This Made Us Smell Like an Expensive Department Store
Colognes are tricky. They appear enticing in commercials or spellbind when you read the fragrance notes, but it’s a completely different beast when you wear them on your skin. We say this as a preface because 1899 from Histoire de Parfums not only announces itself, it’s definitely there with you throughout the day, something that’s not always the case with a fragrance. That’s in part because it’s an eau de parfum which typically contains 15-20% pure perfume essence and lasts around 5-8 hours. So when you apply something that potent, you’ve got to love it. It’s a commitment.
Founded by perfumer Gerald Ghislain in 2000, the first fragrances were named for the birth year of the famous individual who inspired the perfume, and additional fragrances in the collection were based on flowers, plants, and famous locations in Paris. Like Memoire Archives,
Histoires de Parfums “offers fragrant novels, musical scores and poems” in the form of a scent. Through its main notes of juniper, cinnamon, vetiver, 1899 aims to transport its wearer into “A seductive night out in the City of Lights… the theater, dinner, a club or a romantic rendezvous. The heady scent of the hide-and-seek of shadows and light for the nocturnal adventurer.” When we first put it on, we could definitely smell the top note of cracked black pepper and a freshly-snapped juniper branch, but the fragrance quickly moved into something rich, indulgent, and creamy. We couldn’t quite place why it made us feel like we were walking through a luxury department store at Christmas (We could see the garlands hanging with oversized ornaments and giant nutcracker displays! Loic Prigent was somewhere saying “MOOOOOD BOARD!”) until we saw the vanilla and cinnamon that smells less literal like you’d expect from a Bath & Bodyworks candle and lot more refined, hinting at something nutty, almost almond. And that’s how it stayed throughout the rest of the day: heavy, warm, and caramelized sugar-sweet.
It’s definitely a bombastic scent no matter how little you put on and smells a bit old-fashioned, reminding us of Polo Green. And that’s what puts us off - nobody wants to be that guy wearing too much scent, much less one that is overpowering, whether it’s Axe or one produced by a French house.
It’s packaging is undeniably beautiful conceptually - a tome covered in a tessellation reminiscent of Goyard - but it’s not the first time we’ve been disappointed by great branding and a lot of hype (we’re still sad about Marvis but we’re okay). For a brand that isn’t readily available at your local mall, we’d suggest ordering some samples which go for a mere $4.00. We don’t think it smells bad per se, just that it’s a lot. And it’s a lot of money too for something that you should enjoy wearing. At least for 1899, it’s a pass, but they have a whole library we have yet to explore.
Histoire de Parfums 1899, $185.00
Price point: High
