Jane Eyre

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me.

Charlotte Brontë's heroine. Passion and freedom, and a wild expanse of earth and wild flowers to stand in. No net anywhere in it.

Snowdrop and forget-me-not open it, small and cold and green, flowers of open ground and not of a hothouse. Black jasmine comes in heavier behind them, and orchid keeps it lush without letting it turn sweet. Almond powders the centre and takes the shine off the florals. Indian sandalwood runs creamy underneath, vanilla warms that, and by the end the cold has gone out of it entirely.

Immortal Perfumes is a one-person house in Seattle, run since 2012 by JT Siems, who writes every formula and makes every bottle by hand in small batches. The subjects come from books and from history: writers, artists, historical figures. A vampire story that beat Dracula to print by twenty-six years. A Bavarian king's midnight banquets. The smell left on a magician's own papers.

An archive, not a department store counter, and it is run that way. Email is answered and orders are packed by the same person who blends them. The formulas are jojoba and alcohol, essential oils and aromachemicals, and the synthetics in them get a long plain-language defence on the house's own site instead of being kept out of sight. Nothing in the line is made from an animal, and every formula is original.