Springtime in Paris

This spring, time is flying by even quicker than usual. While it definitely feels like it  was just last week that we were visiting Paris, since then we had: celebrated Easter, a visit from the mother in law, a week in Germany, lots of gardening, a countrywalk, the first BBQ of the year and and and.. What I hadn't done so far is writing a post about the trip, so here it is, short and with quite some delay.

Not a bad view to have...

On our first day we headed to

Comme des Garcons

23, Place Du Marche St-honore Paris 75001 France 

Tiny and design conscious shop, functional, lots of clean white lines doused in pink light. 

You can browse on your own and/or with assistance from the lovely SA. Unsurprisingly they have the whole range and M. and I did a lot of sniffing together. He bought his second Incense series bottle, this time the Zagorsk, and I came home with a Stephen Jones, which hadn't been on the card/list at all, but  felt right at the moment. The fragrance was a great companion for Paris in spring. Green and floral with hint of pollution. M. wears his Zagorsk often and with real gusto. Other than the Avignon which is more of a special occasion scent, this one "makes him feel properly dressed, whatever he is wearing".

French pharmacy window display

We also had a quick look at:

Sense Unique

15 Rue Roi de Sicile, 75004 Paris

 

This mallish perfume shop, tucked away in a little side street at the South end of the Marais, has a good selection  including Laboratorio Olfattivo, Amouage, van Euersdorff, David Jorquin, Etat libre, MDCI, Phaedon, Jul&Mad, Kilian, Mark Buxton...

Had I been on my own I could have spent a nice hour in there, but my husbands' love for perfume only goes that far so I sniffed around a bit and promised myself to come back on a later date. Which I then didn't, so this lovely shop has to wait for another Paris visit.

Coffee table

Monday was the day of undisturbed perfume testing, and for this there is no place better in Paris than 

Jovoy  

4 Rue de Castiglione, 75001 Paris

Deep in tourist wonderland that is the Louvre area, this shop is easiest my favourite place in Paris. All the perfumes, comfy sofas, coffee, lovely service, lots of space...if they had free wifi I would probably never leave. This time the shop was very quiet and I got all the help  I wanted. If you want to try the fragrances on your own they won't bother you at all, but you'll get very honest assistance. I had come with a list of things to try, mostly lines that are difficult to find in the UK, like nobile 1942, Mendittorosa and 2 houses new to Jovoy: Volnay and Parfumerie Moderne. 

I had high hopes for Parfumerie Moderne, despite the unimaginative name, but none of the three perfumes left a very lasting impression on me. Cuir X was nice enough, but felt like a mix between Mon Cuir and Cuir Ottoman and I would rate both of those higher. Volnay, on the other hand, had 5 scents on offer in very beautiful cristalle bottles. Yapana, a floriental and Objet Celeste, a chypre, were my favourites and one of them will certainly feature in a review very soon. I also spend lots of time with the nobile 1942 scents and you've already seen my love for that line. On the list was also a Heeley, not exactly difficult to get in London, but while in Paris...It was the L'Amandiere that had caught my attention for it's green almond notes. And worthy of attention it definitely was. On paper quite a head spinner, the almonds are really captured in their green skin phase with just a promise of a sweetness yet to come. Of all the perfumes I had tried, this was the one I wanted to work for me the most and it therefore got a lot of my skin space. The lovely SA offered a sample without me even asking and I have to say, I'm really grateful for that because I had been in spending mood and would have probably made a purchase there and then. Thankfully I didn't. L'Amandiere, despite being an extrait, had the life span of a geriatric gnat on me. Gone in half an hour. 

Jovoy are again doing the 5x5ml sample box which had been such a succsess at the end of last year. This time the selection (available only online) is much smaller, mostly newcomer lines and the decently priced ones like Histoire and Pd'Empire, but it's still a good idea to have a look. Unfortunately their website is a bit wonky and the link they provide doesn't work. It's easier if you do a search for black box on the site. The decants are €6 per 5ml splash bottle plus shipping (free inside France, handy if you have mules or going there for the summer holiday). There is also a so called red box, reserved for more expensive frags but that selection isn't great and at €12 rather overpriced, I find. Why they not just do 1 type of box with different prices per bottle is beyond me...

During my 5 day visit I also managed to go to Colette, De Filles a la Vanille, Marionnaud, Sephora and last but not least, Serge Lutens,  did lots of not perfume related things, ate and drank (mostly) well and had a great time. As one has when in Paris. 

Souvenir from Paris

This morning I opened the little plastic bag in which I had kept all the smelling strips from my Paris trip. Quite an aroma and a nice little souvenir. I will leave them out for a few months until the scents have disappeared and then re-use some of them for perfume testing. 

Which brings me to the question? What do you use for smelling strips? Do you make your own from cardboard, go the recycling route, or do you nick them from the shops? 

Les Grandes Dames

One of the things I was most excited about when I planned this trip to Paris was a visit to Guerlain's boutique on the Champs Elysees.  I had seen the photos and had no difficulty to imagine spending a lot of time there, smelling and trying all of their wonderful creations. I had also set aside a bit of my spending money in order to purchase whatever scent I would fall in love with. So on this wonderful sunny autumn day I stepped out of the Metro and walked along the Champs Elysees, which has lost about 110% of the charm it most probably had before the arrival of the Multinationals. And there it was, the lovely, inspiring, closed due to refurbishment until the end of November Guerlain store:

Yeah, that was a bit shit. 

While I perfectly understand that a grand dame has some work done from time to time I was 

really unhappy with her timing. To overcome that shock I went into the gigantic Sephora next door and sniffed all the Guerlains they had (quite a few, actually). So instead of being surrounded by style and timeless elegance I found myself perched between gift boxes, sweaty teenagers from all over the world and remarkably calm and friendly sales assistants. 

When I came out I was a bit at a loss, but decided to make the best of the lovely day and just walk. A lot. In fact I walked all the way down to Rue Faubourg St. Honore. My new goal was the Hermes store on Rue FStH. I wanted to try Jean Claude Ellena's creations for Hermes and hoped to profit from the brand's well known generosity when it comes to samples. The shop was  busy, but no one was manning the perfume section so I helped myself with the testers. I tried  Iris Ukiyoe, Paprika Brasil, Vetiver Tonka, Rose Ikebana, Poivre Samarcande and Osmanthe Yunnan. The Iris didn't work on me at all and neither did the rose and the Osmanthe. But the more 'manly' ones I really liked a lot, namely the Vetiver and the Poivre. When the SA arrived to offer some help I managed to ask for a sample in proper French and with my biggest smile. It worked. Most chuffed I decided to walk along further and make it the afternoon of the big names. Chanel was next, and although I have already tried all the Exclusives I tried my favourites again : La Pausa (Irises are my new obsession) and the wonderful 31 Rue Cambon which would be my all time favourite perfume ever if it stayed longer than half an hour.  

Then there was the Dior, and although I love some of the men's scents I don't have Dior on my radar much. I had a go at heir newest Exclusive offering , Gris Montaigne. I It's an elegant, understated scent. But it's not a 250 Euro per bottle kind of scent, sorry. 

I know it is impossible to put a realistic price tag on perfumes or any luxury item, because the highest price you can get away with is seems like the right one, but sometimes I just find it all a bit silly.

And last, but not least there is the Jean Patou boutique. They don't have many scents on display, and have to take on the ones which also have been bought by the Watford based owners. There is a new Joy. Joy Forever, and its a  chypre and I think it was nice, but my nose and me were tired by that time. The lovely lady in the shop complemented me on my French which is a total winner for me and my subjonctif meddled up mind, and  I think she was honestly sorry that she had run out of samples for the Forever. Thus ended my big names afternoon. After a disappointing  start it had actually turned into a lovely experience and a good French lesson. 

A most pleasant Saturday afternoon

The times when going shopping in Paris was an affordable past time for Brits are long long gone. These days it's not just the exchange rate that's less than brilliant, Paris has just completely and formidably overtaken London in terms of prices. A simple croque monsieur can now send you back 15 Euros, and you still get a funny look when you dare to ask to have ketchup with it. 

My 2 week trip to Paris will therefore cost an arm and a leg and then some, but c'est la vie. Window licking is not a bad past time either and Paris is undoubtedly great for that, because nobody does luxury quite so sophisticated than the French.

 

In order to get to the perfume places I had on my list I passed so many lovely shoes, bags, paintings, scarves, coats and dresses that I have dressed myself   imaginary five times over. The good thing about being a perfumista rather than a fashionista is that perfume does actually cost roughly the same everywhere and is, at least compared to the latest Maison Martin Margiela coat or Pierre Hardy stiletto, an affordable passion. 

While I'm typing this wafts of perfume are gently floating around me, I have spend 3 hours having fun and not a Euro (on fragrance, coffee and eclairs don't count). 

Today I went to Jovoy, a funny place called Astier de Vilatte and the Serge Lutens boutique in the Palais Royal. 

The three can be easily combined with a stroll along Rue St. Honore and there are worse places to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Jovoy is simply a marvel. A dark walled but still airy interior, lots of space, armchairs for resting and polite and discreet sales assistants who offer coffee and advice, but let you totally in peace if you want to just wander around and sniff. Which is what I did.

My first stop was the selection of MDCI parfums. I sampled them all and my favourite five were: Chypre Palatin (Wow), Vespres Sicilienne, La Belle Helene, Ambre Topkapi and Invasion Barbare. Those 5 will be my choice for the coffret sample set which I hope to order and receive while I'm still here in Paris. 

After that I tried Ramon Monegal Mon Cuir, and Undina was absolutely right to recommend that for my Iris quest. It's wonderful. 

Then I couldn't resist a brand called VanessaTugendhaft. Her perfumes weren't quite so virtuous, and my favourite was Or Jaune, a slightly rosey floral with some spritz to it.

My nose got seriously weak after that and I decided to take a break and come back another day, but before I left the SA recommended Perfume d'Empire's Cuir Ottoman as another leather Iris, and he also mentioned that they will go up in price soon because of a re-design, so PdE fans should stock up. I probably will too, because I tested it on skin and it's a good contender with some powerful sillage and standing. 

Out I went (didn't dare asking for samples, that's the downside of this trying to speak French malarky: it makes me even more clumsy when asking for them. The French word alone is a tongue breaker). Next stop around the corner and approximately 3456 shoe shops later on Rue St. Honore is Astier de Villatte. Apparently it is known. Well, it wasn't to me, and it's the sort of shop that makes me slightly grumpy, so without a perfume agenda I would never have set foot in it. If you are the sort of person who goes on ebay or has a wander around car boot sales and the like, you will have heard of 'shabby chic'. Shabby chic makes me stabby, because its basically just any tat painted with a chalky finish which is then brushed off again to give it a 'distressed' look. Astier sells that. A lot of it. The shop is so distressed it makes me weep. Everything from the floor to the walls, the 'authentic' dirty sink in one corner to the worn out hand knitted lines they use to prevent customers to enter the upper floor is so artfully old and broken that you might think you do your bit for charity when you buy some of their overpriced tat. I was glad that I had left M. at home. He would have hated every crooked inch of it. 

I only came for the perfume. Not their own range, but the Odeur de Saintete fragrances, which I had first seen the day before in another  'cult' shop, Merci in the Marais.

I love everything about this range. The name, the quirky bottles with the rosary type chain and the name of the perfume on a little cloth label. And the scents of course. What smells!

More about those then tomorrow, time is running out.