Guerlain, Pois de Senteur, Sweet Peas, 250 ml. or 8.43 oz. Flacon, Parfum Extrait, Baccarat, ‘Etiquette Laurier’, 1840, 1957, Paris, France

The House of Guerlain is one of the oldest perfume houses in the world. It was founded in 1828 when Pierre-Francois Pascal Guerlain opened up his first perfume store on 42, Rue de Rivoli in Paris. Pierre-Francois composed and manufactured custom perfumes with the help of his two sons, Aime & Gabriel. His unique approach was to personalize perfume for a specific person, place or event. Honore de Balzac commisioned his own eau de toilette during the writing of Cesar Birotteau, and the periodical La Sylphide, le Journal des Elegances, scented each issue with a different fragrance by Guerlain.

Guerlain catered to the high society of Paris, and obtained a very loyal following. The perfume house was so successful that Guerlain decided to open a flagship store at 15, Rue de la Paix in Paris in 1840. The house was at its peak in 1853 with it's fragrance Eau de Cologne Imperiale. This perfume gained Guerlain the prestigious title of His Majesty's Official Perfumer of France. This in turn led him to create perfumes for other royals such as Queen Victoria of England, Empress Sissi of Austria and Queen Isabella of Spain as well as other crowned heads of royalty.

Pierre-Francois passed away in 1854 and his sons inherited the perfume house. Aime became the master perfumer, a tradition that would be upheld for the next master perfumer in lineage. Gabriel managed and further expanded the house. Aime, created several fragrances for the perfume house, these include Fleur d'Italie, Rococo, and Eau de Cologne de Coq and his greatest creation, Jicky. In 1914, Guerlain moved to 68, Champs-Elysees Paris.

The business was then handed down to Gabriel's sons, Jacques & Pierre Guerlain. Jacques became the third master perfumer and created many fragrances in his lifetime. His creations include Eau de Coq, L'Heure Bleu, Apres L'Ondee, Shalimar, Vol de Nuit, Ode, and Mitsouko. These perfumes were so successful that some are still sold today. Jacques grandson, Jean-Paul Guerlain is the fourth generation master perfumer and has authored several perfumes and men's colognes including Vetiver, Habit Rouge, Samsara, Nahema, Jardins de Bagatelle and many others.

"Pois de Senteur was one of Guerlain's very early fragrances, created in 1840 by founder of the company, Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain. In his time, fragrance chemistry was extremely basic compared to the Jacques Guerlain era, offering only simple and fragile extracts from herbs, flowers and citrus fruits. Therefore, Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain's perfumes were what we today would call cologne-like .. fresh, light and natural. It's interesting to note that the scent of sweet pea, a flowering plant from which Pois de Senteur takes its name, cannot be extracted from nature, but must be replicated by combining various other perfume materials. The sweet pea is celebrated not only for its pretty, very romantic-looking petals, often associated with brides and weddings, but also for its delicate, sweet-fresh floral fragrance.

In truth, we still don't know exactly what Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain's Pois de Senteur smelled like, because Thierry Wasser has chosen to re-create Jacques Guerlain's reworked version from 1917. It wasn't uncommon for Jacques to reformulate some of his ancestors' perfumes as new and improved raw materials came along. For instance, he later reformulated his uncle's À Travers Champs and Cuir de Russie.

Pois de Senteur seems to obtain the sweet pea effect mainly by combining crisp and citrusy notes of lemon and orange with orange blossom, at once honeyed, tender, and a bit spicy. Maybe because Pois de Senteur dates back to Guerlain's cologne era, it's the only one of the re-created vintages, apart from Pao Rosa, that has an overall fresh profile, even a bit soapy, albeit with the heady, metallic facet that is characteristic of orange blossom absolute. Along the way we get touches of jasmine, ylang-ylang, lily of the valley, and violet. We speculate that the two latter notes, both derived from synthetics, were among the things that changed in Jacques Guerlain's version. From his recomposition of À Travers Champs we learned that he had access to a better lily of the valley ingredient than what was available to his predecessors. Also, violet was probably not included in the original version of Pois de Senteur, as ionones hadn't been invented yet in 1840. Jacques Guerlain used the violet-smelling ionones extensively in his early perfumes. The emphasis in this fragrance, though, is on the orange blossom, pure and prickling. For a valid, modern equivalent of this type of fragrance, try Thierry Wasser's Cologne du Parfumeur." Monsieur Guerlain.

Pois de Senteur is classified as a floral fragrance for women ..

Top notes are Sweet Pea, Lemon, Orange, and Orange Blossom
Heart notes are Jasmine, Ylang Ylang, Lily of the Valley, Hyacinth, and Violet
Base note is Honey, Sandalwood, Orris, and Orange Blossom

Offered here is a magnificent flacon of this very rare fragrance. This flacon bears the Baccarat mark on the bottom and it is substantial and heavy. Quite a bit of evaporation. So very rare, almost impossible to find today. Collectors. While I don't know the precise date of production of this bottle, I am guessing it is from the late 1950's. Comes in its original presentation box ..