Bloom Perfumery: Samples and Scent Discovery in London

“Before offering anything to try we speak to customers,”

Oxana Polyakova, 2012 (excerpt)

When choosing a perfume, how precisely can we put the scents we like into words? At London’s Bloom Perfumery, that conversation is the beginning of a process that continues with small quantities of perfume to take home and explore. Beyond bringing together fragrances by independent makers, the shop has created opportunities to compare different expressions of the same material.

Founder Oxana Polyakova began in much the same way: ordering samples and smelling, one by one, the perfumes she had read about in books. An exploration that started with a desire to learn became a small East London shop in 2012.

Contents

Key Information
The Founder and the Shop’s Beginnings
The Thinking Behind the Selection and Service
Samples and a Club for Continuing the Exploration
Making Perfume and the Shop Today
References

Key Information

Name: Bloom Perfumery
Opened: August 2012, in Spitalfields, London
Founder: Oxana Polyakova (also spelled Oksana in some sources)
Current shop: 4 Slingsby Place, London, WC2E 9AB, Covent Garden
Official website: Bloom Perfumery

Descriptions of the location and services are based on official information available on October 15, 2026.

The Founder and the Shop’s Beginnings

A Friend in Moscow and the Pleasure of Reading about Perfume

Originally from Moscow, Oxana studied investment management at London’s Cass Business School before pursuing a specialist education in perfumery. The birth of her daughter prompted her to consider a path outside finance. She wanted both time with her child and work of her own. That choice eventually led to a perfume shop.

A friend introduced her to the world of fragrance. After being encouraged to smell a wide variety of scents, she began reading Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez’s Perfumes: The A–Z Guide. Rather than stopping at the descriptions, she collected samples and tested them with her own nose. She went on to study fragrance materials at Cinquième Sens in Paris, expanding her interest in finished perfumes into an understanding of their ingredients.

Opening on Hanbury Street in 2012

The first Bloom opened on Hanbury Street in Spitalfields. When The Womens Room visited in December 2012, it found a selection including Grossmith, Nasomatto and Jovoy, and a service that began by asking about customers’ preferences and the perfumes they already wore. Giving smaller makers a place, when they might otherwise be overlooked by large department stores, was part of the shop’s founding role.

There is more to the opening quotation. Oxana went on to explain that she asked about preferences because there is a limit to how many perfumes someone can try and take in at once. Filling shelves with variety and presenting that variety in an order that allows a person to perceive the differences are two distinct tasks.

Expanding into Covent Garden in 2015

In spring 2015, Bloom opened a second shop on Langley Court. Initially it operated alongside the Hanbury Street shop, rather than simply replacing it. A more central location would reach new customers, but the expansion also aimed to give the retailer the scale to support makers and negotiate with distributors.

Oxana chose the name herself, wanting a short word associated with flowers. In designing the shop, however, perfume took priority over decoration. In 2015 she described simple shelving and washable surfaces such as glass. Even the materials used in the space were considered in light of the fact that perfume would be sprayed there throughout the day.

The current official address is on Slingsby Place, also in Covent Garden; Langley Court is listed as the former address.

A Timeline of Bloom

Date	Event
Around 2008	After graduating from business school and becoming a mother, Oxana deepens her exploration through perfume books and samples.
August 2012	The shop opens in Spitalfields.
Spring 2015	A second shop opens at 4 Langley Court in Covent Garden.
December 2015	AnOther features Bloom’s perfume-making experience, where customers create their own fragrance.
2017–2018	Independent visits and interviews document small quantities, themed samples and the activities of Nose Club.
Verified in October 2026	The official address is 4 Slingsby Place. Samples and themed discovery are also available online.

The Thinking Behind the Selection and Service

Looking for the Person Behind the Brand

“A concept is paramount.”

Oxana Polyakova, 2015

For Oxana, an important consideration in selecting a brand was the presence of a particular person behind it. That person might be a perfumer or a creative director. She believed that originality grew from having someone with an idea who took responsibility for the perfume. A compelling story was not enough if the scent failed to live up to it.

In 2018, she described her selection criteria as a balance not only of creativity, but also of the price to the consumer and how widely a brand was distributed. This was not simply a case of accepting high prices because something was rare. The aim was to build a selection that preserved the makers’ individuality while remaining something customers could genuinely explore.

Describing Scent through Colour and Texture

“I see fragrances in colours”

Oxana Polyakova, 2014 (excerpt)

Oxana perceives fragrances in terms of colour and texture. Describing Phaedon’s Cèdre de Thé in 2014, she evoked a grey with the softness of velvet and a texture resembling suede. Rather than listing ingredients, her words invited readers to imagine the contours of an unfamiliar perfume through another sense.

Even so, words alone were not meant to complete the choice. The same article discussed the difficulty of selecting perfume online and the need to spend time trying several fragrances before buying. Descriptions and samples were complementary, not interchangeable.

The Same Note Can Lead to Different Scents

In 2018, Oxana explained that several perfumes containing a given material could make different impressions depending on concentration, extraction and composition. Comparing them in practice could broaden a customer’s existing idea of what that ingredient smelled like.

That attitude is also evident in a brief statement of her own.

“My ability to judge perfume is still improving every day,”

Oxana Polyakova, 2018 (excerpt)

Rather than simply passing knowledge in one direction, the shop keeps learning too. Sampling at Bloom can be an opportunity not only to find a favourite perfume, but also to understand what one is perceiving.

Samples and a Club for Continuing the Exploration

Reading a Theme, Then Comparing Several Perfumes

The official website’s Explore Themes section groups perfumes by material, style, season and other ideas, with sample packs available for many of them. Jasmine might range from a bright cologne to leather; green scents might evoke tomato leaves, figs, grass or tea. By curating across brands, the shop reveals the breadth contained within a single word.

The Vanilla! Pack offers a clear example. The official listing contains nine 1 ml samples, ranging from scents reminiscent of ice cream to interpretations described through green pods, smoke or leather. Instead of grouping vanilla under a single idea of sweetness, the set lets customers compare which direction appeals to them. Its contents can change, so it should be distinguished from the vanilla set discussed in a 2017 visitor’s account.

La Parfumerie Tanu’s 2017 account records a visit spent trying perfume after perfume, with interest extending to small decants and themed sets. This was not a system retrospectively inferred from today’s website: the work of connecting in-store sampling with exploration at home was already under way.

Trying 1 ml and Spending Time with 10 ml

Alongside its 1 ml sample service, Bloom offers Nose Club. Members buy tokens and use the number assigned to each fragrance to select a 10 ml atomiser. This allows them to wear a perfume for a while before moving on to another, without accumulating a full-sized bottle each time.

Here, there is a distinction between enough perfume to try once and enough to get to know through everyday wear. An annual sample subscription is also offered, providing several routes into discovery: individual samples, themed sets and continuing exploration. Even for those unable to visit frequently, the relationship with perfume need not end with a single purchase.

Enthusiasts Value the Chance to Explore in Small Quantities

In Reddit discussions about UK samples and Bloom itself, recurring topics include sets organised by note, spray samples and time spent comparing fragrances with staff. In one post about the Fog and Petrichor pack, the writer compared several works inspired by mist and rain, distinguishing personal preference from how convincingly each recreated a scene.

These are individual experiences, not guarantees of service or delivery. Nevertheless, they help explain why enthusiasts recommend Bloom: not only for the unusual range it carries, but also for the opportunity to obtain small quantities and compare them independently.

Making Perfume and the Shop Today

Bloom has also developed a perfume lab where customers can build a fragrance from a concept of their own, rather than simply choosing an existing scent. AnOther’s 2015 feature described an experience in which customers created a perfume using prepared scent components and a system to assist with blending.

Current official guidance likewise emphasises deciding on a concept first, then selecting the components of the formula. Completed formulas are saved and can be reordered. However, the information available on October 15, 2026 limited the lab to existing bookings and previously purchased vouchers or invitations; sales of new sessions and gift vouchers were temporarily suspended.

The current shop is near Long Acre and Seven Dials in Covent Garden. Official opening hours are noon–6 p.m. Monday to Friday and 1–6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Its address differs from the Langley Court location found in older articles.

The founder’s time spent reading passages in books and testing them against samples has grown into a system through which customers can read about a theme and compare several scents with their own noses. Bloom is interesting not only as a gathering place for unusual perfumes, but also because the shop has developed ways to deepen an interest in fragrance itself.

For another story in London perfume retail, see the founding history of Les Senteurs and its approach to sampling.