About Viora London
Welcome to Viora London. We’re Ingrid and Andrew, a husband-and-wife team with a shared passion for discovering, wearing and talking about fragrance.
We started Viora London in 2019 as a passion project and, several years and a rather large number of perfumes later, we’re still discovering new scents together.
Whether we’re testing the latest releases in a London department store, exploring an independent perfume boutique or trying samples and discovery sets at home, Viora is where we share what we discover along the way.
How Viora Began
The idea for Viora London came from one of those conversations at 2 a.m. when we really should have been asleep.
We were talking about our interests, our plans for the future and the things we enjoyed doing together. Fragrance was something we both loved, and creating a website gave us somewhere to combine that enthusiasm with our love of discovering new things.
What began as a hobby gradually grew into hundreds of fragrance guides, reviews and perfume adventures.
Fragrance has also taken us to some wonderful places. We’ve spent countless hours exploring the fragrance halls of Harrods, Selfridges and other department stores, as well as visiting independent perfumeries and fragrance boutiques both in the UK and on our travels.
And yes, we still find it remarkably difficult to walk past a perfume counter without stopping.
Meet Ingrid
Ingrid Radford | Founder & Editor
Ingrid’s interest in fragrance stretches back to her earlier years working in the fragrance and fashion industries.
She is particularly fascinated by the connection between scent, emotion and memory, and loves discovering fragrances that can instantly transport you to another place or time.
Since creating Viora London, Ingrid has worked with a number of perfume houses, visited perfumeries and fragrance boutiques and tested countless fragrances.
You’ll find Ingrid writing about everything from new perfume launches and floral fragrances to classic collections and the discoveries we make during our fragrance trips.
Meet Andrew
Andrew Radford | Co-Founder & Editor
Andrew has been collecting and wearing fragrance for more than 30 years and has tested thousands of fragrances along the way.
His fragrance collection isn’t restricted by the words pour homme or pour femme on a bottle either. In fact, one of his more memorable fragrance discoveries came in the 1990s when he realised he’d unknowingly been wearing Cerruti 1881 Pour Femme for an entire year. He liked it enough to carry on.
Andrew particularly enjoys exploring men’s and unisex fragrances, comparing different versions of classic scents and seeking out something a little different from the crowd.
He can usually be found investigating a fragrance counter while Ingrid wonders how a supposedly quick shopping trip has taken quite so long.
How We Review Fragrances
We believe the best way to understand a perfume is to actually wear it.
Every fragrance we review and recommend is personally worn and tested by us. We use samples, discovery sets, decants and full bottles, alongside regular visits to fragrance stores and boutiques.
We pay particular attention to how a fragrance smells and develops on the skin, its longevity and projection, and when and where we feel it works best.
Our recommendations ultimately come down to something much simpler, though: would we actually want to wear it?
Come and Explore
Fragrance is enormously personal. A perfume one person adores can leave somebody else completely unmoved, and that’s part of what makes discovering new scents so enjoyable.
Viora London is our place to share those discoveries, our experiences and our opinions with other fragrance lovers.
We hope you’ll find something here that inspires your next fragrance adventure.