There is nothing else like Sovereign in the fragrance canon of Boadicea the Victorious, it is the costliest perfume the house produces, dripping in luxurious rosaceous beauty piqued with mysterious violet and the romantic green lemon-clove scent of geranium suggesting rubbed hints of pelargonium. Above all else, Sovereign is a regal celebration of Rose de Mai or Rosa Centifolia as it is sometimes known. There are over 30,000 rose cultivars in the world, and roses have the most complex lineage of any flower. The roses are harvested in May in the Grasse region in southern France. This spectacular perfume is a fitting tribute symbolic of the Boadicea methodology of marrying such high quality and rare materials with spices, amber and oud The area around Grasse, itself only 15km from Cannes seems to possess an almost magical microclimate that includes over 300 days of sun a year. That blesses the flowers that grow there. If you arrive during the Rose de Mai harvest, all the molecules in the air seem to have been coloured by the honeyed, sweet perfume of the roses being harvested and quality controlled. There is a famous portrait of Marie Antoinette by Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun called Marie Antoinette à La Rose in which the controversial queen (and lover of flowers and perfume) is depicted in a beautiful grey silk dress holding a pastel pink centifolia rose. It is a beautiful if somewhat daring portrait, there was contemporary shock at the lowness of the gown and Vigée Le Brun was obliged to paint another more modest version. The textures, romance and floral defiance of this influential queen in the exquisite portrait is an intriguing echo of the violaceous roses in Sovereign. Despite the downfall of this doomed Sovereign Queen, her artistic passions remain influential to this day. Rose perfumes can be divisive, like lavender, people viewing them as old-fashioned, but this is really about the longevity of our relationship with roses. There is no denying the atmospheric spell cast by Sovereign on the senses. Boadicea have created an intoxicating classic and a perfume that will beguile and enrapture you.