I bought a lovely decorative bowl and a bag of chunky pot pourri from Marks and Spencer a while back, but the scent of the pot pourri only lasted a week or two, which was a little disappointing. When browsing the homeware range in Wilkinson's I noticed a selection of home fragrance oils. I decided to buy one in an attempt to liven up the fragrance of my pot pourri.

The oil comes in a small glass bottle with a black screw top lid. There is a black and purple label which goes all of the way around the outside of the bottle, so it can be difficult to judge how much oil is left. On removing the lid there is a plastic disc with a small hole so that the oil can be shaken out in drops, rather than having it pour out and risk using too much.

Wilkinson's carry a selection of different fragrances, the one I eventually settled on was Berry. Others available included Vanilla, Fresh Linen, Red Fruit and Orange and Ginger.

The label states that this oil can be used in pot pourri, oil burners and diffusers. I have tried it in the first two ways mentioned but have never used it in a diffuser as the bottle only holds 10ml and I don't feel that this would be an adequate amount to have an effect.

I first used this on my bowl of pot pourri which is the reason I had bought it. The bottle suggests adding 'a few drops' so that's what I did, shaking the clear oil carefully over the top of the chunky dried flowers. The Berry fragrance was immediately evident and quite strong. I'd say it smells like a mix of raspberry and perhaps cranberry. It's quite a sweet and fruity fragrance, but definitely smells a little on the artificial side, yet I still think it's quite pleasant.

Unfortunately having used this a few times on my pot pourri it didn't seem to have much effect. I experimented with adding a bit more oil, however the smell was only really noticeable when standing right next to the bowl, so not ideal.

More recently I decided to try this in an oil burner. I actually used my Yankee Candle tart burner, but any old oil burner will do. The directions advise to add a couple of drops of oil to the burner, top up with water to just below the rim and then light a tea light underneath.

The first time I used the oil this way I thought it wasn't working. I'd had the tea light lit for around twenty minutes before I could smell anything. When I did, I could smell the oil quite strongly and the fragrance was enough to fill my living room and filter out into the hallway. I was actually quite pleased with the intensity of the fragrance and despite only adding around five or six drops to the burner, the scent stayed noticeable until the tea light went out around four hours later.

A 10ml bottle of oil costs £1 from Wilkinson stores. I think this is excellent value considering the amount of fragrance produced by just a small amount.

Although disappointed with the level of fragrance this gave off when added to pot pourri, I do feel it worked very well in an oil burner. I like the berry scent, despite being a little artificial smelling and I will be very interested to try out other fragrances in this range.