Burnt Cedar Rainbow Doves - Our Shop

A fragrance built on a contradiction of sugared almonds with cedar bonfires, insecurely connected by wild rose, orange blossom and moss, inspired by the accomplished eccentric, Lord Berners. It evokes his outrageous parties, where the Bright Young Things danced themselves silly.

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Inspired by composer, writer and talented British eccentric Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners. An aroma of cedar bonfires, wild rose, mock orange, geranium, moss, civet and sugared almonds.

Burnt Cedar Rainbow Doves is one of the strangest and most beautiful fragrances we've created. Our London Craft Week collaboration with The Beaumont Hotel involved reading Lord Berners' autobiographies, picking up random facts from others' accounts of lives which bordered on his own extraordinary one, and deciding how to represent it in scent.

Eventually, we decided on the garden of his country house, which he inherited unexpectedly, giving him the opportunity to escape life in the lower ranks of the civil service and entertain the Bright Young People. He could do whatever he wanted, and he chose to be generous and kind, outrageous and amusing.

We felt a bond with our chosen artist-musician-writer-aesthete and his wicked sense of humour. It's part establishment part whimsy, like Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson 14th Baron Berners himself. Nancy Mitford portrayed him in her novels as Lord Merlin, played here by Andrew Scott.

Elsa Schiaparelli encouraged Lord Berners to make a fragrance with civet, but Nancy Mitford talked him out of it. Here it is, only 60 years late.

INGREDIENTS: Alcohol (denat), Parfum, Coumarin, Citronellol, Geraniol, Evernia Prunastri (Oak Moss) Extract, Linalool, Eugenol, Citral.

Burnt Cedar Rainbow Doves is suitable for vegans.

"This one is wild, the scent and the story. Burnt Cedar Rainbow Doves was inspired by Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, also known as Lord Burners, composer, writer, eccentric, and a full-time chaos agent in the early 20th century British society. The kind of person who dyed pigeons pastel colours for fun and threw parties for the bright young things in his country estate.

Sarah McCartney took all of that, the garden, the bonfires, the absurdity, and turned it into a scent. You get burnt cedar right at the top, like a bonfire at the edge of a formal garden. Then there’s the strange floral heart, rose, geranium, maybe mock orange, and finally something animalic and sweet, civet and sugared almonds. It’s smoky, floral, musky, and a little bit edible all at once. It smells like rules being broken politely, like chaos in velvet gloves.

This was originally made for a collaboration with the Beaumont Hotel during London Craft Week. And honestly, it feels like something that belongs in a story more than a product line, and that’s what I like about it. It doesn’t ask to be understood. It just shows up, throws confetti in your face, and walks away." - Hülya, Elevated Classics

"I am wafting around in a haze of 'Burnt Cedar Rainbow Doves' and I smell *sensational*. Thank you (again) Sarah for this wonderful scent.- Maria Skrzypiec

 


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