CB I Hate Perfume

We first came across CB I Hate Perfume while lost in Brooklyn last summer.

We were looking for Williamsburg’s boho high street but found ourselves in a vast industrial area full of artists' studios and shops made of corrugated iron. On Wythe Avenue two beardy gay boys and a Chihuahua stumbled out of a discreet doorway, and we were struck by a waft of something quite other worldly. We followed our noses.

This unique fragrance lab and shop is run by Christopher Brosius, a man who really, really hates perfume. It’s the big brand generic smells he despises, favouring a Proustian approach to creating fragrances that evoke a ‘scent memory’.

You can have Christopher or one of his team mix you up a bespoke fragrance, or buy from the ready-to-wear range. We opted for the heady Mr Hulot’s Holiday (‘the salty breath of the breeze off the Mediterranean, driftwood, rocks covered with seaweed and the smell of old leather suitcases’) and returned to London feeling all smug that when handsome men sniffed our necks and asked us what we were wearing we could say, ‘oh, it’s from a little place in Brooklyn you wouldn’t have heard of’.

Then, en route to Osteria Basilica last weekend we popped into our favourite bookshop Lutyens & Rubinstein on Kensington Park Road to discover that it’s the only place in England which stocks the brand. Who knew? The shop sells some wonderful CB I Hate Perfumes, such as Burning Leaves, In the Library and Room with a View (£55-£70). The brand might not be as undiscovered as we first thought, but at least we now know where to go when Mr Hulot runs dry.

* cbihateperfume.com