Jo's Scent Notes: Heathcote & Ivory Sweet Pea

Spring is most definitely coming and going. Tantalising glimpses – and then days like yesterday, when the south coast town where I live was veiled in deep fog that didn’t ever lift, making it feel spookily like we were living in a Sherlock Holmes novel.

But this… this is spring-time, bottled. It’s honestly liquid optimism. And it’s just terribly, terribly pretty. Also: incredibly affordable, having been created by the team at Heathcote & Ivory, whose creations are invariably anything but silly-money.

I have been asked on too many occasions to count, since the discontinuation of Fresh’s Sweet Pea fragrance, for a replacement. And I’d steer anyone who’s still mourning the demise of that airy, fresh-in-every way scent in the direction of this.

It is indeed very sweet pea-y – that unmistakable airiness, that petalicious sweetness – but there are other notes in there, too. (Not least because sweet peas don’t give up their natural scent for perfumery, and must be composed via an accord of other notes. There’s a tangle of sweet honeysuckle, a sprig of jasmine. A leafy green note wafting through, and ultimately, snuggleable musks.

But as if all of that gorgeousness wasn’t enough…? How lovely is this bottle? Like judging a book by its cover, I know that we shouldn’t choose a scent on the strength of its design… but this makes me dream not only of spring, but high summer, and my first fistful of actual sweet peas…

£18 for 75ml – buy here