Avery opened in June 2010. It’s a shop dedicated to niche scents, and as there aren’t many such shops in London (apart from the big department stores), it’s a very welcome addition to the capital’s perfume community.

The name is taken from Avery Row, where the shop is situated, which is a short pedestrianised passage south of Brook Street. The similarity of ‘Avery’ to ‘aviary’ provides the shop’s whimsical presentation. The window displays are caged enclosures with perfume bottles on perches; there are artificial birds ‘flying’ in the interior, and birdsong trills in the background. Perfumes can be sprayed on black feathers (a surprisingly effective way to get an impression of a scent), although traditional cardboard strips are available for those allergic to feathers...

Madison Avenue is definitely an appropriate location for Creed, a company that consistently emphasizes its pedigree, the high standard of its products, and the exclusivity of its clientele. Within Creed's uptown Manhattan boutique, its only freestanding location in the United States, several shiny, silvery Creed crests are embedded in the floor and in the sugar-white marble counters; a few cleverly placed mirrors reflect back the large expanses of the windows (with their view of the block's other elite properties); and the perfumes themselves sit on backlit shelves like precisely seated guests at a formal dinner party.

Once you enter this somewhat intimidating, modernist jewel-box of a boutique, you may find that the sales assistance is unexpectedly affable and low-pressure...

New Bond Street is not the kind of place you expect to come across a department store. It’s a neighbourhood packed with designer flagships, and the sort of jewelry shop with no prices in the window and a large chap with an earpiece standing near the entrance.

Fenwick is an upmarket UK department store chain, with a good track record on niche perfume lines...

When last week's review of Norell elicited almost more comments about the bottle of Amouage Gold I found at Goodwill than it did about Norell, I decided to share what I know about finding perfume in thrift shops. Some of you probably live or work within blocks of vintage Guerlains and Chanels going for less than a ten spot and don't even know it. It's time to get those bottles off the shelves and onto the bodies of people who love them.

You might protest that your thrift shops don't have anything but Avon figurines with peeling labels. But think about it: every town, no matter how small, has at least one glamour puss. She will almost certainly offload a bottle or two of something nice at some point. Plus, people who don't love perfume often receive bottles as gifts. After a few years they figure that bottle of Chamade Eau de Cologne they received for Mother's Day a few years ago has surely gone bad so they give it to the Salvation Army. And then there's the occasional love affair turned sour that lands a nearly full bottle of Yves Saint Laurent Paris down at the Teen Challenge thrift shop...

Etro is not a widely available brand in London. Liberty usually has a decent selection, and currently Fenwick, just up the road, is featuring the brand. The only other way to get hold of Etro scents is to visit the Etro shop, just off Piccadilly.

It’s quite an easy shop to miss; the name is visible only on the canopy, which cleverly hides the shop name stencilled on the window. You’re also likely to be dazed by the profusion of designer goodies on either side, including Bottega Veneta next door...

For Floris, we’re back on Jermyn Street, that bastion of male elegance tucked quietly behind Piccadilly.

Floris have been scenting the gentry since 1730. What’s more, they’ve been doing it from this very shop at 89 Jermyn Street, through wars and blitzes. “There are ghosts here,” says assistant Creative Manager Max Murgia.

It’s a dark but spacious shop. Many perfumeries in London are dinky, but Floris is big enough to accommodate a hundred or so shoppers in the scrum of the post-Christmas sale. The goods are displayed in cabinets made of Spanish mahogany, according to Max; they came from the Great Exhibition of 1861, held at the Crystal Palace.

Quintessentially English, Floris was in fact founded by a Spaniard, Juan Famenias Floris. It began as a barber’s shop, as so many men’s toiletries companies did, and by the 19^th Century was catering to the chins of members of the Royal Family. The shop is peppered with Royal warrants, which are carved and painted wooden crests with the insignia of a particular Royal personage shown. It’s still family-owned, and continues its relationship with the Royals, as we’ll see below....

Fresh, with its neatly focused line of products and simple-but-sophisticated visual style, has offered an upscale alternative to The Body Shop and Bath & Body Works since the early 1990s. Fresh's flagship boutique in SoHo looks almost clinical at first glance, but its tiled floor and white shelves create a neutral background for Fresh’s meticulous product displays and understatedly decorative packaging. In keeping with the company's clean, streamlined style, most of Fresh's Eau de Parfums are composed around fruit and/or foliage notes, and many of them could be worn by either men or women. A handful of the fragrances are also available in smaller sizes, packaged in refillable, one-ounce bottles; and many of them can be layered with matching shower gels and body lotions...

Perfume-shopping in London is really all about the West End (the shopping/theatre areas west of the City). The East End, despite recent trendification, is not the place you’d expect to find much in the way of good perfume hunting.

However, it’s worth making the trip east to visit the Angela Flanders shop, established in Shoreditch in 1985, where she sells her own creations in a charming boutique. It’s a bit like the East End equivalent of Ormonde Jayne.

There’s one catch: the shop is only open on Sundays. At any other time, you have to make an appointment.

The reason for this becomes clear if you visit the area...

Stepping into the Frédéric Malle Editions de Parfums boutique, you might think that you’ve mistakenly opened the door to a Madison Avenue living room or an upscale art gallery, rather than a retail venue. The carpeted space is punctuated by a French Art Deco desk and armchairs, wood carvings from Africa, a drawing by Picasso, contemporary landscape paintings, and a framed photograph of the writer Charles Baudelaire. Sage-green velvet drapes soften the corners of the room, and folding wooden panels screen off the view and the noise of the street beyond the windows.

After a moment, however, you’ll notice all the signature elements of the Editions de Parfums style. Instead of bookcases filled with first editions, there are shelves of richly scented products arranged by “title.” The wall above the fireplace is hung with photographs of the fragrances’ perfumers, and a sleek, refrigerated cabinet stores and displays the eighteen fragrances in the Editions de Parfums collection...