When perfumer Yann Vasnier explored the English countryside in search of inspiration for a new Jo Malone London fragrance, he fell in love with the idyllic scenery. Creating the Bloomsbury Set – a nod to a clan of English intellects including E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf – required research at Charleston, a bucolic cottage in East Sussex that served as a study hub for the famously liberated crowd.

“We enjoyed the idea that this group of people appeared to be very English and proper, but they were, in fact, nonconformists and true hedonists,” says Vasnier. “We liked how the ‘proper’ contrasted with the ‘promiscuous.’ They were the juxtaposition of domesticity and simplicity with this hugely intellectual environment.” Which explains the notes of “waxy wooden floor” in Whisky & Cedarwood and “beeswax sweet pipe tobacco” in Tobacco & Mandarin.

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Jo Malone London Whisky & Cedarwood, Garden Lilies, Blue Hyacinth, Leather & Artemisia and Tobacco & Mandarin ($90 for each 30 mL cologne), at jomalone.ca.