Heathrow In Bloom

Today saw a giant map made up of fresh flowers appear at Heathrow Airport. The installation was created by florist Larry Walshe whose clients include the likes of Stella McCartney, Christian Dior and Dolce & Gabbana, so of course he was the perfect choice to create the flower map. The map uses around 2,000 fresh flower stems, as well as raw amber stones, cinnamon and sandalwood and is an impressive 11ft by 18ft. The map was created to celebrate the new season of fragrance at Heathrow Airport and will be on display in Terminal 5 until the end of this week.

Over 2.6 million bottles of perfume are sold at Heathrow every year, which is around five bottles a minute and more perfume is sold at Heathrow than any other location in the UK. I know I’ll always pick up a perfume at the airport, there is always so much choice and the duty free discount is always great too.

The map showcases which are the most popular scents right now by country from Heathrow’s latest fragrance report. The UK’s top fragrances are Gucci Bamboo, which has notes of sandalwood and orange blossom, Dior Miss Dior and Pomegranate Noir, one of my personal favourites. I can only imagine how amazing the map will smell with these. It’s interesting to see that Gucci Bamboo is one of the most popular fragrances throughout, with it also being popular in Nigeria, USA and India. I haven’t actually smelt that one before so will have to check it out when I’m next in duty free.

Scents in the map include floral rose for us Brits, lavender and orange blossom, for the US and Mexico, fresh scents such as mint and mandarin for India whilst spicer Oriental scents such as cinnamon and ginger for the UAE. With the most popular scents across the globe being jasmine, lavender, rose, vanilla and sandalwood in that order.

Here a few fun perfume facts from the report, do any of these ring true for you?

• One in five will buy a new fragrance based on a scent they’ve smelt on a stranger.
• Nearly one in ten Brits (eight per cent) prefer fragrances meant for the opposite sex.
• Only 2 per cent of Brits would choose a fragrance based on it being a designer fragrance.
• 22% of Brits say that fragrances evoke memories of a past lover.

Heathrow is home to 3,405 fragrances across 1o4 brands and so the map is set to help people to explore the scents and notes they like the most. The map will be on display in Terminal 5 until 24th September so be sure to look out for it if you are travelling.

Do you have a favourite fragrance you always pick up in duty free?

This is a sponsored post by Heathrow Airport, all thoughts & opinions are my own.