Over the 4th of July break, we took a few additional days off to holiday in Paris and London. Usually I don’t get really excited about a trip until about a week before, but this one I’d been excited about for months. The difference is that these are cities I know and love and had old friends to visit.

We started in Versailles—not the palace, which we’ve toured before, but the town itself. The Osmothèque didn’t have any public events while we were there, but we walked around La Cour des Senteurs (The Scent Courtyard), which opened in 2013 to showcase the culture of perfume. It didn’t feel very well maintained, and the roses in the Roseraie des Illusions were mostly withered in the heat wave.

A walkway features perfumery vocabulary, leading into a section focusing on raw materials and well-known perfumes that highlight those notes. Specimens of bergamot, vanilla pods, rose, and jasmine are encased in resin and now looking faded.

My other half had to work for part of the trip, so I spent a day in Paris proper, catching up with my old friend. We would have lunch, and she would take me to the good consignment shops… but as I had taken an early train in, I started doing some thrifting on my own near Les Halles.

Kiliwatch and Episode are huge mazes of vintage and preloved clothing, although the quality is hit or miss. The former had a dedicated perfume section, mostly for Bon Parfumeur. I sprayed 502 Iris Cartagena on a blotter and the rich, warm iris tones reminded me of what I was smelling on the streets and trains of Paris, so to me, it smelled contemporary… yet when I showed the blotter to my friend later, she immediately said it smelled old fashioned to her. Listed notes are cocoa, mandarin petitgrain, rum, cedar, iris, sandalwood, vanilla, coffee, Java vetiver, papyrus, and sugar cane. It is on the sweeter side and will dominate the interior of a handbag.

I wanted to go to Liquides perfume bar in Le Marais, which has been on my list, so my friend and I went. It’s a relatively small space that makes good use of mirrors.

The people in the shop were busy, so we sniffed on our own. Each fragrance is soaked in gauze contained in a tea cup, arranged in the order depicted on a placard. This way, one can either smell something specific or without knowing what it is. Some testers are also available to spray (or are kept behind the “bar”). I tried Obvious Milk & Matcha, which we found mostly sweet and vanillic, and my friend really liked Les Liquides Imaginaires Sancti, with its drier notes of cypress, herbs, and incense.

My other half joined us for dinner, marking the start of his vacation, and afterwards, we all headed to L’Herbarium. I had found this cocktail bar by searching online for perfume cocktails in Paris. When we arrived at the Hôtel National des Arts et Métiers, my friend remembered she’d been to the bar there before and it wasn’t very good… my heart sank a little, until she realized it was a different bar in the same hotel!

L’Herbarium creates cocktails (with or without alcohol) based on fragrances, and each one has a spray vial to sample, either to help decide on a drink or to smell alongside it. I of course could not resist Sparkling Rose Velvet, with champagne, rose, and elderflower, but it turned out to be mostly linear. My friend chose Histeria, with a spicy floral liqueur and lime, passion fruit, and mastic, which tasted predominantly fruity. My other half went for Sables, which smelled the most masculine with helichrysum, patchouli, and sandalwood—we all agreed that this one tasted the most sophisticated and complex, more in line with a perfume.

The next day, my other half and I made it a point to explore the various passages couverts, or covered passages, similar to the arcades in London. Galerie Vivienne near the Palais Royal is known as the most beautiful and has a lot to offer, including a Mad et Len boutique and Athanase Gallery, with a vast collection of antique prints and glass floor.

We passed the Teo Cabanel boutique, and having read much about the brand from other perfumistas, I decided we should go in for a sniff. The sales associate opened the door for us and promptly disappeared toward the back, leaving us alone, which I appreciated at first. All of the perfumes opened with interesting character. Encore was attractive in a light and moreish way, although I didn’t recognize it as the carrot cake and chai latte described by the brand. It later dried down to amber woods. Alahine (I think, as I forgot to take a picture) was a happy discovery, because to my nose it smelled just like Le Labo Ylang 49 from start to finish. I had talked myself into buying a discovery set, but when the sales associate didn’t bother to look up from her computer even as I approached her, I changed my mind and left empty handed.

Nose was next, and I would say it is probably ideal for exploration when it’s not crowded. The store carries a large selection of perfumes and candles, and customers are free to try the testers.

The first installation to greet people entering was by Arpa, a brand with which I was not familiar. Bottles that look like lab equipment always get plus points with me, and the setup looked like it was emphasizing the analog. On first sniff, the perfumes felt minimalistic, perhaps inspired by nature. Apparently they are all about synesthesia, and each perfume has a dedicated soundscape on their website.

I tried Marc-Antoine Barrois Tilia, the new floral in the collection, and could understand why it gets so much love. It’s juicy and vibrant courtesy of linden blossom, jasmine sambac, and orange blossom. I also got to smell the L’Entropiste collection by perfumer Bertrand Duchaufour in their asymmetric bottles. Each seems to represent a different genre, and the one that captivated me the most was Semence Douce—light, yet addictive with its clean, milky musk. Listed notes are tulip, green sap, almond milk, and saffron… and now it makes sense. Like fig but not fig, milky but not creamy. Still going strong on the blotter after more than a week, but by no means overpowering.

We stopped by the Monocle shop cafe for some refreshments, and I was impressed by the number of collaborations they had for their merchandise. Among these were fragrances and candles by Comme des Garçons, although by this time my nose was tired and the foresty scents seemed a bit sharp.

Our final stop before meeting my friend for dinner was L’Eclaireur, an avant-garde clothing store with three locations in Paris. We went to the one on Rue de Sévigné, where the sales staff were friendly and attentive but not pressuring. The perfume selection was relatively wide, including some usual suspects—Mad et Len, Rundholz, Nasomatto, Orto Parisi… I was surprised to see Voyages Imaginaires, as their vibe isn’t “dark” like some of the others; I wonder how they decide?

L’Eclaireur also has a popup space at the front, and they rotate brands every three months. Right now through the end of July, it’s Isaac Sellam Experience, whose eponymous founder is continuously innovating with leather—he has worked with translucent, reflective, and thermoreactive leathers, and making wavy textures in stretch leather, for example. The store had a characteristic scent, almost like a cool iris, that presumably emanated from some of the leather jackets.

They also have a fragrance called J’Aurai Ta Peau (“I will have your skin,” which sounds morbid, but apt for a leather atelier), which my other half immediately recognized as leather but which smelled more strongly metallic to my nose. Listed notes are leather (!), ginger, elemi, musk, oud, and guaiac wood. I was kindly given a sample, so will be spending more time parsing it.

As a bonus, my friend happened across a tiny popup consignment shop in an artist’s studio next door to the restaurant where we were going to have dinner, so we stopped in and she picked out a Maje dress for me to try on. It fit despite being numerically two sizes too small (pleats are very forgiving), and needed minor mending, but for 25 euros, I took the deal.

Once again, a very limited time in Paris, but we made the most of it. Next stop: London!