sugar-based compounds that disrupt the contractions of the heart, and can cause it to stop. The ruby-red berries which appear after the flowering look delightful and delectable, but are also toxic.

One of the joys of this summer that I miss massively are the rugosa roses that hid secretively like treasure, in the bushes against the wall of the alleyway near my house. Their beautiful colour was the deep pink of intense pleasure, and their delicious scent was of authentic Turkish delight. Yes, all Turkish delights smell of roses, but not all roses smell of Turkish delight!

For the aroma of rugosa has a distinctively confectionary touch, and not at all just sugary and rosy, vapid like a cloud of candy-floss. Instead, its deliciousness has dimension; its sweetness has soul. Like a whisper, soft hints of dark cocoa powder ruffle its pink petals, a sprinkle of cinnamon spices up the sugar rush, and a rich caramel mingles with the delicate nectar to form a loving stickiness that drizzles the royal candy.

The rugosa rose, who radiates the gorgeous hue of Indian rubies, is truly an exotic, exciting and warming flower with its embellishments of precious spice, aphrodisiac cocoa, and sun-goldened caramel.

One of the most spectacular blossoms this year was the jasmine – all three of our varieties were splendid stars, the slightly more established ‘Fiona Sunrise’ yielding quite a bit more of its little lunar flowers than the newer plants. I was surprised at how magnificently these exotic flowers flourished in England, but it seemed these varieties were really in agreement with British weather, their softly curled, white-as-cloud petals longing for rain, as though another crystal drop might add another number to their ethereal abundance.

On each of the few occasions that intense summer days resulted in silver-streaked nights of exhilarating thunderstorms, the next morning would bare perhaps a dozen fresh jasmines, dripping with the dews of the passionate night. You become filled with wonder at how such delicate white flowers could erupt so. The jasmine plant, unable to contain its longing for the fertile secretions issuing wildly from the hole that is mysterious night sky, manifests into countless miniature versions of the musky moon, stroked tenderly by the Earth with a sweet perfume unavailable in the rest of the cosmos.

The fresh dawn-gold finds the luminous flowers wet with the loving rain that quenched them crazily, the quartz clarity of the drops amplifying the white purity of the petals. In the warming heart of the morning, an enchanting scent of pheremonic power is released from the divinely delicate flowers as the generous moisture evaporates and again returns heavenwards.

Credit: Shahed Mamun

Their scent is both deep and elevating, like love or dreams. It is refreshing and liberating yet holds you to its comforting allure, much like watching the irresistible rhythm of the soothing sea. This all-encompassing, divine duality of lavender can be explained by a chemical characteristic that’s known as adaptogenic. This means that lavender is a special balancer whereby in small concentrations its essential oil gives a sense of blissful calm, and in higher concentrations it enlivens and uplifts the spirits. Even lavender’s hue, which is composed of celestial blue mixed with earthy maroon, is a reflection of its majestic breadth of wonderful properties.

The quality of lavender’s aroma has a woody but tender rusticity that reminds me of nostalgic farms and mild lambs. Its fanciful floral element has a dewiness that evokes a lovely meadow beneath the changing skies of early morning light, and a gentle dreaminess like the lunar linen of a heavenly pillow. The strength and grace of lavender has a beautiful, gentlemanly masculinity to it, and I can imagine the flower’s softly earthy aspect would make it charming among the sweet spices of cinnamon and star anise in enchanting cake or biscuit bakes.

Source: chow.com

The reason I am hugely fond of key lime scents such as is found in Sugar Crush, is that it’s the classic jelly-tot association smell for me, and takes me right back to radiant childhood! Lime flavoured fruit pastilles were always my favourite as they’re sweetly refreshing and softly uplifting… Lime zest is also the zingy hue that one can associate with the tranquil, expansive greenness of spring afternoons and summer picnics. Indeed, the lime in Sugar Crush is perfectly candied, but not artificially so, and reminds me of the authentic, dessert-like sweetness of key lime pie rather than being fluorescently sweet like a neon-green lollypop.

Sugar Crush’s brown sugar is like crystallised earth, concentrated with the Earth’s soulful sweetness and shimmering creativity. As it warms into your hands, the brown sugar smoothens to a lovely caramel with the golden glow of ginger zest. This caramel swirls beautifully with the lime curd in a captivating potion to bring forth the shimmer of sunshine, the crisp rustle of green foliage, and a burst of vanilla-coloured blossoms full of syrupy nectar!

The summers of England always promise a landscape where the majestic beauty of roses triumph. As most of the year here is grey and drizzly, the reign of the roses in summertime is a real blessing. Their colours and frills seem to decorate every garden, park, and side-bush of the paths, with a spectrum spanning garnet red, sweetheart pink, butter yellow, classic coral and vanilla ice-cream. This year I also experienced among the many roses a kaleidoscope of aromas as delightful as a fairy-tale pantry: vintage tea, cinnamon chai, almond cream, summer berries, sparkling wine, and fuzzy peach.

Sweetening a gloomy day

But the most breath-taking were those with the petals of ever-changing sunrises and sunsets that danced and multiplied all around our red front door in grand showy explosions. There seemed to be as great a number of them as there are combinations of colours that can paint the sky at dawn or dusk. At the start of this month it seemed they had all but died down in anticipation for the beginning of autumn, but I was mistaken. They were only in a dreamy slumber, for after perhaps a week they fired up again in all their glory after their replenishing rest, to give one last dazzling display before the autumn winds must carry them away.

These sweet, laughing roses are born in the hues of pink marshmallow and lemon curd, but become consumed by a pure, passionate magenta as lovely as a princess jewel. The gold-dust pollen that spills out from the heart of the rose is the colour of fine saxophone, and a delicate tangerine light seems to play across the surface of the petals. The scent of these rainbow roses is golden: the aroma of soft peach and bright mango caresses and enlivens the soul with joy and jazz.

Source: enkivillage

A delightful little hand-cream that promises an uplifting touch of spring at anytime: Cath Kidston’s ‘Rose & Peony’. At its heart is a joyfully pink rose that has a refreshingly fruity fragrance reminiscent of tart red rhubarb and zingy fuzzy raspberry. This sweet, summery rose is complemented by the more crisp, cool, pastel peony.

Beautifully balancing the euphoric pinks of the scent is the earthy presence of pear, nurturing in its golden green and lovingly nectarous. Its mellow sweetness subtracts no joy but adds a dash of dusk to the day, shading the lush foliage with a tarnished green, anchoring the blushing blooms more intimately to the caring earth, and enabling a soft lavender to kiss the blue sky.

This gives a dimension of eternity to the aroma, and makes it wonderful not only for spring and summer days or nights, but also for adding some believable light into greyer autumn or winter days.

In my front garden are mesmerising roses of a soft, glowing, butter yellow. Under certain sky lights, often at dusk or dawn, tender touches of romantic raspberry reveal themselves, bringing sweet magic to the luscious blooms.

At one dusk hour, I noticed that the perfume of the roses seemed to contain the entire essence of this enchanting time of day. Its sweet fruitiness had muted from the bright, zingy facet of peach in favour of its velvety side, and mingled with the powdery veil of violet plum. These two fruits’ suggestion of coral and purple was highly reminiscent of a twilight sky. The actual sky of the moment was divine – composed of a sweet, dreamy, silvered pink; a peaceful, joyful, blushed lavender; and in the distance a deepening of soulful, shimmering salmon… I truly felt as though in the midst of a heavenly dream.