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New fragrances from Gorilla Perfume at Lush

Lush has launched 9 new fragrances in the Gorilla Perfumes range, all of which were introduced at the Lushfest festival over this past summer: Sun, Devil’s Nightcap, Flower’s Barrow, Hellstone, The Bug, The Voice of Reason, Euphoria, Sikkim Girls and Furze. 

Sun (shown) ~ "During the cold winter, Mark Constantine longed for warmth.  Mark travelled to the U.S.A in Spring, compiling a soundtrack like Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘America’ to listen to while driving down the New Jersey turnpike to Cape May. Visions came to him of a big orange sun on a lollipop stick...orange, tangerine and sandalwood grace this fresh scent." 

Devil’s Nightcap ~ "One of the most mysterious megaliths stands in the town place of Studland, known as Agglestone or The Devil’s Nightcap.  Folklore from 1866 claims his Satanic Majesty threw the stone across the sea, attempting to hit Corfe Castle.  The stone was first noted by Borlase in 1058, who described it as “the great stone of men” - and he attributed Druidic properties to the rock.  To capture this magic, oak moss, clary sage and ylang ylang were used." 

Flower’s Barrow ~ "There are stories about an Iron Age hillfort above Lulworth Cove.  It seems to have been taken over by the Romans, who are said to haunt the place known as Pines Hill or Flower’s Barrow.  Climbing the steep hills to explore this magical place, Simon dodged explosives used by the Ministry of Defence!  The ancient fort has sunk into the sea and nettles and brambles have taken over the land.  To capture the spirit of this place in scent, Gorilla has utilised well-used herbs like sage and thyme, as well as geranium and blackcurrant." 

Hellstone ~ "We find Simon Constantine in cold January, trudging across fields searching for the eerie spot known as Hellstone.  The ancient Hellstone megalith was used as a burial mound 4000 years ago!  As written in 1803, lore has it the Devil flung this stone!  Inspired by the smells of unearthed roots and freshly turned earth, the Hellstone inspired perfume uses vetivert, cumin and beeswax." 

The Bug ~ "Also inspired by music, Mark and Simon feel the paranoia of the modern age with The Bug.  Thoughts drift to ominous surveillance cameras...voices whispering in the ears...hidden secret police and anonymous hackers...ideas for a ‘protest perfume’ emerge - a disjointed scent for our times using such unique fragrances as galbanum and black pepper." 

The Voice of Reason ~ "Inspired by the beat generation and the spoken word comes literary figures like; William Burroughs and Neal Cassady and bards like Gil Scott Heron and Leonard Cohen at street corners, basement clubs and claustrophobic coffee shops.  With the strong aroma of French Gitane cigarettes and espresso...sandalwood and the tonka bean are major ingredients." 

Euphoria ~ "Like ‘Sun’, Mark longed for other healing scents, to make one feel a kind of euphoria.  Taking cues from books on aromatherapy, euphoric sensations were conjured using clary sage, grapefruit, lime and neroli." 

Sikkim Girls ~ "Musician and composer Sheema Mukherjee was inspired after she had an experience with the Sikkim Girls.  While hanging out in the oddly named ‘Hot Stimulating Café’ in Darjeeling, the café owner warned Sheema to stay away from the dangerous Sikkim Girls.  When asked why, the owner said they had seduced and stolen away his son-in-law.  Somehow they had accomplished this whilst covered head-to-toe and simply with a subtle yet sexual sway of their bodies." 

Furze ~ "Looking out of the back door of his new home, Simon found inspiration in his own garden with Furze.  Furze is a very British plant and the prickly bush is also known as gorse.  It even flowers in the winter.  Lore has it that the flower was used by the Vikings to brew beer and if grown on your property, Furze could protect from curses or hexes - made into a broom, it could ‘sweep’ away evil influences.  Adding coconut and vanilla, this fragrance is sure to protect its wearer from evil!" 

Lush Sun, Devil’s Nightcap, Flower’s Barrow, Hellstone, The Bug, The Voice of Reason, Euphoria, Sikkim Girls and Furze are available in 7, 25, 28, 43, 46 and 92 g sizes (£10 - £100) and can be found now at Lush in the UK. 

OMG, Furze!!!  Puts me immediately back in 9th grade, trying to make sense of Hardy’s The Return of the Native and all those rustic furze-cutters.  oof.  I loathed the book because I couldn’t understand it, but now I’m a confirmed Hardy fan. 

Now, where was I?  Oh, yeah, the frag had me going until the coconut.  All of the others sound worth sampling, though. 

I’ve tried most of these and they are interesting but I’m not sure that I’d want to wear any of them.  Lush have done a couple of really lovely perfumes in the past and I guess these are intended for a younger more experimental type of market.  Sikkim Girls was the only one that I found vaguely likeable – the others reminded me the hippie shops of the 70’s and 80’s with tiny bottles of overpowering oils that we all wore.  I prefer the Exclusive range at Lush and in particular I like “Icon” which is lovely – spicy with lots of depth and great sillage, also Smell of Freedom which smells expensive and complex in a really good way – a bit like some of the Parfum de Nicholai – very layered and very wearable.  My daughter wears 1000 kisses which is summery/floral almond and gorgeous on her but this new batch is odd – I,m not sure.  I’m always slightly wary when a company suddenly comes out with a lot of news fragrances.  Has there been enough work on each of them or is it just a case of lots of ingredients that have been loaded together.  Interesting packaging! 

i’ve fallen hard for lush’s new line and purchased on the spot hellstone – a slightly smoky, deep, dark, rooty vetiver (a dead ringer for sigili athunis and to a certain extent villoresi vetiver, less salt), the voice of reason – smoky, ashy, leather sofas and cigarettes, incense (very similar to le labo patchouli 24) and devil’s nightcap (nothing to compare it too, but that’s not a bad thing, au contraire).  was very close from buying the bug as well but the patchouli and amber were too close to the ‘hippie head shop’ vibe and left it in the end.  and seeing that i was on a role, i also picked up breath of god, exhale and oudh heart.  lush has an amazing line of perfumes and it is worth mentioning that all these come in an astonishing perfume concentration of 20%.