Perfume correspondent Ceri Barnes Thompson goes to Solifiore and finds out perfume isn’t just about smell, it’s the door to memory 

“There’s no-one you can’t talk about perfume with”, said Sarah when I went to visit her in Soliflore, her lovely new Seven Dials store. It was a beautiful crisp early spring day, the deep green of the shop front vibrant in the sunshine, the original glass of the huge old windows sparkling like the little scent bottles sitting behind them.

Soliflore opened on Bonfire Night after Sarah completed a full renovation of the old premises. Peeling back the layers at the start of the shop-fit, the original dark green tiles of the original grocers shop of decades before were uncovered and her graphic design eye spotted the inspiration for the colour that is the trademark of the new shop. 

You could say a perfume store is indulgent in a cost of living crisis. But is it really? Perfume offers up connection to our stories and our memories. The name ‘Soliflore’ represents the idea of a single floral aroma – a fragrance built around one particular flower but which delivers different layers of meaning and interpretation depending on who is smelling it. As Sarah says, you can smell a particular scent and you are taken without thinking back to a place in time, the Proustian rush effect. For me it’s sitting on the bath watching my Mum get ready to go out, the smell of her Balmain perfume “Vent Vert’’ just about beating the smell of Elnet hairspray. 

Her mother, Mimi, owned an art gallery when Sarah was little and memories of those times which shaped her love of conversation and connection have her taking it all in, watching and listening. Then at home, evenings and weekends brought buyers and sellers to their house, artists bringing pictures, negotiations, joyful chatter soaked up. Mimi was mesmerizing to little Sarah. With her purple eyeshadow and Clinique’s “Aromatics Elixir” wafting in her wake she held a room. But it didn’t stop there – Mimi’s bathroom cabinet was a treasure trove of bottles and boxes which Sarah would open and marvel at, picking up and holding the lovely vessels imagining herself as a grown up, groomed, sophisticated, smelling amazing.

Having her own shop was always Sarah’s dream but she opted for a ‘proper job’. Finding herself gazing out from her office to St Martin’s School of Art realising she really didn’t belong behind a computer with spreadsheets. Retraining as a graphic designer, she worked in live music for a while and then took a job as a stylist for Body Shop. When the pandemic hit, Sarah contracted long covid and returning to work after four months, she realised that something had shifted in her and she no longer had the tolerance for creating by committee. A good friend encouraged her to leave: “Jump and the net will catch you!” he said, so she did.

 Free as a bird and casting around for ideas a friend asked her to do Christmas cover at the perfumiers, Jo Malone. Years before, her very first boss had gifted her a bottle of ‘White Jasmine and Mint’’ and she remembered the joy of having that in her hand-bag. So she took the temporary job and found her happy place. She would stand on the shop floor surrounded by scents she knew the layers and detail of and enjoyed every minute of her working life. And she was very good at it. 

‘’It was never selling, it was a conversation’’ she says now, standing on her very own shop floor. And that’s the experience of anyone entering her space. I first visited just as she’d opened and left 20 minutes later having talked non-stop about the memories conjured up as you open each of the beautifully creative scent tins on the counter that contain scraps of silk to carry the perfumes for you to smell before trying on your skin. One of them stopped me in my tracks and took me straight to my mum; fresh green grass and freesias. Sarah talks about people moved to tears sometimes by the scent memories conjured up there. 

I

 thought I’d try out a theory about people’s perfume memories, asking friends whether they could remember what their parents wore when they were little. The replies flooded in -‘Anais Anais’ in that little white bottle, ‘Miss Dior’ ‘Number 5’ ‘White Musk’ ‘Charlie’ “Tramp’ ‘Rive Gauche!’ in the black and blue metal case and of course ‘Old Spice’, ‘Brute’ and ‘Aramis’. Funny stories too rolled past – one friends mum stopped wearing a scent when she found out Margaret Thatcher also wore it.

Perfume for Sarah is an essential piece of getting dressed so that whilst Chanel’s “No5” is ever present for her, she’ll curate the layers on top of that depending on how she wants to show up in the world. Perfume can change your mood, she says, just like a song but it can also effect how you’re perceived in the world – you can, depending on the scents you wear, reflect your sophisticated, playful, complex, refined sides. 

Sarah wishes she’d known years ago the level of work and dedication that independent shop keepers devote to their businesses as she’d probably never have bothered with a single chain store in her life. “I’m the tester, the buyer, the designer, the financial manager, the seller, the cleaner, the social media strategist, the future planner, the negotiator with the council, the publicist. But I wouldn’t have it any other way”. 

She has great plans for the little shop. She tried over 400 scents before stocking it with small batch perfumes – often in smaller sizes and more affordable because she believes we need ‘perfume wardrobes’ giving us a choice depending on how the spirit moves us. She sells hand-made stationary too from local artists, another of her passions. Sarah’s determined that Soliflore will be part of the heart-beat of the local community that she loves. She’s created ‘Soliflore Social’ to offer events for local people to get involved, gather and enjoy. Scented hot chocolate nights as well as visiting perfumers who will share their knowledge and passion. Like she said everyone has a story about a scent, it’s part of our connection to each-other and to our world. And these little independent stores offer us a warm welcome with that at their very heart. I for one won’t be going to Boots for my perfume. 

Soliflore, 64 Dyke Road BN1 3JD