Fab Find of The Week: C.Atherley Geranium No.1
Photo: Jo Fairley
Oh, joy of joy of joys. The awesomely brilliant Cath Kidston is back – and for the next week or so, ‘playing shops’, as she puts it, in the pop-up adjacent to Pentreath & Hall at 17 Rugby Street, London WF1N 3QT. (Where Jo caught up with Cath – pictured below – last week.)
The pop-up is to celebrate the launch of a truly wonderful bath and bodycare range, with just the greatest credentials. It has been co-created by Cath – who, like us, is an almost-fanatical grower and fan of scented geraniums – and Heathcote & Ivory, whose creations we have oft praised here, the British family business run by the equally genius Lesley and Denis Aaronson. (The little sprigs in the picture above were pinched out from Jo’s greenhouse, yesterday. As for Cath, geranium is a scent that whisks Jo straight back to childhood.)
Geranium No.1 is based around the Radens geranium variety: a little woody, distinctively pelargonium-ish. (There’ll be future launches based around other varieties of this divinely-scented plant.) The fragrance is created from eight 100% natural oils, which were blended in Cath’s greenhouse to get the fragrance ‘just so’.
We’ve been lucky enough to wallow in much of the collection, so far, and honestly been truly transported greenhouse-wards by the blissfully fragrant experience. Thought we’d share our FIVE Fab Finds of the Week, for you – it’s quite an extensive range.
• Bath Oil Geranium No.1/£39 for 140ml. Not much needed to fill the bathroom with the most divine scent, and beautifully skin-softening, too.
• Bath Salts Geranium No.1/£35 for 200g. There’s something wonderfully nostalgic about this range altogether, not least the fact that the name references Cath’s grandmother’s name, Atherley, which died out with that generation of women, but is immortalised – with a ‘C’ on the front – in this collection. (Granny would be super-proud, we think.) And bath-wise – well, nothing more nostalgic than bath salts, are there?
Geranium No.1 Hand & Body Lotion/£27 for 300ml. Light yet rich, and – of course! – gorgeously geranium-y. Like much of the range it’s packaged in glass, embossed with beautiful line drawings of geraniums. Very bedside-table-worthy, where we suggest you keep it for late-night slathering, to waft you to sleep. (The packaging has been very carefully thought-through – for more info on sustainability, click here.)
• Geranium No.1 Hand Cream/from £10 for 30ml. Heathcote & Ivory nailed hand cream formulations a l-o-n-g time ago and we are never without a tube in our handbags, across their extensive collections - but have to say, this travel size has made a successful takeover bid. Rich, nourishing, softening, with a gorgeous, whisk-you-to-summer scent.
• Geranium No.1 Nourishing Oil/£30 for 50ml. For dry bits – even your face, if you avoid the eyes (Jo didn’t realise it WASN’T a facial oil, having picked it up her glasses!). Nature-powered nourishment, great for cuticles, elbows, heels.
The products can be found online, below – but the pop-up’s a-popping again from tomorrow (14th March) to 18th March, from 11am - 6pm. And if you don’t leave feeling as obsessed by geraniums as we are, we’ll be VERY surprised.
£10-30 – buy here
PS Watch this space for news of an in-person event with Cath and Jo (Fairley) at Water Lane, in Hawkhurst, in early summer.
