Scented City

It seems fitting that the chic city of love, Paris, also bears the crown of scent and fragrance.  From the grandeur of Maison Guerlain on the Champs Elysee to the mayriad of secret fragrance institutions that call Paris home – here’s our aroma tour of a few Parisien must-smells.

Tucked in the backstreets of the Marias is Sens Unique is a teeny fragrance hub that offers a selection of distinctive, niche fragrance brands that not only offer a sublime fragrance experience but hold great dressing table appeal also.  A few favourites include Olifactive Studio, Laboratorio Olfattivo and Humiecki and Graef as well as the impossibly pretty Ines de Nicolay candles.

In stark contrast to their fun and animated website, Astier de Villatte on Rue Saint-Honoré is a treasure trove of fragrance, candles and objet. Reminiscent of Miss Haversham’s undiscovered attic, the store is home to the brand’s wonderful collection of candles and ceramics as well as one the finest examples of a traditional cologne.

L’Eclaireur, the kings of rich and gritty, dark and deconstructed, marry the opulent and refined Cire Trudon and Fornasetti with junkyard cool Mad et Len and clean and graphic Carner.  As with all of their retail spaces, the fragrant entry hall in the Rue de Mahler store is a triumph in product curation and merchandising.

And while we’re on the topic of retail triumphs, the Parisien masters, Merci create the ultimate shopping-come-wandering-come-perusing-come-imagining experience.  Their tight and focused fragrance offer includes Annick Goutal, their own-branded Merci collection, the prolific but ever-marvellous Aesop and the celestial Odeur de Saintete.

Maison Guerlain, the Grande Dame and the epitome of refined opulence and flair of the Parisien fragrance scene is a true palace of fragrance worship.  Don’t miss the floor to ceiling wall of Flacon Abeilles, the brand’s most distinguished collection of oversized flasks decorated with gilded bees originally for Eau de Cologne Impériale, a fragrance created for wife of Napoleon III, the Empress Eugenie, is quite something.

And last, but by no means least, Colette remains a pinnacle of style and influence, the veritable arbiters of cool.  It’s no surprise their fragrance and candle collection carries the hottest in what’s new and what’s not; a compelling presentation of the usual suspects – Diptyque, Byredo, Commes Des Garcons, and Maison Martin Margiela – as well as a few new and exclusive kids on the block – Le Galion and Lola James Harper. SMc

 

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