Scent is always sold to us via sex, however much perfume houses dress this up as love for Valentine's Day. And yet the fragrances that drive men and women wild can be very different. A woman may imagine she smells irresistible, while her beloved thinks: 'Grandma.'. In my late 30s, it amused me to smell explicitly of sex, terrifying as many men as I attracted. Now, older, wiser, with my decades-long love affair with scent, it gives me great pleasure to share my secret arsenal of perfumes proven to make chaps of all varieties swoon.
The fragrance I've been asked about most in all my days as a perfume addict is Montabaco Intensivo by Ormonde Jayne (from £60, ormondejayne.com). Subtle yet hypnotic, men chase me down the street to discover what this sorcery can be. I was recently stopped three times during the eight minutes it took me to walk to the postbox to send a letter. It's that bewitching. The secret behind its voodoo? Iso E Super is an aroma molecule famed for being more of an effect than an odour, imbuing scent with a fresh, yet velvetily musky allure. Beguilingly, Montabaco melds Iso E Super with leather, suede, wood and tobacco to seductively smoky effect. Apply it and be craved.
The most dashing bounder I've ever encountered told me that Hermes's Hiris (£138, hermes.com) makes him yearn to propose. An exquisitely tender, green iris, created by Olivia Giacobetti in 1999, there is something in this Hitchcock-blonde ice queen of a scent that acts as male catnip. Iris flowers have no aroma, meaning Hiris's powdery refinement comes from orris, the paste made out of iris root. The best orris comes from Florence and it exudes elegant expense. Wield this to bring grown men to their knees.
A minimalist I once dallied with insisted he hated perfume, being a showered bodies, clean sheets and cotton underwear type of guy. I ensnared him with Byredo Blanche (£150, spacenk.com), the ultimate 'skin scent': or barely-there, bare-skin simulation, drawing the imbiber in. The parfumier's founder, Ben Gorham, launched it in 2009 as a tribute to his non-fragrance wearing wife. An opening aldehyde (sparklingly clean) note softens into airy rose, on a bed of sandalwood and musk. Blanche conjures intimacy, touch and a besotted bond.
I once doused myself in Rien by Etat Libre d'Orange Rien (£84.40, amazon.co.uk) for a ball in a Venetian palace, inspiring a suave Latin chap to declare: 'I shall worship you as my cult.' Rien may mean 'nothing', but this is a misnomer. Composed by Antoine Lie, Rien is everything – potent and profound. Its suede top notes yield to rose, leather, resin and patchouli, on a cumin, black pepper, amber and opium base. Rien enthrals all who inhale it, male and female, old and young. It's that magnificent.
More recently, I sported Chanel's Bois des Iles (£215, chanel.com) to a soiree to have a Parisian mutter: 'Tu m'enivres.'. This is what I want in a perfume: 'You intoxicate me.'. No scent is as monumental, yet elusive as Bois des Iles, a darkly woody oriental, released in 1926. Concocted by Ernest Beaux, of Chanel No 5 fame, this is his favourite creation. Sensual and spice-laden, it is a deluge of sandalwood, ylang-ylang and tonka bean. Beaux was inspired by flappers' penchant for sex, jazz, opium and exoticism, giving his scent a throbbing, big-cat energy.
It is sultry yet soapy, thunderous yet ethereal, beautiful yet sinister. To wear it is to be sensuous as a cheetah, enigmatic as a sphinx, and utterly mesmeric. Tatcha’s The Brightening Eye Cream (£64, tatcha.co.uk) has sold out at many US Sephora stores. Its dark circle-busting USP is 12-hour time-release vitamin C: meaning a controlled release of brightening compounds to avoid irritation from a rush of active ingredients. Its bioferments lift, firm and depuff.
Model Paulina Porizkova. The model will turn 60 in April, returning to Estée Lauder as an ambassador, a role she left in 1995. Like legions of women, she admires the brand’s Advanced Night Repair Serum (from £13.60 for 7ml, boots.com), while Futurist SkinTint Serum (£49) is her ‘absolute go to’. Jones Road The Face Pencil (£24, libertylondon.com) is another of her must-haves. People imagine I spend my life having facials. In fact, I barely have any. Firstly, I’m neither rich nor have so much leisure time. Secondly, many are useless.
However, Sarah Chapman Skinesis Bespoke Facial (from £170, sarahchapman.com) is the treatment I’m hoping for as a Valentine’s gift. Chapman’s clients travel to her from all over the globe, among them Victoria Beckham and Sienna Miller. The approach is belt and braces, while also relaxing, wrapped up like a baby in her skincare cathedral-like clinic. Give me a plumped, radiant, lifted complexion rather than a Valentine’s supper anytime.
