I am not an influencer, I am not even a fragrance expert. I do love perfume and like to have a few different ones on the go.

I have been wanting a bottle of Levant by Jayne Ormonde (it’s actually Ormonde Jayne but I always say it the wrong way around) after receiving a tester in Selfridges and then having the most amazing visit to her perfume shop in the Royal Arcade, London.

I never visited Jo Malone’s first shop opened on Walton St in 1994, I was only ten back then, before her company was purchased by Estée Lauder but I imagine this is what it was probably like.

Linda Pilkington, a girl from Cheshire has created a haven for lovers and purveyors of fine scent and aromatics to behold.

When you enter this apothecary you can tell the creator of this space is worldly, passionate and well travelled. The array of aroma flora that hits you when you enter is fragrance layering artistry to the nth degree.

The perfume isn’t inexpensive. £175 for a 88ml bottle and on a first visit knowing which to choose is an almost impossible task. You try one, love it, another love that even more, they layer beautifully together a concept Jo Malone brought to the market, making an individual concoction by putting one scent on top of another, a unique to you fragrance, except that can get really expensive and also confusing first time around.

I did contemplate investing in the Jayne Ormonde travel set, 4 10ml different fragrances (including Levant, a fragrance of orange blssom and jasmine inspired by the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean, with its heart in the Lebanon. Levant originates from the Latin “rising” due to the sun rising in the East.) to try and designed to mix, match and layer at £110, or the Jardin Collection again 4 x 10ml at £145. It still too much for me not really knowing if I’d like the other three fragrances as much.

They also offer sets of four 10ml viels for every other popular fragrance they sell, designed for people who travel a lot and don’t want to take big bottles of perfume on holiday.

I am more on a glamping in the UK budget rather than swanning around the world in first class kinda gal, hippy vibes at Glastonbury in wellies rather than sipping cocktails and walking red carpets in Cannes where I imagine Jayne Ormonde perfume wearers to be more likely found.

Fortunately the friend I visited the Jayne Ormonde store with is a shopper and fragrance lover which was a blessing as the service was so great and the experience so wonderful I would have felt bad if we had left without buying anything.

Be careful what you wish for. A friend of mine who read my “on a budget” fragrance snoop a few days ago, reached out and said she had the 10ml Levant fragrance for me sitting in a drawer. She loves Vetiver and Ormonde Woman so never used the Levant she received as part of a bigger gift.

I sprayed a little, literally a tiny squirt on each wrist, I’ll be rationing, and I could still smell it this morning. You can just tell it’s really expensive.

Thank you Linda Pilkington for your amazing shop, amazing fragrances and my amazing mate for coming up with the perfume I’ve been thinking about for 6 months.

Yeah.