Elisabethan Rose

There came a day that is every perfume lover’s dream and nightmare: the day I had to choose a wedding scent. I stumbled upon Elisabethan Rose mistakenly in the London-Heathrow Airport. We were having a destination wedding in a castle in Ireland and had the worst luck traveling. Our flights were cancelled and delayed, and we were stuck for two days trying to make it to my wedding. I was flying separately from my partner, and was alongside my grandmother, uncle, and parents. I was flooded with so many emotions and the genuine fear that I might miss my own wedding. We had given ourselves plenty of time, and still, everything that could have gone wrong did. When we finally arrived at our new connection point in London (not on the original flight plans at all), the immense relief I felt was overwhelming as we were now only an hour’s flight from our destination in Ireland. My mother and I had popped into a shop while waiting for our gate information, where I accidentally discovered what would be my wedding scent. Elisabethan Rose marked in that moment a new beginning for travel, starting over, and hope. This of course moved into my wedding day. I had originally packed Luna, The Favourite, and Dries Van Noten’s Soie Malaquais intending to choose from one of those, but Elisabethan Rose stole my heart. My mom bought it for me as a gift, making it even more special. The scent couldn’t have been more perfect for our wedding. We had a handfasting ceremony in walled gardens in front of a jasmine arch full of all white florals, including a variety of roses. There was a small pond beneath where we stood, full of lily pads. It was cloudy and had been sprinkling on and off all day. This is Elisabethan Rose. It is so hauntingly beautiful. Melancholy and bittersweet, joyous, feminine, airy. Fit for any bride or princess in a castle. I am not a rose lover by any means, and I think every person can find their perfect rose with enough effort... I tried for years, and now I’ve finally landed on mine.🤍

Hoo boy. I revisited this one after my sample went un-used for over a year. I don't remember why I didn't love it before, as I LOVE rose in any form. Now, I tried it just moments after pulling the trigger on a full bottle of Duchess Rose after agonizing over it for a LONG time, and I am having a crisis because I can't decide which I love more and am wondering if I will regret my Duchess Rose purchase (I got a good deal anyways and I am not seeing any deals on Elizabethan Rose so I guess that makes my mind up for me). Its opening is fresh, fairly realistic rose without being too green or powdery. A little sweet, pink, a faint trace of that 'mature' quality many dislike rose for (but i love). This is probably why I didn't love it before, as it really shines in the drydown. I must not have been patient that day. 30 minutes out- I know what the notes say but personally what I smell is a berry sweetness that reminds me of the Eos pomegranate raspberry lotion. The rose is still there, and there's a little woodiness, but its soapy and clean and sweet, with that girly berry smell. 2 hours+ is where I started to realize I misjudged this perfume and wondered if I regret not purchasing this one instead. I know Penhaligon's is notorious for their scents not lasting, but this one has a drydown that has been lasting hours on me and its gorgeous. The wood is more prominent, and the rose and berry sweetness are perfectly balanced. Its clean, its soapy, its girly but sophisticated. It never goes sour on my skin or clothes, it stays bright and clean and woody. If I ever see a good deal on a bottle of this I will 100% purchase. I think I will comfort myself by telling myself its a little more 'pink' and girlier than coveted duchess rose, and a little soapier than I use as an everyday where or work scent. The two are fairly similar, not sisters but cousins. But I would say Coveted Duchess Rose is more floral and maybe less soapy/powdery.

This. Is. Sensational. I finally had a chance to visit the Penhaligon's shop in Paris and explore the collection to my heart's content. I didn't have any real agenda, other than to put scents to names. (I've admired the house digitally / from afar for quite some time, but just felt like getting a sample kit was too much of a crapshoot with a collection this big.) Once there, I went straight to the ones I'd heard of: Lily of the Valley, Empressa, Halfeti, Alula, Bluebell, The Favourite, Luna, and Babylon. Then there were the ones the store associate introduced me to: Solaris, The Coveted Duchess Rose, Blenheim Bouquet, Artemisia, and, ah, Elisabethan Rose. There were other highlights, of course (Solaris is divine, but smells too similar to something I already have – Unforsaken by Kerosene; Blenheim Bouquet is super refreshing, citrusy, and just a little bit more interesting than it pretends to be; Halfeti is, expectedly, very, very lovely, but I have too many ouds at this point!). Anyway, when I smelled Elisabethan Rose, my jaw genuinely dropped. I'm not particularly a rose girl or a floral girl. But I mean, if this is what rose can be, I'm down. From reading a few of the reviews here, it seems like the almond isn't coming through for a lot of people, but on my skin, this is like the light yet musky yet dainty yet delicious rosewater biscuit I never knew I needed in perfume form? Adore it. And probably never would've spritzed it had I not been directed to it by the ridiculously knowledgeable store associate. I don't need more perfume, and yet here we are.

I LOVE Elisabethan Rose. What a beautiful soft rose smell. I like describing perfumes with moments and scenes. So here we go. This is how Elisabethan Rose smells like to me: Imagine you walk into a late spring garden. It's about May/June. It's an English cottage garden with several different types of roses. It has also a lot of other flowers blooming at the same time. You walk into the rose section with all the different roses and you take a whiff at one of the pink roses. Whilst you take this whiff, you will mainly smell this pink rose, but you will also smell it's greenery, all the sister roses next to it and the rest of the blooming and green cottage garden in the background. It feels very English in the best possible way. I can imagine this being the perfect perfume for an afternoon tea, for anything related to spring and early summer. It's a sophisticated daytime perfume. It is very ladylike. I am also happy to report that I can smell the main rose throughout the day, blending in more and more with the cottage garden backdrop. Meaning that on me it has a long lasting scent and stays beautiful for many hours. If you are a rose lover, who loves the scent of lighter spring roses, then this is for you. It is not a heavy, but a lighter perfume. It's stunning, it's soft and well blended.

This is just indescribably beautiful. It smells so authentically rose-like without smelling like plain rosewater. I think it's the nutty notes that make this smell unlike any other rose perfume. It's so refreshing on a hot day; I'm really enjoying this one during the heatwave we've got in the UK at the moment. But I think this can be worn any time really, as that slightly sweet plum note gives it a little bit more depth and stops it from being too light and watery. It does have an odd sort of sourness in the opening, which is not my favourite part, but if you wait for a few minutes that does fade and it becomes softer with just a hint of sweetness. I love this one so much that when I first got it, I wore it every single day for nearly a month, which is something I never normally do. I don't tend to wear the same perfume more than once a week, but I just couldn't get enough of this one and only had to stop because I was starting to become noseblind to it after wearing it so much. I feel like this is the only rose I will ever need, and I just pray this never gets discontinued or heavily reformulated. Sadly Penhaligon's does seem to have a tendency to discontinue some of their best scents.