by Chrissy Iley
Richard E. Grant’s new perfume Jack Eau de Parfum 100ml (£95.00) is the olfactory hit of the century. Musky yet citrusy, heady yet fresh, complex yet right on. It’s a unisexy magnificence. Once it’s on your skin it’s strangely addictive.
Much has been made of the fact one of its key ingredients is marijuana, although that’s not the note that I notice. I feel the lime, mandarin, vetiver, pepper, cloves and the haunting of gardenia. It is a magnificent perfume from a nose who knows.
It comes in a little cloth bag that is printed with a Union Jack. Richard E. was wearing a Union Jack scarf when I met him in the Ivy Club a couple of weeks before the launch. He sniffed the green leather in the lift as we went up to the dining room. He is all about being led by his nose. His whole life seems to have led him to interesting places.
As a boy he used to bottle rose petals and gardenia and various other foliage from his Swaziland birthplace. He would boil up sugar and water and bury the jars in the garden in the strange belief they would magically transform into perfume.
I had not know about Richard E.’s extreme nose. I know he is a compelling and hypnotic writer of diaries and a transformative actor and a cat whisperer.
When my cat Shiksa, a ninja warrior of a cat who would draw blood from all she met was introduced to Richard E. she simply purred. Unheard of. I always knew he had magic charms.
It was his friend Anya Hindmarsh, the handbag designer, who encouraged him to make the first step. ‘I was in the Caribbean two years ago and Anya saw me with my head in a gardenia bush and said what are you going to do about that and I said psychiatrically? And she said no, have you thought of making a perfume. I told her that it was my dream and she gave me the numbers of various people to go and see.’
A meeting with the perfumier Roja Dove was instrumental. He told Richard E. he had a really good nose. This is possibly because he has never drunk alcohol (due to the lack of an enzyme in his body that processes it) and he has also never smoked or eaten cheese. We have a long chat about how horrified he is when his wife pulls out a chunk of cheese from the fridge and eats it Cheese blocks the sinuses and inhibits the ability to smell.
So for all these very practical and physiological reasons Richard E. has a great nose. But he also has great taste and sensibility, and the combination is clearly sensational. He has worked tirelessly on everything about creating, making and marketing his scent.
At the time we met he only had a tiny bottle of the finished product. He sprayed it over me generously and we drank it in. Instant sex.
I have been very loyal to Frederic Malle’s Carnal Flower. Richard E. sniffed it on me and approved. Jack is completely different but equally compelling.
Deciding on the final edit of the perfume was perhaps the most difficult process. He enlisted the help of Liberty staff where it is sold exclusively and also online. He wanted it to be lickable, moreish and addictive. It is.
It comes in a pillar box red box with a faded vintage Union Jack drawstring bag containing the bottle. It also has a vintage looking label. Perhaps one could tie it on luggage or a Paddington Bear. It is a very well thought out package.
I went to the launch party. The room was full of celebrities and the smell of Jack. I ran into Bob Geldof and Jools Holland who were debating the scent. Geldof said, ‘The point of scent is it makes you shaggable, right? Don’t you think he should have called it Shaggable.’ No Bob. He should have called it Jack. It stands for so much more – Jack the Lad, Jack the Knife, You Know Jack, Union Jack.
Remember Jack, he’s catnip to women.