This year has been unusual in terms of frequency of international travel for me. When my other half invited me to spend a few days in Paris with him before his work trip to the outskirts, I was initially hesitant (yes, dear readers, I feel your accusing looks of disbelief from here!)—we were already going to Italy in May, and after last year’s snafu in which I was denied boarding to Paris due to passport issues, I didn’t dare fully believe it would all work out this time.

Fortunately, it did!

The trip last week was less than 4 days, but I brought the perfume-focused map I’d drawn out by hand last year and prioritized hard. We stayed in the St Paul area of Le Marais, although ironically, we spent most of our time elsewhere and only explored Le Marais very briefly at the end.

The day of arrival was spent wandering, eating and drinking, napping, and repeat… I have learned from past red-eye flights from the United States to Europe that napping on the first day, at least for me, is absolutely essential to getting on track with the time difference and not compromising subsequent days of activity.

Being awake in the middle of the night is also inevitable, and I found myself suddenly remembering that this year’s flavor trend is florals, and wondering whether any restaurant specialized in floral flavors. This is how I discovered Pierre Sang. No reasonable dinner slots were available during our stay, so I booked us a 6-course lunch for the next day. As it was the same price as the 6-course dinner, I thought the food would be the same—this turned out not to be the case.

The concept of Pierre Sang restaurants is that diners are not told what they are being served. Dietary restrictions are accommodated. The 6-course menu consists of an amuse-bouche, 2 starters, a main, a cheese, and a dessert. Diners are encouraged to guess what ingredients are in each dish, and the server will confirm or deny and reveal afterwards.

This certainly made us pay more attention to every bite and discuss our guesses with each other more enthusiastically, which enhanced the enjoyment. My only disappointment was that none of our dishes incorporated edible flowers or floral flavors. When I asked, I was told that those were reserved for dinner! …Sigh.

Our next stop was Galeries Lafayette, which we didn’t know about when we first visited Paris 10 years ago and saw all of the big tourist attractions. The ground floor is populated with the usual suspects of perfume brands you would expect to find in Paris, but we were there for the architecture. The domed ceiling of this department store is spectacular. Access to the glass walkway had to be reserved in advance online, which we didn’t do as we hadn’t known.

If only I’d realized that the Fragonard perfume museum was merely a few steps away from Galeries Lafayette. If only I’d double checked the distance and the closing time. Alas, my hand-drawn map was not to scale, and for whatever reason, I thought it made sense to head to the Palais Royal next. This would mean that we wouldn’t make it into the perfume museum that day (although the Fragonard boutique was still open and very crowded), which dominoed other destinations into subsequent days.

Palais Royal

So many perfume shops we could have browsed, but I was on a mission to the Serge Lutens flagship, to catch up on 10, 20, …no, 30 years of missed perfumista-hood! As it happens, we are around the 30th anniversary of Ambre Sultan, the gateway amber of esteemed perfumistas, which I had yet never smelled. (Spoiler: It could well be mine, too. Time and a travel spray will tell.)

The atmosphere did indeed inspire a mood of veneration. I proceeded, with express permission, to sniff the entire collection now dedicated to the bell jar presentation. Those that piqued my interest were Chypre Rouge and Daim Blond, the latter of which I’d been interested in for some time based on the notes of suede and apricot… these were the ones I chose to have applied on my wrists, and I was gently but firmly encouraged to go outside and walk around the gardens before smelling the next collection.

Chypre Rouge, with its initial enchantment of pine and fruity resins, disappeared quickly from my skin, and Daim Blond was quite the changeling, pulling me in on one sniff with warm, delicate suede and pushing me away on the next with something slightly raw. The cycle kept repeating. As such, I wasn’t ready to commit to bell jar prices for it.

My expectations of Ambre Sultan didn’t let me down, as it was soft and not too sour as some ambers can be. It was described to me as a “very pure amber,” and I can see that.

I was also introduced to the Gold Collection (Section d’Or)—they seemed more somber than others, and at their eye-watering prices, I was glad not to fall in love with any of them, despite the special bottle design options (not shown).

Fragonard Musée du Parfum

The next day, our first stop was the Fragonard perfume museum, which is free to visit. It may have been a blessing in disguise that we missed it the previous afternoon, as there was no crowd in the shop in the morning and we practically had the whole museum space to ourselves.

Although the museum consists mainly of 4 large rooms, including the welcome salon, it is comprehensive in its exhibition of perfumery materials and processes, bottles through the ages, and the history of Fragonard.

The shop was also enticing, with a wide array of perfumes for different audiences as well as skincare, bath and body products, and home fragrances. I came away with a tube of Beau de Provence hand cream as I liked the refreshing notes of fig and bergamot.

Versailles

Unfortunately, tickets to the Perfumer’s Garden were sold out for the dates of our stay, but we still devoted the better part of a day visiting the palace—far more crowded than I remember it being 10 years ago—and the vast gardens, as well as the Grand Trianon, Queen’s Hamlet, and outside the Petit Trianon. It was rainy and windy at times, and the distances between these spots were longer than we’d anticipated, which resulted in some very sore feet. However, we managed to see the “Imperial Silks for Versailles” exhibition at the Grand Trianon, which was a visual and tactile treat. Imagine, instead of wallpaper, you had embroidered silk adorning your rooms…

Guerlain Champs-Élysées

As we didn’t make it to the Guerlain flagship after Versailles, we were practically the first ones in the next morning. I wasn’t the only one standing around waiting for a clear view of the front to take an obligatory photo!

Immediately inside the entrance was the L’Art & La Matière collection. While Iris Torréfié is the one most familiar to me, others I smelled for the first time that caught my attention were Angélique Noire and Oud Nude. I was drawn by the strong opening of angelica tinged with fruits and an effect I now see is pink pepper, and put some on my wrist. Later, I was surprised by how it had morphed in the drydown to a heavy vanilla amber. Oud Nude I tried only on paper, but appreciated the refined softness of the classical oud note. It makes sense now as other notes (per Fragrantica) include raspberry, almond, vanilla, sandalwood, cedar, and rose.

Next to this collection were the famous 6 extraits built around ingredients that make up the “Guerlinade” base. Rose Centifolia, Jasmin Grandiflorum, Iris Pallida, and Vanille Planifolia I found true to their raw materials, albeit more like airbrushed and filtered photographs than candids. Bergamote Fantastico was unexpectedly powerful for a diffusive citrus. Tonka Sarrapia smelled less coumarinic than I had anticipated, and very much like a bonbon—I told this to the SA, who was not offended.

Having also seen the classic collections and wondering which direction to go next, we were invited downstairs to see a special exhibition, “Or Norme,” honoring the Olympics in Paris this summer. Works of 18 artists featured gold in different ways, including in physical and digital photography.

The upstairs was a marvel as well, with various rooms and displays, an art gallery in its own right.

Le Marais

With a couple of hours left before I had to head to the airport, we went back to Le Marais to see Dover Street Parfums Market. The perfumery Sens Unique popped up on my phone’s map only a couple of blocks away from it, so we took a detour.

The SA was helping other visitors, so I helped myself to sniffs of the newer fragrances from L’Orchestre Parfum, which all seemed well done. The most surprising to me was Liquor BPM, as I was expecting booze and instead it was a sweet wood… dare I say a nice woody amber? The prominent note is tobacco, although I didn’t recognize that when I kept going back to smell the blotter. Electro Limonade smelled more like orangeade to me, and I imagine the sparks are provided by the listed notes of mint and rhubarb.

I also tried Les Indémodables Iris Perle, which gets a lot of love—I wish I could describe it better, but my first impression was that it was the freshest iris I have encountered.

Dover Street Parfums Market (DSPM) felt like stepping into the future, with abstract and minimalistic layouts for perfume display. Every fragrance had a tester, the blotters were cone shaped, and prices were clearly listed. You could browse at leisure or ask for help.

DSPM carries a good selection of emerging and established niche brands. While I sniffed some new things, the one I ended up wanting to buy was a travel spray of Atelier Materi Iris Ebène, which I’d sampled and liked before. Waiting for the SA to get it from downstairs, I finally succumbed to the invitation of this giant corner display near the counter:

Prolégomènes jumped up at me, quite literally—knowing absolutely nothing about it, I had just sprayed some into a cone and not yet lifted it to my nose when I caught a big whiff of green fig. Everything about it felt amplified: the greenness, the figginess… it’s very rare that a perfume makes such an impression on me. I sprayed some on my wrist and it kept surprising me the whole way back home, all in a good way.

Quick impression of Olatua was a tropical coconut-ylang and Towédé was smoky-woody; I smelled these only very briefly so can’t comment in more detail.

The SA returned to say that they had sold out of the travel size of Iris Ebène.

At the airport, as a consolation for having to leave Paris, I bought myself some Pierre Hermé macarons to eat at the gate. The Ispahan, with flavors of rose, litchi, and raspberry, was worth the hype—at least, it converted me to macarons, even though I’d thus far been indifferent to this confection! (…which also means I’m not a macaron connoisseur, but this inexperienced judge can always be bribed with rose flavor!) The Jardin en Sicile, with orange and basil flower, was excellent too.

Some other perfume destinations that I had noted on my map and not had time to explore:

• Dior Beauté
• Liquides, bar à parfums
• Nose
• Jovoy
• Diptyque flagship at 34 Boulevard Saint-Germain
• Buly, Parle Moi de Parfum, L’Artisan Parfumeur, …

…’til next time!