I picked up this little sampler trio when shopping for anniversary gifts for my boyfriend. It proved to be a great purchase - though not for him, but for me. (He got a George Foreman grill - much more practical.)

These three fragrances are marketed mainly at the fellas, but as with everything B, convention is not high on the list of priorities. There are 3 2ml vials of Ladyboy, Dear John and Dirty fragrances, linked by a ribbon and hung with a sort of brocade tassle. The RRP is £7.85, which seems pricey for three samples, but bear in mind that these are high-quality boutique fragrances with premium ingredients and you may be able to squeeze the price-tag out of your mind.

I should state at this point that I’ve always been somewhat on the fence when it comes to B Never and its parent company Lush. On the one hand there’s a lot of ethical reasons to choose them, and they have some heavenly offerings (<3 Cerydwen's Cauldron, Tramp shower gel, etc.). On the other hand, there's the rather pushy salespeople (who often seem insincere in their friendly attentiveness), the propensity of glitter in the B Never items (glitter in the bath just doesn't seem like a good idea to me in any way), and the fact that the presence of a Lush store announces itself in about a mile radius by its exceptionally strong smell of soap.

Reservations aside, these three scents, they're gorgeous, every one.

Dirty is my favourite. It’s cleaner-than-clean, minty, fresh, uplifting, but gentle and layered too. It contains herbal and woody notes and even a hint of musk that offset the toothpastey hit of the topnote and leave a warmer and more sophisticated scent lingering on the skin.

Dear John is the most “manly” of B’s scents, and the literature accompanying it makes this clear. The notes include coffee, tobacco smoke, lime and pine. I think I smell cedar in there too. On my skin, the smoke smell comes out more like church incense, and is offset by the leafy notes. It’s very unique.

Ladyboy contains the downright baffling combination of banana, violets and seaweed. Don’t ask me how, but it works!

http://www.bnevertoobusytobebeautiful.co.uk

On my left forearm - Juliette Has a Gun’s fragrance “Miss Charming”. A rosey-powdery confection of lacy subtlety and gentle blossom. Maybe a little cloying? Drying down, it gathers warmth, and a kind of bright, cheerful optimism. It’s not quite right for me, but with skin chemistry to complement it this would be a sweet daytime scent for work and days out.

On my right forearm - Juliette Has a Gun’s “Lady Vengeance”. I should confess that it’s already in the lead after one look at the label thanks to my fondness for Park Chan Wook’s sophisticated and gritty thriller of the same name. Like the leading lady of this flick, the fragrance is dark and complex, with a spicy topnote peppering a cedary, burnished base with trailing tendrils of musk. It’s ever so slightly rosey-sweet, too, like a distant cousin of “Miss Charming” perhaps, but definitely not a daytime scent. This is one for the evening, a scent to take out on the tiles.

Juliette Has a Gun is a niche perfume house that has been running since 2006, with an international following. There is a third “sister” to the two fragrances I mention here, “Citizen Queen”. Find out more at juliettehasagun.com