"Discover Intense": Thoughts on a £6 discovery set from M & S, as Bonkers about Perfume turns 15!

Source: weddingfactorydirect.com

If you had told me back in October 2009 that I would still be writing blog posts 15 years on, perfume-themed or otherwise, I would not have believed you. I am telling myself this fact now, and I don't even believe me. But there it is...769 posts to date, all by yours truly - how long they collectively took I really don't want to imagine! Then I have had 12.6k comments (Google stats are approximate ;)), and a tally of page views that is no longer meaningful ever since I was overrun by bots somewhere around the three million mark.

As I have reported on previous anniversaries, I am now in the quiet plateau phase of this hobby, largely tuning out to new releases unless they are plonked in my hand by an enthusiastic friend. I am also sufficiently becalmed in the backwaters of the blogosphere for most perfume houses not to include me in their sampling campaigns - I am typically just sent hi-res pictures now, and some of their emails even go straight into spam(!), so even Gmail must sense my growing dissociation from the industry. But that is okay, because I am not actively interested in new things if I am honest, with a few notable exceptions such as the latest addition to the Papillon stable, for example. If you gave me a free trip to those fragrance fairs in Florence and Milan I wouldn't take you up on it (far too hectic and overstimulating!), and these days I walk straight through the Duty Free at airports and the departure lounge of Eurostar. I am afraid the tidal wave of nouveau niche scent launches has overwhelmed my brain and dulled my olfactory palate. 

There is also the fact that in the run up to pension age I am trying to be cautious with my spending generally, and most of my retail urges can be assuaged by a used book from Amazon or a bargain from a local charity shop. My last big perfume extravagance was buying a couple of second hand bottles (one of a discontinued scent) from a fellow blogger, but the prices of today's niche scents are so out of reach that to fall in love with one would only lead to the frustration of an unsated lemming, a parlous state best avoided in the first place.

Another understandable consequence of this becalming may be the dwindling number of comments on my posts compared with the heyday of the blog some ten years ago, or even last year: I am not really on the "comments circuit", though I note that there still is one. I can think of several "water cooler" blogs where people congregate, most of whom I still don't know after all these years, I'm not sure why. Perhaps I was always on the sidelines of "the scene"? Then some readers may well have migrated to vlogs instead, and I understand the appeal of that more visual medium, having recently watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials on how to cook a whole chicken in an air fryer. ;) So in short I have changed, and the world has changed, but I still love perfume. I wear it most days, and I continue to help friends find new fragrances to love from my stash. I also recently helped someone track down a cheapish bottle of Mitsouko, and someone else one of Carnal Flower, though a "cheapish" bottle of that proved to be a challenging quest!

Which brings me round to the definitely very cheap discovery set from M & S called "Discover Intense", attractively packaged in a multi-coloured wallet? tray? foldy out cardboard box? coffret? I am not sure what the correct term is. One thing it definitely isn't is an Intense set of anything, haha - all the perfumes within are pleasant and inoffensive and somewhat fleeting (unsurprisingly for an eau de toilette), but for £6 you are not going to quibble. That's 50p per ml, when I am used to paying ten times that for a 1ml niche vial on one of those sampling sites. This M & S sextet doesn't warrant reviewing as such, as they pretty much smell as billed, in a simple, faintly watery, "sub-designer scent" kind of a way. The full list is as follows (the ampersand gets a bit of a workout as you can see, but they are by M & S after all!):

• Mandarin & Ylang Ylang
• Nectar & Passionfruit
• Orange Blossom & Amber
• Red Berries & Rose
• Gardenia & Vanilla
• Sea Salt & Neroli

I have heard Sea Salt & Neroli compared to Jo Malone's Wood Sage & Sea Salt, and Orange Blossom & Amber to Coco Mademoiselle, but I can't say I see the resemblance myself, or only conceptually in the case of the former perhaps, given that sea salt is an unusual note in perfume - it has a long way to go to rival salted caramel in the confectionery aisle, say. 

I took this little coffret (there, I am pinning my colours to the packaging mast ;)) to France last month, and tried a different perfume every day, cycling back every so often to Mandarin & Ylang Ylang (because I love Ylang Ylang, not that it is very intense here, of course), and Sea Salt & Neroli, (because I wanted to test the Jo Malone dupe claim). It makes a most convenient travel set and if any catch your fancy, a bottle costs the princely sum of £12.50 for 100ml...!

And this isn't even the only six quid discovery set M & S has to offer, though the perfumes in the other one looked even more straightforward, in slightly plainer packaging. I seem to recall at least one set for men too. It beats me how they can offer something so inexpensive, and even if the quality is not comparable to niche scents, I would certainly be seen dead in them. Or maybe not dead, as I would pick my "exit scent" with a little more consideration.