White Queen came to be during a long trans-Atlantic phone call between Michelyn Carmen, editor-in-chief of perfume community ÇaFleureBon, and Sarah McCartney, indie perfumer here at 4160Tuesdays.

Many things came to light, including their joint fanship of Star Trek The Next Generation, their love of Alice in Wonderland (and Sarah's history growing up in one of the gardens in which he real Alice used to play), and the materials Sarah could use to make the notes Michelyn wanted in her 8th anniversary fragrance:

• A gourmand
• With Sarah's favourite materials
• With absolutely no candy notes
• With lactones, the compounds which make fragrances smell creamy

Oddly enough, even though it does have our favourite materials, including labdanum, opoponax, raspberry leaf absolute and pink grapefruit, using Michelyn's special requests - frankincense, lactones and a drop of jasmine - we've managed to create something which reviewers are finding totally different fromt our usual style.

We wanted to create a sense of wonder, and to celebrate the idea of disappearing down the rabbit hole and finding ourselves in a new world of aromatic delight.