The Rise Of The Luxury Travel Atomiser

Whilst we sell our own travel atomisers , it has been almost a passion of mine to find and purchase the best quality travel atomisers around. Some part of me has hoped that eventually we would put into production a luxury one for our own website and of course I had hoped that over time we might have developed a signature scent for our bow tie wearers, something of a micro international fraternity that would have a wink wink nod nod when you smelled it on another human being. These are long term goals I guess. One of the romantic notions behind it was inspired by the scent of Charvet that Boy Capel wore, but that I shall write about in a another blog post.

Of all the travel atomisers I have no collected in my hunt for the best of the best, two are the stand outs. They belong to Creed and Hermes.

Recently I had my Creed account taken away from me and I was probably their biggest buyers of their travel atomisers until it was taken away. I had been selling them with the bottles of perfumes we had in stock at the Studio, though we kept a small range skewed towards my favourite scents that we used when sending out packages. The customers that took on the travel atomisers loved them and could immediately see the benefits of having the ability to travel with them. The Creed atomisers carry 10ML (there is also a 50ML version), but it is the hard casing and protected bottle insert that makes them so alluring. No only are they handsome (or sexy depending on the colour) but they really can be rough and tumbled in luggage and handle wear and tear very well. The problem that Creed has is that they don't make the product accessible or practical. In the box they include a funnel, but the only way you can use the funnel is if you buy the larger 500ML bottles of perfume which are roughly valued at closer to $2000AUD or there abouts. So if you own a 100ML bottle the only way to atomise the perfume (for your average Joe) is to spray manually the bottle from the spout into the atomiser cylinder. If you are having trouble understanding what I wrote then you are obviously new to the atomisers world. The solution, which Creed doesn't advocate nor make implements for, is to syringe out the perfume to ensure it does not oxidize or at least, oxidixe substantially less. There is also the spill factor, you obviously lose a lot more perfume if you manually spray or try to use the funnel (this I can tell you from experience). 

Then on the internet some months back I found this video and I kind of love those strange human beings that put those extra practical You Tube videos up which show you workarounds. A simple syringe from the local pharmacy coupled with a ball point pen and I was happily siphoning out all my large bottles of perfumes into atomisers to make them so much more practically available to me. I now had multiple bottles in my car, in my carry bags, next to my bed and so on. I got so into the groove that I placed a large order with a Chinese manufacturer and stamped our logo on them. And honestly, they are the greatest little crowd pleasers. I give them to customers that visit the Studio, I send them out to our best customers when they order bow ties and occasionally we sell the atomisers from the website.

As for Creed, I highly recommend they manufacture an implement that allows you to properly siphon perfume from their 100ML bottles into their atomisers.

Fast forward to January and now I am in Maison Hermes on the Fauborg St Honore looking for perfumes for my customers along the strip. I wanted to make a few surprises for 2019 and I found one at Serge Lutens which some of our customers will smell in the coming weeks. But at Hermes, I found what is probably the best looking and most elegant and functionally sound travel atomiser I have ever seen. It was not cheap, in fact quite a jump up from the cost of the Creed ones which are a little more razzle dazzle. But it had an elegance in it's simplicity that trumped the Creed atomisers. It was made of proper dauphin leather and sewed by hand. It had that heaviness about it that suggested that it would last a life time. And when you closed the atomiser it made a proper heavy click and stayed shut, something that can't be said of the Creed atomisers of which sometimes the caps fall off in your pocket, which can be annoying.

So, whilst we sell entry level atomisers on the website and whilst we have not set about to make the best atomiser in the world along with our own signature scent, in the interim, I implore you to buy either the Creed or the Hermes atomiser if you are looking for an accessory that is so rarefied that when you pull it out, those around you become rather curious.

Creed travel atomisers at the Double Bay Creed boutique which now holds the atomisers exclusively in Australia.

Hermes travel atomisers - available at Maison Hermes on the Rue Fauborg St Honore.