Snobbery seeps into most areas of life, including perfume, and it’s never a very attractive trait, though it’s something that most of us have been afflicted by at one time or another – at least until we learn better.

As our knowledge of perfume grows, a lot of us get a bit embarrassed about the mass-market fragrances we might once have liked. In some cases that’s fair enough: I don’t imagine that, if I went back and smelled the M&S aftershave I was given for a teenage birthday, I would…

Before I start, I have to admit that the Acqua di Parma colognes have never really floated my boat, but very kindly the company have sent me some samples to try, and as it’s one of the most popular men’s fragrances I wanted to explore why that might be.

There are lots of things to like about Acqua di Parma Colonia. Its packaging, for starters, is wonderfully elegant: a golden-yellow, linen-textured cardboard tube, which splits exactly in half to reveal the bottle tightly nestled…

‘Made in Margate’ is not a phrase you often see on perfume bottles, which is one reason Haeckels has garnered plenty of attention. The brainchild of Dom Bridges, a graphic designer and film director who used to make commercials for the likes of Lucozade and Pot Noodles, it was launched in 2012 after he and his wife moved to washed-up-and-coming Kentish seaside town of Margate…