Les Senteurs: Giving Unfamiliar Perfume Houses a Place to Grow in Britain

We were always ready to LISTEN

James Craven, 2014

A perfume shop offers people more than bottles. It also gives them time to try unfamiliar scents, someone to talk to about them, and clues to their own preferences.

Les Senteurs is an independent perfumery founded in London in 1984. It has combined introducing small perfume houses to Britain with an unhurried approach to choosing fragrance. Its unusual selection is not the only thing worth considering. Its story is also about how the founding family and staff made a place for selling perfume into somewhere to learn and talk about it.

Essential information
The founders and the origins of the shop
The thinking behind the selection and service
Sampling experiences today
1. Talking in the shop and testing on skin
2. Trying scents at home and finding the next possibilities online
An aside: finding a first fragrance obsession for his father
References

Essential information

Name: Les Senteurs
Founded: October 1984
Founders: Betty Hawksley and Michael Hawksley
Origins: Belgravia, London, United Kingdom
Activities: Curating mainly independent and niche fragrances, in-store advice, online sales, and sampling services
Current shop: 71 Elizabeth Street, Belgravia, London SW1W 9PJ
Official website: Les Senteurs

The name means “scents” in French. The official website still describes it as a family-run business. As of October 2026, the location listed in its official shop information is the Belgravia boutique on Elizabeth Street.

The founders and the origins of the shop

From a fragrance business in New York to a small London shop

In the 1980s, Betty and Michael spent three years in New York introducing Molinard de Molinard to the United States through their company, Cariad Products. After Betty and one of their daughters were mugged within a short time of each other, they decided to return to Britain.

Back home, they conceived a shop introducing lesser-known European perfume companies. Small perfume boutiques they had seen in Paris helped shape the idea. In Britain, people generally bought perfume in department stores. They would create a different kind of specialist shop, where customers could seek advice across several houses. In October 1984, they opened Les Senteurs at 227 Ebury Street.

Betty wanted a place where people could discuss perfumes they had enjoyed and their lifestyles, then find a scent that suited their skin. Bottles were arranged like books in a library, allowing customers to approach and explore. Customers who tried a scent were sent away and invited to return once it had settled. That time was part of the service.

Giving small houses a place to meet British customers

Les Senteurs helped widen access in Britain to houses such as Annick Goutal, Frédéric Malle, and Etat Libre d’Orange. Reporting on a new shop in 2011, Basenotes recorded its role in introducing brands previously unavailable in the country.

Introducing unfamiliar houses requires more than putting products on a shelf: people also need a place to understand their perfumes. The second shop, opened in 2011 at 2 Seymour Place in Marylebone, was larger than the original and included a “Scent Salon” for exhibitions and events.

Odette Toilette and Romano Ricci appeared there, and Andy Tauer gave a talk about roses. Customers could meet the people behind the perfumes and explore their subjects in more depth. The sales floor also became somewhere to hear how creators thought.

The appreciation of fine fragrance is very much a journey…

Claire Hawksley, 2011

This “journey” did not mean only travelling to distant places. How might different creators interpret the same subject, such as a rose? Connecting time spent smelling perfume with time spent listening to its maker offered more ways of looking at a bottle.

James Craven arrives from a department store

James Craven’s fragrance career began with a job advertisement in the 1980s. Combining ironing, cleaning, cooking, waiting tables, and reading scripts for the National Theatre, he was looking for one more day of work each week. At the interview, however, he was offered a full-time position at the Annick Goutal counter in Harrods.

Although he had no sales experience, he learned about perfume and looking after customers there. He enjoyed the energy of a large department store, but eventually found its scale, bustle, and heat tiring. A vacancy at the small Les Senteurs shop on Ebury Street brought his next turning point.

Craven joined in 1996. His work expanded beyond the counter to the blog, annual catalogue, classes, talks, and staff training. The career he described in The Scented Letter in 2020 shows how experience in sales developed into writing and teaching about perfume.

We had time to think and time to talk.

James Craven, 2020

At Les Senteurs, knowledgeable staff guided customers while also helping them become able to choose for themselves. They selected a few scents, invited customers to smell them, and listened to their reactions. Rather than deciding every answer, the guide also helped cultivate the customer’s own judgement for their next choice.

The Hawksley family continues the business, and the shop concentrates on Elizabeth Street

The founders’ daughter Claire Hawksley became General Manager in 2002 and a Director in 2009. In 2021, their son Chris Hawksley was introduced as a Director. That same year, Claire discussed the creation of the shop’s candles as Creative Director. The family’s roles had expanded into both management and creation.

For Chris, perfume and the shop had been part of family conversation since childhood. He described the shop’s role as providing time and space for novices and knowledgeable enthusiasts alike to explore fragrance. Where staff had once travelled the world in search of houses, perfumers from around the world now brought their creations to the shop. That change also reflected the relationships it had built.

The period with two shops did not last. Seymour Place had closed by early 2018, and the refurbished Elizabeth Street boutique was featured that February. The shop’s history cannot be read as though it had occupied one address since its founding. Distinguishing the original Ebury Street shop, its later Elizabeth Street location, and the second shop on Seymour Place reveals changes in both scale and experience.

Key events from the founding to the present

Date	Event
October 1984	Betty and Michael open the shop at 227 Ebury Street
1996	James Craven joins. The shop later moves to Elizabeth Street
2002 / 2009	Claire becomes General Manager, then Director
2011	A second shop opens at 2 Seymour Place, with a Scent Salon
Early 2018	The second shop closes. The Elizabeth Street refurbishment is reported that February
2021	Chris is introduced as a Director. The shop launches its own candle collection
October 2026	Official shop information lists 71 Elizabeth Street, with in-store consultations and online sampling services

The thinking behind the selection and service

Smelling beyond “I don’t like flowers”

In a 2016 conversation with Jo Fairley of The Perfume Society, Craven recalled a customer who repeatedly insisted on avoiding floral fragrances. Yet as they smelled perfumes together, the ones she enjoyed turned out to feature gardenia and rose.

Listening to someone’s preferences does not mean simply entering their words into a classification chart. What the word “flowers” brings to mind may not be what the perfume in front of them conveys.

Craven believed that conversation needed to adapt to each person, because people perceive fragrance differently and discover different things in it. Making too much of specialist terminology can alienate customers. Knowledge should bring people closer to something they can actually smell, rather than overwhelm them.

The story will feel familiar even to fragrance lovers who never visit London. A disliked ingredient or fragrance-family name does not determine the impression of an entire perfume. Conversation in the shop respects existing preferences while allowing their boundaries to be explored.

Making fragrance families a starting point for conversation

The 2018 refurbishment introduced a central “Wheel of Fragrance” showing fragrance families. It was a rotating display of perfumes selected by scent category. Visiting at the time, Thomas Dunckley of The Candy Perfume Boy described it as a conversation starter, to which customers could also suggest additions.

Unlike shelves arranged by brand, it allowed similar kinds of scent to be compared across several houses. Even those who knew few brand names could begin with an interest in citrus, green, or woody fragrances.

The official website continues to offer guidance through its own “SenteurSystem.” Its description of woody scents, for example, shows the range within one family, from dry, bright woods to a dark forest with earthy undertones. Leather likewise divides into polished, smoky, and soft suede-like expressions.

Classification offers clues both to finding similar fragrances and to understanding differences within a shared name. The physical 2018 display and the current online classification should be considered separately, but both provide a way into conversations that cross fragrance boundaries.

From selecting fragrances to creating scents of family memories

The six in-house candles launched in 2021 show how experience in selecting fragrances developed into creation. Drawing on people and events in the Hawksley and Nicholson families that Claire had been researching, the collection was developed with Robertet, CPL Aromas, and Olfiction.

“Forêt Foray” recalled a family Christmas in a Vermont log cabin. “Fire Pit Fortune” grew from a story about her father helping harvest cherries at the family home in Kent. Rather than emphasising the fruit’s sweetness, the latter explored the almond-like character of its stones. Memories led to specific choices in scent.

Olfiction’s Nick Gilbert had previously worked at Les Senteurs. Familiar with Claire’s way of using words, he helped communicate her intentions to perfumer Pia Long. Relationships formed on the sales floor also contributed to collaboration in creating fragrance.

Les Senteurs’ focus has always been the fragrance…

Claire Hawksley, 2021

In creating the candles, Claire continued to prioritise scent over the associations suggested by price or packaging. A shop that had long chosen other people’s fragrances was turning its own memories into scent. The judgement developed in the boutique also informed this work.

Sampling experiences today

Talking in the shop and testing on skin

As of October 2026, the official information describes both ordinary visits to the Belgravia shop and private fragrance consultations by appointment. During this 45-minute experience, customers explore perfumes with an adviser and take home a personalised Discovery Collection of samples.

Questions to consider beforehand include which fragrances they have enjoyed, how they would like a perfume to make them feel, and whether they want to update an old favourite or find something new. These are not tests of knowledge about notes: they explore a person’s relationship with perfume.

Booking conditions, fees, and opening hours can change, so visitors should consult the official links at the end. The connection with the shop’s history lies in the experience itself: setting aside time to discuss preferences and compare several fragrances.

Trying scents at home and finding the next possibilities online

For those unable to visit, the shop offers a service providing samples prepared by hand. It recommends testing on skin, giving online customers a way to explore perfume within their own lives.

The “Fragrance Finder” suggests perfumes from the shop’s collection when a favourite fragrance is entered. The official explanation is not about finding a product that reproduces the same smell, but about using past preferences to suggest a different fragrance to try.

One might begin with suggestions based on a favourite, read about their differences through the classifications, and then test reactions with samples. That sequence moves beyond knowing brand and ingredient names towards considering what one actually enjoys. Sampling conditions are available on the dedicated page.

The history of Les Senteurs includes creating time to get to know perfume before asking people to choose one. Small shelves, conversations with staff, gatherings with makers, and samples to smell at home: the points of entry have changed, but the work of bringing people and unfamiliar perfumes together continues.

An aside: finding a first fragrance obsession for his father

Craven’s father rarely wore fragrance until his sixties. After his son found Maître Parfumeur et Gantier’s “Grain de Plaisir” for him at Les Senteurs, he reportedly began spraying its sweet, spicy scent generously over his head.

This anecdote, told in 2017, suggests that even those close to a perfume expert may have preferences yet to be discovered. Someone who has gone without fragrance for years can still find a bottle that changes things. The time for discovery offered by the shop was open to such people too.