Heya Crew,

One of the most amazing things that has happened from finding the online fragrance blogging community, starting APJ and joining the Facebook fragrance groups has been the incredible people all over the world who I have been lucky enough to meet.

A Day In Paris with Denyse Beaulieu: Photo essay

Blogger, Author, Fragrance Muse & General Great Girl

Printemps rooftop restaurant

Michael and I went first to the Printemps rooftop on our way to lunch. It’s a great way to get your bearings and see where everything else is around Paris. Sadly they were renovating the terrace and we could not go out. Still it was good for Michael to see. So where do you go when Printemps verandah is closed? Laduree of course.

Laduree (Michael doing his serial killer look)

Palais Royal Gardens

Then we met the very fun and elegant Denyse for lunch. If you haven’t read The Perfume Lover (available now in paperback $14 delivered at Book Depository) then you MUST!! It is the story of a romance which became a fragrance by Bertrand Duchaufour, Seville a l’Aube for L’Artisan Parfumeur. Denyse has written a book both personal and informative that was so fun and enjoyable that I’ve now reread it a couple more times.

Last year in Paris with Jin he had sussed out the best Korean restaurant in the city, a tiny little hole in the wall restaurant with seating for about 25 people and the full BarBQ set up called Seoul Opera (6 Rue Danielle Casanova). If you are in Paris walking on the Ave de l’Opera from the Hotel d’Louvre to the Opera turn left at the Kusmi Tea and it’s about 5 shops in. Unless you knew you would walk straight past it. Denyse had heard of it but never been so I was glad to take her to a Korean that Jin had found completely authentic, and delicious. I don’t know why we didn’t take any photos of lunch, it was super fun. Lovely to catch up with Denyse and hear her stories of life in fragrant Paris, love and writing. NOBODY can drop fragrant names like Denyse and she has a wicked fund of fabulous stories that had us sniggering like dirty little schoolboys. It would be SCANDALOUS if she ever wrote her stories down, like Jackie Collins for fragrance. Food was awesome and very reasonable, Jin had sent us a menu of 5 dishes and we left nothing.

Jovoy

We then wandered up to Jovoy and Paris was putting on its kindest Winter face ever, remember that this was early February and we were expecting snow and freezing temps but to be honest it was merely cool and a jumper and scarf were all I needed during the days to be OK. The walk was beautiful and Denyse pointed out points of Interest for us. Michael was super thrilled as it was his first visit to Paris and he walked through in a completely fabulously overwhelmed daze.

Place Vendome CdG

The crew at Jovoy are so friendly and could not have been more helpful or interested in making sure we smelled and understood EVERYTHING. My nose gave out after a couple of hours but Michael and Denyse were indefatigable. They both are very interested in the nuts and bolts of fragrance and they were very happy parsing and comparing. To be truthful I was COMPLETELY over sniffing at this point and couldn’t wait to get out of there. I went and stood out the front for about half an hour to calm the pounding in my head.

We were introduced to a lovely set of Parisian bloggers in Jovoy and Denyse was able to give us a preview of the newest L’Artisan offerings which smelled rather like 100% artificial candies to me. Not my favourite of their offerings in the new milieu.

Then Denuye took us to the IUNX shop in the Hotel Costes on Rue Saint Honoré where I happily grabbed Splash Forte, a favourite warm weather frag for me, Olivia Giacobetti has done a lovely job with the line and Michael picked that she was the perfumer straight away. Very cool call. While we were there a couple came in and bough 5 x 150ml bottles of fragrance, didn’t even bat an eyelid. I was completely thunderstruck.

Costes/IUNX

Then we had a lazy beverage in one of the suit bars near the Costes Hotel. It was a great place to finish our adventure before wandering Denyse to the Opera Metro. Isn’t she beautiful?

Opera Metro

It was pretty late and Michael & I had not done our Galleries Lafayette fragrance shopping yet. We both grabbed a bottle of DIOR’s Mitzah (I got the last 150ml bottle) and I also grabbed Guerlain’s Mon Precieux Nectar which I had wanted before last years visit to Paris but didn’t buy it then. FINALLY got it. We were so late and in such a rush that we only managed to capture these two pics. It was all extremely fun though. By then end of this we were absolutely exhausted.

Galleries Lafayette

There you have it. A near perfect day in Paris with one of the fragrance world’s superstars. I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride. All photos were kindly donated by Michael and that’s why he is in so few of them, I know, he is rather lovely eye candy isn’t he?
Portia xx