Mandarin & Mint

Citrus that does not last.

Green citrus and bergamot arrive cold and slightly unripe, and then the herb bed takes the whole thing over. Marjoram, lavender and sage keep it dry and green without going soapy.

Lemon balm cools the middle. Lemon grass draws one thin bright line straight through the lot of them, jasmine softens a single corner, and vetiver holds the end down, rooty and understated.

A small shop on Columbia Road, leased in 1985 by a costume designer who began with potpourri and sold it into a street that fills with flowers every Sunday. The shop next door followed. Home blends came after that, then work made for skin, and the range now runs past forty individual blends.

Nothing is farmed out. A batch is developed, diluted and macerated in small quantities, left to mature, then filtered, bottled, labelled and packed inside the studio, with British craftspeople and long standing partners at the other end of it. Kate Evans has run the house since 2017, after nineteen years buying fashion for Harrods and Harvey Nichols, and the Atelier Collection is a separate line, drawn out of a family history of cloth. Velvet is knotted at every lid there by hand.