Andalucia in a bottle? I give you 20 parts white oud, three parts each of amber and neroli, two parts bergamot blend and one part spicy ginger. Neroli is, of course, orange blossom. It’s the defining smell of childhood, my mother’s favourite perfume. A tiny photograph of me, aged four, and my mother, on holiday in Spain with my grandmother, is all but rubbed out with my fingerings. Now I have sprayed it with my own fragrance, Eau de Seville, so what I can’t properly see, I can at least smell.

— Columnist Susan Kurosawa has a bespoke fragrance done at Floris. Read more at Messages in a bottle at The Australian.