Blenheim Bouquet (1902)
by Penhaligon's

Blenheim Bouquet is an excellent lemon fragrance. This is a very minimalistic scent and is very refreshing. The pine is natural smelling; it's like sitting on a pine covered mountain sipping a glass of lemonade. Quite lovely, but nothing I want to smell like very frequently.

On me Blenheim Bouquet started off as a fairly sharp lemon and pepper fragrance with a touch of sweat, that morphed into a softer pepper with a touch of sweet. I didn't smell any pine, or herbal elements at all. This was not at all sexy or even concerned about being liked by anyone at all. I guess the word haughty comes to mind. The reason for wearing this? I am sure I don't know. Maybe the wearer just likes it for its cool aristocratic panache. I would certainly appeal to someone who likes a dressy and somewhat formal fragrance, but not too formal. This would work well for a teacher or a tailor or someone who wouldn't want to wear anything suggestive of sex appeal. Fascinating in it goes its own way, when most fragrances today are going in other ways. Would love to smell this on someone else. My guess is that it wouldn't smell anything like it did on me. It likes to be appreciated from a distance.

Great excitement for me today: had to go to the swankiest hotel in Cape Town (probably in South Africa), the Mount Nelson, for a work-related function. And there in the cloakroom: Blenheim Bouquet liquid soap and handcream! This line is not carried at all anywhere in SA, so this was an unexpected treat. The scent is lovely, extremely fresh in a dignified way, grassy and not musty at all, in spite of (?) the lavender. The base notes probably get lost mostly in these formulations. Now I long to smell the actual cologne/perfume!

Lemon and pine. Huh. I think I know where Ralph Lauren got their "house accord" idea from (the underlying pine scent in all Polos). When I first smelled this a long time ago my initial reaction was Fruit Loops. Wow yeah this smells just like an old favorite cereal of mine. Trix smelled this way too. Fruity and milky. Man this is good. An odd nostalgia of my youth from an old standby from a British fragrance I've never heard of until recently.

Blenheim Bouquet is very dry, very aromatic. At first I found it unpleasantly harsh but then it sort of grew on me. A little bit. At least enough to warrant further testing. It does smell quite generic within its category of dated, 100% masculine gentleman, über-dry woody/herbal/citrusy scents and lacks something to add extra interest. But at least it is what it's marketed as: traditional.

So no middle notes in the official description, huh. Well, that's what I'd been suspecting all along. The pine takes over exactly when the lemon and lavender begins to fade.

BB is all about citrus, pine, pine and more pine. Gorgeous stuff, if a little reminiscent of Pine Sol. The scent reminds of those British colonels I met, who were my friends' parents. It has a sort of military precision to it, no frills, no fussing about. I don't know if I'd wear it, though, unless I want to come off as a disciplinarian.