Perfume for you!
Categories : Exhibitions and Museums, published on : 7/5/18
You'll find the aptly named Grand Perfume Museum at 73 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, just a few minutes from the Chess Hotel Paris. Since opening in December 2016, the museum has offered visitors the opportunity to totally immerse themselves in the spell-binding world of fragrance.
The story of perfume
A beautifully laid out route covers three stages. The first plunges us into the history of millenary know-how and Ancient Egypt, where the first known composed fragrance is thought to have originated. Responding to the pretty name of Kyphi, the ancient perfume is a blend of myrrh and oliban and it was mainly used for sacred rituals. Some scents - essential oils in particular - were already known for their therapeutic virtues. Others were valued for their aphrodisiac properties. You'll discover the scents that Cleopatra, the Queen of Sheba or even Casanova himself might have used to captivate their lovers.
A treat for your senses
Prepare to enter the perfumer's lair and put your olfactory senses to the test at the Jardin des Senteurs. Here, everything is about order and beauty, luxury, calm and pleasure. Hundreds of scents form a complete fragrance library. It's no longer just about your nose – all your senses are mobilised here. Sometimes a fragrance can awaken a memory and plunge you into a moment in the past. A smell can also ignite your imagination, evoking exotic lands, cosy and familiar places or glamorous settings. This is how effluvia, or a "crossing of the smoke" works, to use the Latin etymology. It's the magic of perfume, the moment when a fragrance becomes personal and more than a companion to its elegant bottle. This fascinating alchemy, somewhere between art and chemistry, is waiting to be discovered on a delicious sensory journey.
