Anna Gilchrist, one of Floris’s bespoke perfumers.
Floris
“When I realise that Jane Austen is likely to have smelled this across a ballroom, it’s as if time has contracted,’ says Anna Gilchrist as she opens a flask of Night Scented Jasmine. I lean over to smell it. At first, I smell citrus, then a touch of sandalwood comes in, with an earthy note I can’t locate before the main hit of jasmine becomes enveloping.
Floris’s Customers Have Included Marilyn Monroe
In 1730, a young Juan Famenias Floris decided to leave his birthplace, the Mediterranean island of Menorca and arrived in London (Menorca was under British rule at the time. Quickly establishing himself as a barber, he bought 89 Jermyn Street in the heart of St James’s, still London’s smartest shopping area. Marrying Elizabeth, they evolved the company when, in 1740, they created Limes, a zesty homage to his childhood home, with touches of lily of the valley, bitter orange and musk. By 1806, Night Scented Jasmine was created, another superstar fragrance of the Georgian age.
The Floris perfumery has been in Jermyn Street since 1740.
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images
Nearly 300 years later, Floris can still be found in the same building and the company, now London’s oldest perfumer, is still family-owned, with the 9th generation, Edward and Emily Bodenham in charge. Floris has held Royal Warrants since 1820. Around 40 fragrances are currently in production; the most recent is Purple Memoire, which was launched in April 2025.
About 30 years ago, Floris quietly started facilitating bespoke fragrances for some of its regular customers. Today, one of the three perfumers who create them is Anna Gilchrist. The bespoke fragrance service Floris offers is not an especially expensive process; a two-hour consultation costs £750 and includes a 100ml flask in Floris’s Art Deco glass design.
Floris produced its first fragrance, Limes in 1740
Floris
Consultations take place in a wood-panelled room that’s lined with dark brown glass bottles. Each bottle contains a different formula or essential oil that the family has used since the company’s inception.
Fragrances weren’t gendered in Austen’s day and nor are they at Floris today. Night Scented Jasmine is still in production, as is Rose Geranium, created around 1890. Floris’s records show that Marilyn Monroe took delivery of six bottles of Rose Geranium fragrance at the Beverly Hills Hotel in December 1959, when she was filming Some Like It Hot.
The Company Also Makes Bespoke Fragrances For Its Customers
It is intimate, according to Gilchrist, who studied Olfactory Spatial Design in Milan as part of her training to become a nose. ‘Fragrance and memory are intrinsically linked,’ she says. First, we discuss the recollections I associate with fragrance. I mention my late father’s garden, especially the blackcurrants, roses and sweet peas he grew, before complicating things by saying that I don’t like floral fragrances.
The Floris bespoke fragrance experience includes a flask of your chosen scent, with the records kept in the company ledger.
Floris
Gilchrist hands me a series of blotter strips (in French mouillettes de parfum) each dipped in a different base scent, which includes some of Floris’s most famous fragrances and asks me to decide whether I like them or not. One reminds me of an ex-boyfriend and is swiftly rejected but the others? I like them all.
‘Think of it this way. You don’t have to go on a date with everyone who asks you and it’s the same with fragrance,’ says Gilchrist. ‘You are looking for the ones that make you smile.’
With much agonising, I whittle them down to one. Gilchrist reveals that I’ve got rid of sandalwood – and even more reluctantly lime and jasmine, and that my second favourite was Cherry Blossom. My absolute favourite turns out to be 127, created in 1890 and named after the page on the ledger where its formula originally appeared. I’m in interesting company; both Winston Churchill and Eva Peron were 127 fans. It’s beguilingly fresh with freshly-peeled oranges giving way to geranium and a trace of lavender.
Edward Bodenham (far left), is the 9th generation of the Floris family to run the company, along with other bespoke perfumers.
Floris
Gilchrist then institutes a nose break and, with a glass of Pol Roger (‘the bubbles help reset your brain,’ says Gilchrist), I take a look at the ledgers where – for 295 years – every order and formula has been written down. One page belongs to Edward VIII, with his title and his address, Buckingham Palace, crossed out, and replaced with the title Duke of Windsor and Cap d’Antibes as his address. Every bespoke fragrance gets its own entry in Floris’s ledger too.
Fragrance And Memory Is Intrinsically Linked
Back at her leather-covered desk, Gilchrist, just as she would for customers, then chooses a group of scents for the next stage. Most people choose about six ‘accords’ but there are no rules. My biggest grin is reserved for Cassis – it has exactly that touch of minty, blackcurrant-laced childhood garden nostalgia I’d want, but Gilchrist warns against making it too dominant. Her skill is evident; she hands me something that has a touch of pepper to it, which turns out to be cardamom, which she advises will add weight, plus neroli and woody cashmere to cool it down.
Finally, it’s time to put it on my wrist. Gilchrist comes over to smell it on me. ‘Your skin brings out the sweetness of it.’ she says. I smell it too. I like it but under pressure, I admit that it feels a bit too nice. ‘A bit too subtle? What about adding something that makes you feel badass? To make people wonder if you might not be as quite as nice as you are?, she adds’ She goes back to the glass-lined cupboard and adds a few drops of frankincense and patchouli.