Discover the most elegant gifts at Dior’s new beauty boutique at Brown Thomas Grafton Street …
This season’s all about glamour, and the Dior beauty boutique at Brown Thomas Grafton Street is like a Santa’s grotto for grown-ups. This year’s golden packaging is especially elegant, making even the smallest gift an event.
Star of the boutique is the display of La Collection Privée Christian Dior perfumes. The line-up of decadent 250ml-sized bottles is a rainbow of beautiful colours, and each scent tells a story. You might be familiar with Dior’s bestselling Sauvage, and J’Adore, but at the recent press launch – see every detail here – Karl Groenewald, a perfume expert working for Dior for 25 years, talked us through the exclusive perfumes that make up the Collection Privée, with sixteen perfumes plus four elixirs – perfume oils with a most intense concentration, which you can wear alone or as a long-lasting base.
At this time of year, you might be tempted to choose something rich and dark, such as Vanilla Diorama, Ambre Nuit or the mighty Patchouli Imperial. During the dark days of December, though, we find we long for a bit of sunshine: Dioriviera is “a rendezvous with the south of France”, while Cologne Royale is a particularly good one for guys (though they are all gender-free). Best to talk to the boutique’s scent experts, who can guide you through the rainbow of choices.
There are scented soaps, candles and gift sets to match. And hair perfumes (€102) in some of the most popular scents (including bestselling Gris Dior) offer a lighter way to wear them. A discovery set of ten mini perfumes makes a beautiful gift (€230).
Other winning gift ideas include Sauvage eau de parfum and J’Adore eau de parfum, each in limited-edition packaging.
Make-up standouts
There are magnificent make-up gift ideas, too. We have a weakness for palettes that do your entire face – eyes, lips and cheeks all in one – and Dior’s Ecrin Couture (€127) is one of the prettiest in town. It features mini lip colours, a highlighter, two blush shades and five eyeshadows – talk about desk to dinner in one go.
And if you’re partial to a smokey eye, the 5 Couleurs Couture Eyeshadow (€76) is an elegant mix of light and dark, from charcoal grey to pale silver and gold.
Smaller gift ideas include the Dior Vernis Top Coat for nails in sparkling gold (€33) –so glam on its own or over another shade. Dior Addict Shine lipsticks are now refillable (€48). And the Crème Abricot (€33) has long been seen as the most glamorous nail cream – since 1963, in fact. The apricot-coloured nourishing oil is one of the best things you can put on your nails, especially in winter when nails can get dry and prone to breaking. Yes, social media goes mad for the juicy Addict Lip Glow Oils (find selected colours at www.theloop.ie reduced to €35.20), but we are firmly in favour of this elegant nail cream.
