I recently stepped into the SpaceNK boutique in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, just planning on browsing for a few minutes. Approaching the shelves, I spied some unfamiliar bath products; looking more closely, I let out a little shriek of delight. Toiletries named after my favorite novel, Brideshead Revisited? I could not resist. These luxury products come from a brand called Beautannia, which turns out to be one of SpaceNK‘s house lines. Brideshead is billed as a “quintessential English floral” with notes of “wintersweet, honeysuckle and wild bluebell.”
If I had imagined a fragrance for Brideshead, the grand country estate at the heart of Evelyn Waugh’s novel, during all my repeated readings (not to mention numerous viewings of the highly faithful television adaptation), what would it be? For the earlier sections of the narrative, I’d scent Charles and Sebastian’s friendship with a blend of white wine, strawberries, ivy, and wisps of cigarette smoke. In a late chapter of the novel, Waugh himself evoked the smell of his fictional setting…