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Anyone who wears perfume knows that it does so much more than make you smell good. Fragrances hold a lot of power. The right one can give you the ability to charm, seduce, attract (or repel) others, and even travel back in time. After all, scent is closely linked to memory due to how and where they are processed in our brains. Some believe our human ability to smell is the most powerful of our five human senses. We’ve all caught a whiff of something that transported us back in time to a certain place or person. But what if instead of reminding you of something, your perfume could help manifest your hopes and desires? That’s what Charlotte Tilbury is aiming for with her new fragrance line, Collection of Emotions.
The six scent offerings are themed to a specific feeling and, according to Tilbury, can be mixed and matched to elevate different facets of each emotion. There’s Magic Energy, a citrus-woody scent that is meant to boost and enhance your energy, and Calm Bliss, an aquatic floral scent that is said to make the wearer feel more calm. More Sex is a musky leather that can be worn when you want to seduce your date, while Love Frequency’s floral-woody scent gives feelings of love. Joyphoria’s warm floral fragrance enhances happiness, while Cosmic Power’s amber-spicy scent elevates feelings of empowerment. The fragrances are priced at $25 for 10ml and $150 for 100ml. You can also purchase a discovery set for $30.
It’s no secret that Tilbury believes in magic — you can see it all over her brand (for example, the best-selling Magic Cream that does literal magic on my skin). While Tilbury has never outright called herself a witch (I know my people when I see them), she does believe in the law of attraction, which is essentially what witches practice. She lives by her positive thought mantra, “Dare to dream it, dare to believe it, dare to do it,” and encourages others to do the same. The fragrances are tools to help you unlock emotions and ultimately, your potential.
Beauty and magick (with a “k” to differentiate between the Criss Angel kind) are historically linked. The word “glamour’” which, by definition, means enchantment, is rooted in old witchcraft. (“Casting a glamour” is putting a veil or concealing what’s beneath, like wearing makeup.) Many witches and magickal practitioners use some sort of fragrance in their spellwork, whether it’s dressing a candle, drawing a bath or simply wearing a ritual oil as perfume. In her book Bewitching the Elements, author and witch Gabriela Herstik suggests wearing certain scents to connect with nature.
Tilbury’s fragrance collection was a long time in the making. Ever since she was a teenager growing up in Ibiza, the celebrity makeup artist had been intrigued by fragrance. “I remember walking around the hippy markets of Ibiza and being entranced by the enchanting aromas of patchouli and frankincense,” she tells Refinery29. “Patchouli was everywhere! Its scent was synonymous with the ‘free love’ movement of the sixties and seventies, it still to this day elicits feelings of freedom and empowerment.” Tilbury became curious about how fragrances work to make such an impact on our emotions. “I had a very strong intuition that specific ingredients and notes could be linked to specific emotions through fragrance, and I always believed the brain is like an emotional map, that when you smelled a specific ingredient, a certain part of your brain is stimulated,” she says.
Collection of Emotions isn’t Tilbury’s first stint with fragrance and its potential powers of manifestation. In 2016, she launched her Scent of a Dream perfume; the bottle was designed with sacred symbols in mind. “I’ve been mixing my own Secret Scent for years and have been fascinated by the idea that one’s perfume can attract others and also change the energy frequency of the people and environment around you. It has the power to attract your magical future and ignite positive memories of your past,” she told R29 at the time.
These days, the fragrance market seems to want to give us more than just a sexy scent. Bella Hadid’s recently launched fragrance line, Orebella, blends aromatherapy with skin-nourishing plant oils through a bi-phase formula. While the first part of the formula uses an alcohol-free, five-oil blend, the second layer “boosts mood and aura with a memorable blend of aromatherapy essential oils and fine fragrance notes.” Meanwhile, Pacifica’s new line of clean “neuroscience-backed functional fragrances” are meant to positively impact the wearer’s mind and mood.
Aside from a little magic, a lot of science went into the development of the fragrances. After years of obsessively researching, Tilbury discovered that International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) had been working on an unconscious study (how people respond to specific scents) into emotions for over 40 years. For Tilbury, it was fate. “I felt as if science had finally caught up with my magical thinking about fragrance!” she says. IFF collected over five billion data points that were then fed to IFF’s Scentcube algorithm tool. “As you know, innovation and technology are at the very heart of my brand,” adds Tilbury. “We have always been at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies; It’s the driving force that fuels our creativity and sets us apart. Using this research, my beautiful scents are powered by innovative emotion-boosting molecules. These are the chosen symphony of notes and accords selected with the help of the research from IFF and proven to create fragrances that enhance each emotion.”
From the beginning, Tilbury focused on six universal feelings: love, happiness, energy, serenity, empowerment and seduction. She then worked with master perfumers Anne Flipo and Dominique Ropion, and Juliette Karagueuzoglou, whose perfumery, Tilbury explains, is informed and inspired by emotions and memories. “I also worked with Céline Manetta at IFF, whose studies in science and psychology were vital in supporting the perfumers closely across our full collection,” she says. Tilbury described “all of the worlds, memories, fantasies, and dreams” that she wanted to bottle to the perfumers and worked with them note by note to create her vision.
According to Tilbury, you can layer the fragrances to optimize your desired feelings and evoke memories. For grounding relaxation, she pairs the watery neroli accord from Calm Bliss to amplify the energetic cypress and bergamot oils from Magic Energy. Layering the solar notes of ylang-ylang and vanilla in Joyphoria with the richness of the rose of Love Frequency creates the ultimate combination. “It’s like a solar rush of love,” she says. The palo santo notes in Magic Energy “create a mood of captivating seduction when combined with the sultry and sensual notes” of More Sex. Lastly, Tilbury says that the amplified blend of dry amber and sandalwood from Cosmic Power and the synergetic spicy signatures of More Sex combine perfectly for the ultimate in magnetism.
“I believe these scents can give us the tools we need to design and become the masters of our feelings and, therefore, our days,” says Tilbury.
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