This quote is taken from a love letter from Napoleon to Josephine. Smell is a fascinating subject and Perfume by Partick Suskind is a great book – in it the main character chases the most allusive scent in the world, I won’t spoil it for you – he goes a little bit too far to get this scent – but it is definitely worth reading. The perfume business is big business – and up to a couple of years ago perfume was made with nice-smelling ingredients, derived from flowers or spices blended into a harmony of aromas, creating smelly concoctions to allure and delight. This was the essence of perfumes lots of ingredients.

There is a new perfume on the market with ONE ingredient. Possibly the most unconventional of all perfumes, Molecule 01 by Escentric Molecules isn’t a fragrance (usually a blend of as many as 100 components), but a solitary synthetic scent – the aroma chemical Iso E Super, which has a pheromone effect.

“Savvy fragrance companies have realised that discerning customers don’t want to smell like everyone else,” confirms Caroline Brien, beauty features editor at Marie Claire. “It’s certainly a new thing, the idea that you can wear a single molecule on its own, it’s incredible because we’re a brand that nobody knows, but that doesn’t seem to matter,” says Berliner Geza Schoen, the nose behind Escentric Molecules.

I found this comment on www.fragrantica.com “Well I’m telling you now, I followed a woman around Sainsbury’s yesterday because the smell was the most amazing intoxicating smell ever and I had to ask her what she was wearing and she told me Molecule 01 – so I rushed back to the office to order myself some from Harvey Nichols and cannot wait to turn heads myself!”

Molecule 01 has become a phenomenon, google it and see – it is now exclusively available at Samui in Cork (021 4278080) www.samuifashions.com www.escentrics.com [from 75 euro]