Burberry fans, prick up your ears – the brand’s just launched a new fragrance called My Burberry, a fresh-smelling floral.

The packaging was inspired by the iconic Burberry trench coat so you’ll notice that the cap looks a lot like one of the buttons and the little bow around the neck is knotted the same way you’d tie your trench’s belt. In fact, it’s even made from the same fabric.

As far as the actual juice goes, that smells like a trench too, one that’s just been taken out of the wash after a good spin cycle with… Kidding! (Do you think the PRs heart skipped a beat for a second there?) My Burberry is actually a lush, white-ish floral that’s supposed to capture the scent of an English garden just after the rain, the kind of weather in which you’d wear your trench. (Although between you and me, England’s weather is so bloody horrendous I’ve ended up wearing a trench on Bournemouth beach in June.)

Notes-wise, you’re looking at a floral mix that includes bergamot, mandarin orange and geranium leaves for freshness with a ‘wet’ rose and freesia heart resting on bed of pachouli leaves and quince.

On my skin, I love the initially citrusy top notes. This soon gives way to the rose and then a slight mustiness comes in which I think is the way the perfumer’s trying to express the wetness, clouds and soil that where part of his inspiration. I’m not a big fan of any of that, but as it turns out, it doesn’t last long. In a way, it kind of mimics a typically moody English ‘summer’s day’ in that those particular notes are merely clouds that cross the sun and things soon clear up to become a light, easy-to-wear, day-time floral – but the sophisticated  kind that Jo Malone serves up. Trust me when I say that My Burberry is certainly not a Woolworthsy floral body spritzer kind of scent. When I sniff it, I think of words like ‘elegant’, ‘demure’, ‘professional’ and ‘expensive’.

As far as who’d end up wearing this goes, I do think My Burberry’s the kind of scent that would suit women of all ages, provided they really are ‘women’ and not girls. For example, someone in their late twenties could pull this off just as easily as someone in their 50s and Burberry’s ad campaign taps into that by featuring both Ms Moss and le new wundermodel Cara. It’s at this point that I’d like to request a moment of silence for my sad passing into middle age in that I’ve realised I totally identify more with the ‘older’ face and opposed to the young one. Can I get a hands up from anyone else who felt a similar pang when Jerry Hall’s daughter became the new face of Mugler’s Angel and they were all like ‘OMG, it felt like just the other day I was staring at Jerry’s ad on the back page of Cosmo…’?

Anyway, getting back to Burberry… if you like gentle, unassuming florals with a particular bias towards rose, you’re going to want to give My Burberry a sniff. And luckily for you it’s on shelves as I type and priced from R700 for 30mls.

Love, love

Leigh