Man, I smell like a woman!

I don’t know about you, but I love smelling the unexpected in terms of fragrance. Generally, you wouldn’t expect to smell a cologne on a woman, but the more I’ve asked around, the more women are liking the masculine and earthy smell of a men’s cologne. “It makes me feel powerful, less girly” says one such scent sleuth. Amongst some of my friends, Vetiver by Guerlian has been a favourite, but I’m now going to introduce them to Atelier Cologne.

It’s probably not a perfume house you’ve heard of – I hadn’t, so it’s even more exciting to discover it. Their master perfumers pride themselves on blending unpredictable and rare extracts with more-of-the-known fresh citruses to create Colognes Absolues. Made in France, the bottles are robust and masculine in the hand, and the concentrates are high, the lowest out of the nine colognes being 12 per cent. I’ve been wearing the addictive Orange  Sanguine – top notes of blood and bitter orange mingle with jasmine and geranium drying down to sandalwood and tonka beans, for the past week, and the general consensus is something along the lines of, ‘Oooh, you smell nice, what is it?’ How much nicer is that than someone saying, ‘are you wearing such-and-such?’ After all, a woman does like to retain a bit of mystery, and never more than with the trail of her fragrance.

Atelier Cologne Orange Sanguine, £95

Available in Selfridges, London.

To read their back story and check out their collection go to www.ateliercologne.com