Island Breeze, Seychelles

Fall in love with the islands of the Seychelles, from the lush, humid warmth of the Vallée de Mai to the untamed turquoise ocean where the sea meets the sky. Island Breeze is an amber floral fragrance that entices with its tropical allure.

Sweet bougainvillea and passion fruit open it, a floral heart of jasmine, gardenia, frangipani and coconut sweetens and deepens, and a base of patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla and amber holds the warmth of sun and open air.

Top notes: Bougainvillea, Passion Fruit, Cyclamen

Heart notes: Jasmine, Gardenia, Frangipani, Lily, Coconut

Base notes: Patchouli, Sandalwood, Vanilla, Musk, Amber

A view through weathered blue wooden shutters onto a Seychelles cove, with palms, granite rocks and a turquoise sea.

The place

I grew up in the Seychelles, on a cliff where the sea opened out in front of me, almost a hundred and eighty degrees of it. From up there I could watch schools of mackerel moving under the surface, and dolphins playing in the water below. At sunset, the sky would turn a tender pink, and the sea, in a grand gesture of imitation, would reflect the colour and turn pink too, reaching past the horizon to a world that was hinted at but that we still could not see.

Frangipani and bougainvillea were the chorus of those years. Not occasionally. Constantly. The frangipani especially, in the heat of the afternoon, when the flowers had been sitting in the sun long enough to turn heavy and sweet. We picked them and tucked them behind our ears. It felt completely ordinary at the time.

My mum and I went to the beach often. White sand, a butter-soft caress beneath our feet, water so clear and so warm you could see straight to the bottom. We took banana crisps and sat there in it. On other occasions my best friend and I would walk the shore as the sun went down, toes in the water, soul sisters sharing secrets in the sand, talking about everything while the horizon turned warm and unhurried and vast.

The food was its own world too. Custard apple, which is tedious to eat because you have to spit out every seed, and worth it every single time, a creamy and tropical confection unlike anything grown in a cooler climate. Coconut water straight from the shell. The jamalak tree at school, dropping its fruit in the heat. None of this was exotic to me. It was just another ordinary day.

I spent a great deal of time exploring on my own. As a small child I took little walks by myself near where we lived, down to the rocky shore to talk to the mudskippers, up into our lime tree, which fruited all year round and asked for nothing in return. And to an abandoned house I had found, where I would climb into the window frame and sit, looking out at the most beautiful view of the sea.

It was a moment of both solitude and wonder. The dilapidated wood of the square window made a frame around the scene, a postcard held up to the world, and it made me appreciate all of it more: the turquoise water, a blue brighter than any photograph I have ever seen, the lush emerald of the coconut fronds, the creamy sand, the sun shining brightly and briefly, kissing the crests of the waves in the distance. It seemed like a fiction. Yet it was completely real, and the moment was completely mine.

A lit Island Breeze, Seychelles candle on weathered wood with frangipani, coconut and passion fruit, a turquoise cove at sunset behind.

The fragrance

Composed by Fragrance Oils.

Most fragrance briefs begin with notes. This one began with a place I knew before I knew anything else.

Island Breeze was composed by Fragrance Oils, from a long brief all about the Seychelles. I wrote about the islands at length, and in particular about the flowers I wanted at the centre of it: the frangipani I wore behind my ear, the fuchsia bougainvillea that bloomed hedonistically across the islands, the gardenia that scented the warm evening air. I wanted the pop of passion fruit, one of my favourite taste sensations, sweet and tart, a jelly full of tiny seeds. And I wanted the roundness that coconut brings, soft and full, holding the florals together without ever turning loud or literal. Not a postcard, but a beautiful perfume in its own right.

So it opens bright, bougainvillea with that tang of passion fruit. The heart is the Seychelles I remember: jasmine, gardenia and frangipani, with coconut giving it a creamy roundness. Underneath, patchouli, sandalwood, vanilla and amber hold the whole thing in warm air and open sun, the part that lingers longest.

A fragrance for any season. For any day you feel you need a touch of paradise.

Close-up of Kerry Lemon's hand-drawn Island Breeze illustration on the porcelain: a sailing ship, hibiscus, palm leaves and shells.

The illustration

Hand-drawn illustration on porcelain by Kerry Lemon.

We needed an illustrator who could draw memory. Kerry Lemon is one of the most respected illustrators in the UK. She very rarely takes on commissions now. This one, she said, was too good to turn down.

Each element on the Island Breeze vessel is hand-drawn and then composed into a single illustration of the Seychelles, and almost everything in it is something I grew up with. Frangipani, the flower I wore behind my ear, runs all through it. There is jamalak, the small jewel-bright fruit I picked and ate straight from the tree, and the custard apple beside it, tedious and wonderful in equal measure. Coconut, coral, a conch and a scallop shell, the everyday furniture of an island childhood. Palms lean over a little shore, and leaves are everywhere, because the Seychelles is green before it is anything else.

A two-masted sailing boat sits out on the water. From my balcony I watched boats like it cross the sea every day, and I would invent the lives of the sailors, wondering whether their view was the same as mine. An angelfish turns just beneath the surface, the way they did when I snorkelled, so near and yet a world entirely their own.

And there, ambling along the sand, the giant tortoise. We had tortoises everywhere when I was small, the wild giants you would go and find, and our own in the garden too, baby giants that take years to grow into themselves and make a surprising amount of noise in the meantime. They move as though they have all the time in the world, which, more or less, they do. Gentle giants.

An Island Breeze, Seychelles vessel and candle refill on a woven straw mat with bird of paradise flowers.

Made to be refilled

A Told London candle is made to be kept. The porcelain is yours for life: when the wax is spent you refill it rather than replace it, so the vessel stays in your home instead of being remade and shipped again. Each candle is hand-poured in England in natural soy wax, and the packaging is plastic-free and FSC-certified. Refill, don’t replace.

Have You Been Told About the Seychelles?