So the King has become a “nose”, as they call professional perfumers, and launched an aftershave, Highgrove Splash. The Duke of Sussex wrote in his autobiography that Charles is always sniffing things — hair, roses, food — so it must be true.
The Highgrove shop website says that many of the products, including scented candles, “are chosen to reflect the personal interests of His Majesty the King … whether it’s a blanket, a fragrant candle or a limited-release sculpture”. We’ll get to the limited-release sculptures later, but for now let us rejoice that Highgrove Splash comes in a smart glass bottle with a big gold crown on it, and promises to bring “a touch of luxury to every shaving experience with its sophisticated aroma”.
The box has a watercolour of what looks like Downton Abbey on it and the contents are, I read, a mix of cypress, lavender and copaiba balsam, guaranteed to “instantly evoke the charm of Highgrove Gardens”. How we can be reminded of somewhere most of us have never been is unclear, but there we are.
More pertinently, charm, balsam and big gold crowns don’t come cheap, so Highgrove Splash will set you back a very regal £135. Too much? Don’t despair. HM has also launched £9.95 bars of soap, £7.95 padded hangers, and lavender bags, a relative bargain at £5.95 a pop. The latter promise to “bring the serene smells of summer into your home, while adding” — you guessed it — “a touch of luxury”. That’s a lot to ask of something that’s only 13cm high, even when it’s a lavender bag with Highgrove embroidered on it, but then my knowledge of sniffing things and how to sell home fragrance is evidently considerably less than HM’s. We note that all profits are donated to charity, which is possibly the small print that Prince Harry missed when he complained so bitterly about other royals making money.
Anyway. Harry wrote that his father smelt strongly not of Highgrove Splash but Dior’s Eau Sauvage and would “slather the stuff on his cheeks, his neck, his shirt. Flowery, with a hit of something harsh, like pepper or gunpowder, it was made in Paris.” Whether the King now smells of Paris or Gloucestershire only the Queen can say, but we can all celebrate that in Charles we have a king who takes his smellies seriously, and in this he is in tune with the times.
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Not so very long ago, you couldn’t move for adverts for Old Spice and Brut, which a friend joked was short for brutal. The arrival of Lynx in 1983 did little to lift the spirits. Now, though, men have as much choice as women, and a whole raft of scents are unisex. I’ve been very happy to be greeted, over the years, by men wearing Hermès Bel Ami, Dunhill and Acqua di Parma (always the classic original; never the diffusion flavours. Don’t mess quite literally with a winning formula).
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Perhaps with his new fragrance the King is tapping into the trend for having not just one scent but lots of them; a fragrance wardrobe to take him from state banquets to walkabouts. Personally, I worry that changing your scent every day is over-complicating things, confusing for whoever you’re kissing, and expensive. One twentysomething young woman of my acquaintance likes perfumes by Le Labo, whose £200 prices make my Coco by Chanel look like a bargain.
According to the Highgrove website, Charles’s foray into fragrance is in collaboration with Truefitt & Hill, the ultimate old-school gentleman’s brand in St James’s, London — which brings me back to those limited-release sculptures. Could they be referring to the sold-out ceramic hare? Or the handcrafted hedgehog bronze wire sculpture, roughly the size of an actual hedgehog and costing £600? The bronze wire frog is only £475, which is insulting to amphibians.
Unusually for Highgrove, your new hedgehog or frog will not come with a promise to add a touch of luxury. Instead, they will elevate your outdoor space, just as a £280 furry footstool in the shape of a sheep will elevate your indoor space, and a slathering of Highgrove splash is guaranteed to elevate your personal space. Buckingham Palace was not approached for comment.
