Jo's Scent Notes: NYITA Celestia Extrait de Parfum

It is no mean feat to create a fragrance using only natural ingredients. Often, they fall flat or lack some kind of fairy dust sparkle that brings a scent alive. It’s why perfumers often turn to synthetics, maintaining that they are required to add that essential dazzle and light.

But that wouldn’t do for NYITA founder Rebecca Jaquest, who goes almost literally to the ends of the earth to find beautiful, natural and sustainable ingredients for her products – up till now, bath oils (which I’ve raved about here), and a somewhat heart-stoppingly-priced candle.

Last week, perfume-loving writers gathered at spiffy Claridge’s for a session with Rebecca at which she explained where she’d sourced the oils for her debut fragrance – and allowed us to smell other natural extracts of the same ingredient. I wish you could have been there. The differences were staggering. In the oils that go into NYITA – literally shared with us as drops, as they are so darned expensive – there was a richness and a ‘star quality’ that the other simply didn’t have. And almost all of us fell a little bit more deeply in love with Rebecca’s extrait de parfum than we might have done, had we not experienced the special-ness of the oils that go into it.

Two, in particular, are pushed to the fore. First up is ylang ylang – which can sometimes smell medicinal, yet here is rich, opulent, heady living up to its nickname of the ‘flower of flowers’. (Note: CHANEL always talk about the rose and jasmine as the signature ingredients in their fragrances, but once you’re familiar with the smell of ylang ylang, it’s equally the thread that runs through several of their iconic creations.)

The other absolutely exquisite oil showcased in Celestia is neroli, which is honestly like a shaft of sunlight through the fragrance – extracted from orange blossom, via a process called enfleurage. Rebecca’s absolutely passionate about this, in her quest for sustainability. Most white flowers are extracted via hexane, a petrochemical; hers come to us via this centuries-old (and almost extinct) artisan enfleurage process, whereby fresh-picked flowers are placed into natural wax, which teases out their scent. Replaced night after night over several weeks, the flowers leave their scent in the wax, which is then melted and turned into an absolute (concentrated liquid). Et voilà: you get an essential oil whose scent is honestly out of this world.

In the blend, bergamot and red mandarin also feature, along with a touch of patchouli, and as it develops on skin, it becomes earthy and sexy. Celestia packs a punch: exotic, distinctive – and I love it.

Rebecca, so unusually for a brand founder, is literally in touch with all her producers, tracking their oils from source to bottle. All of these ethically-sourced oils, she maintains, are organic – and if I have one wish for NYITA, it is that they’d actually get their products organically certified. I can look Rebecca in the eye, and trust when she tells me of the hoops that her farmers jump through to avoid chemicals and farm sustainably. But most people can’t do that – and thus look for organic certification to back up a brand’s claims. (It also matters to me because for eight years, I chaired the Soil Association’s Health & Beauty Products Standards Committee, founded an organic chocolate company, Green & Black’s, and so naturally remain pretty strict about things like this.)

But the bottom line is: Celestia is sublime – though I do have to add that it also seems pricy, at £70 for a small 5ml bottle. But it’s so highly concentrated (an extrait concentration, at around 40% oils) that it gives an incredible life on skin; I can still smell a single spritz, 24 hours later. Which means that the cost per hour of wear is probably better value than many high street fragrances, which can disappear from skin into the ether after a couple of hours.

And overall, how wonderful to see a small start-up brand challenging – so beautifully – the Goliaths of the scent world to do things more sustainably. So that we may all tread a little more lightly on the planet, as we perfume our skin. (Exquisitely, in this case.)

£70 for 5ml – buy here