Bienaimé, Bienaime, Héliotrope de Bienaimé, Heliotrope, 40 ml. or 1.4 oz. Flacon, Parfum Extrait, 1936, 1950, Paris, France ..

Robert Bienaimé studied the chemistry of perfume in college and excelled. Within three years Bienaimé had mastered the basics of perfume creation and had adopted a creation style of his own. He worked initially for Houbigant, and continued to create for Houbigant until sometime shortly after the financial meltdown of 1929.

After the death of Paul Parquet at Houbigant, Robert Bienaimé became co-partner with Fernando Javal, son of the late Alfred Javal, Parquet's partner in Houbigant who had worked the marketing and production sides of the business. The Houbigant firm briefly took on the Javal name and then became Bienaimé Houbigant. During these years of expansion Bienaimé brought to Houbigant the talents of Paul Schving, Paul Leroux, Raymond Kling, André Copaux, Degont Desplanques and Marcel Billot among others.

In 1935, Bienaimé launched his own Paris fragrance house, originally located at 396-rue saint-Honoré, Paris, where Bienaimé began to create fragrances under his own name. Bienaimé fragrances continued to appear during the 1940's and existed until 1950, but it would appear that the house did not survive for long after the war. Bienaimé also launched a cosmetics company under the name Robel. In spite of considerable activity in support of various industrial processes and other institutions, Bienaimé continued his involvement in his own perfume company until his death in 1960 at the age of 84.

Robert Bienaimé is one of my favourite perfumers of all time. He created' La Vie en Fleurs' in 1935, right at the same time he launched 'Fleurs D'Ete'. Both are the most beautiful feminine florals. As perfumer for Houbigant from around 1910 to 1935, Robert Bienaimé created fragrances such as Lilac, a single flower fragrance and, one of Houbigants all time best sellers, Quelques Fleurs, a floral bouquet.

Héliotrope was first created in 1870, and was very popular during the years from 1878-1883. Héliotrope is a sweet-scented plant which is called Héliotrope because it follows the course of the sun. After opening it gradually turns from the east to the west and during the night turns again to the east to meet the rising sun. The Ancients recognized this characteristic of the plant and applied it to mythology.

It was already sold by Guerlain in 1890's and actually it represents one of the first perfumes based on the new synthetic molecule called heliotropine which smells like almond and vanilla and many Guerlain perfumes used it. In those early days Héliotrope became a type of perfume, and one of the first "fantasy" soliflore fragrances.

Heliotropin was discovered in 1869 by Fittig and Mielk who synthesised it and thus made the ‘sweet cherry pie' note of the Héliotrope flower, for which it is named, available to perfumers for the first time .. it was already in use in fragrances by the early 1880s.

Heliotropine occurs naturally in a range of botanicals including dill, violet flowers, black pepper and others and is used for vanilla or almond accords to bring a balsamic character and also has powdery, floral aspects. Despite having acquired the name heliotropine for its similar scent to that of the Héliotrope flower this chemical does not itself appear in the flower scent and so cannot be extracted from those flowers. The perfume has a sparkling quality, amazing for its age, and has notes of Lemon, Bergamot, Lilac, and Almond.

"Notes are Lemon, Bergamot, Heliotropin, Anise, Lilac, Almond, Vanilla

Offered here is an opportunity to buy a beautiful flacon of this extremely old and rare perfume that was originally created in 1936, right when the Héliotrope craze was at its height. Super rare and a real treasure ..