Poison by Dior

A colleague, many years ago, always looked elegant in her stylish clothes and very heavy make up, complemented by the very strong smell of Poison that followed her around the office. We compared it to boiled carrots, it was strong and sweet and lingered on the air long after she had gone.

I prefer to wear lighter floral fragrances, I like natural smells and bare-looking make-up, but as I have got older, the heavy musky scents are starting to appeal much more and I'm occasionally getting more adventurous with the red lipsticks and heavier eye-make-up. To give a floral fragrance a bit more zest, I layer it with a perfume or lotion that has citrus notes to it.

There are several varieties of Poison available now, Tendre Poison has the same scent, but it is a lighter version. Other varieties include Pure Poison, Midnight Poison, Hypnotic Poison, all in stylish bottles.

Poison comes in bottle colours that are strong and dark. This is not a light zesty citrus smell for summer picnics. It is strong, dark and mysterious as its rather sinister name suggests. Think Temptress, Seductress when you choose this. It has a powerful dusky tuberose fragrance, with base notes of sandalwood, cinnamon and coriander and plum, that settle in after the floral top notes have faded. Think deep velvet luxury, if you wear this you need to be comfortable being noticed, it's not for wall-flowers!

Ironically, looking a little bit behind the perfumes at Dior, the man himself, there is a slightly sinister lingering mystery surrounding his death. Christian Dior (21 January 1905 - 23 October 1957) was born in the french seaside town of Granville and his parents wanted him to become a diplomat. Dior, however, loved to sketch and would sell his fashion designs outside his house.

Dior went on to become an internationally renowned fashion designer and was bizarrely involved, as many French fashion designers were during WWII, in designing for Nazi officers' wives while his own sister Catherine served in the French Resistance and was captured by the Gestapo.

Mystery still surrounds the death of Christian Dior in 1957 while on holiday in Italy. There are rumours that he died of a heart attack after choking on a fishbone, but other rumours say that the heart attack followed a strenuous sexual encounter.