
6 x 2ml atomizers and a £15 voucher towards a full bottle.
Hand filled sample packs allow you to bring the world of Rook Perfumes home.
6 x 2ml atomizers and a £15 voucher towards a full bottle.
Hand filled sample packs allow you to bring the world of Rook Perfumes home.
We know better than anyone that the world does not have a shortage of niche perfume brands. Each brand has its own "scent vocabulary" - some will speak to you and some won't. I as a perfumer am also a customer. When I buy a perfume I want it to tell me something about its creator. I want to see the world through their eyes. I don't even necessarily have to love the scent but it has to have a different perspective. The perfumes I create all have deep connections to my scent memories and each spray is laced with complex emotions and moments in time.
In the same way that fashion houses produce the avant-garde, so too do perfumers. Our fabric is fragrance. Our mission is to save the world from being drowned in those "me-too" perfumes that all dry down to the same woody-amber accords. We dare to be different and with Rook Perfumes you can too.
Amber perfumes are traditionally built on an accord of ingredients such as benzoin, vanilla and tonka. When we created Amber EDP we were much more focused on the richness of amber as a colour and the paradox of amber resin which is dense and resilient yet beautifully transparent in the right light.
Amber opens with Persian saffron and soft smoke which then slowly mellows to its heart of amber wood and resins. The base dances with warm musk and a lightly sweetened tonka bean.
Running a small business like Rook Perfumes is... a lot. When you also try to be an emergency doctor at the same time, it leaves you with little time to be creative but I MAKE the time....
Our perfumer has had an interesting journey through life, with his unique triad of careers represented by the Rook triangle. Nadeem has spent the last 13 years as an NHS doctor and simultaneously works as an actor in London's West End. For him the world of perfumery sits beautifully between his other worlds of art and science.
Q: You say you're cruelty free but the notes include ingredients such as musk. Can you explain?
A: Perfume notes are not the same as ingredients. They are simply a description of what you will smell. For example a leather based perfume contains no actual leather. None of our fragrances contain animal products. We use wizardry to recreate the scents without them.
Q: How long do your scents last?
A: This will differ from person to person, climate to climate and whether there are ingredients in the base that you are anosmic to (can't smell) such as some musks. For this reason we always suggest trying our samples first.
Q: Are your scents unisex?
A: Absolutely. Scent has no gender.
Q: Why is international shipping of your full bottles so expensive?
A: Perfumes have to ship with special precautions and this means we can't just pop a 50ml bottle in the post. We in fact subsidise the shipping cost to soften the blow as much as we can. US customers are lucky that we hold some stock in Forest Hill GA - if your item is out of stock there may be a delay whilst we replenish the US warehouse.
Q: Do your scents contain phthalates?
A: A trace amount in our alcohol. There is no evidence that these amounts cause any harm to the body.
Q: Are your perfumes all natural?
A: No. Natural ingredients are some of the most regulated due to their much higher risk of causing allergic reactions when compared to synthetic ingredients. We use the perfect balance of both to create a balanced fragrance.
Q: Why do most of your scents contain musk?
A: The misconceptions surrounding musks are huge. Most people associate the word with animalic scents of animal origin, but that just isn't true. Musks in perfumery tend to be large molecules that are present all the way to the end of the perfume's journey. Some indeed are reminiscent of natural animal musks but are non-animal derived recreations. Some are bright and clean. Some are fruity and sweet. Some are transparent and soft and help tie down more flighty perfume notes. So next time you give a perfume a miss because you see the word "musk," perhaps give it a chance and it might surprise you!