Postcards from Paris: { The Nose at the Perfume Counter }

Photo source: www.annickgoutal.com

Each Annick Goutal shop has an elegant facade. Just by walking past I feel tempted to splurge on a new scent. I try and justify that a new season is approaching and that I need something to define it. My favorite way of defining a certain period of time is through scent, and the perfumes from Annick Goutal have been constantly on my mind. Each day on my way up to work on the 3rd floor of Le Bon Marché, I sneak a sample spritz of perfume. Sometimes it's a scent from Diptyque or a classic Parisian perfume from Chanel, but these days a particular one from Annick Goutal has been defining the moment. The introduction came around the time I was getting married, and while I was taking time to adjust into married life that perfume lingered patiently in my mind, until recently it jumped out on it's own, actually I was serving an earl grey to a madame, and came in contact with that familiar scent. If she hadn't been so friendly I wouldn't have asked, or perhaps I would have regardless, but she told me Annick Goutal, and I knew where to go from there. There is a particular saleslady who looks like a modern Edith Piaf. She wears sequins on her eyes, and suggests certain scents according to one's requests. I would say she is 'le nez' of the Annick Goutal counter. I tried my best to describe the notes I was smelling, after a couple of failing attempts she seemed to have picked one at random, et alors it was it, that nostalgic scent that seemed so defining, so mesmerizing.
It is amazing the effect a perfume can have on one's routine. With the perfume bottles all lined up with their golden lids in the well-lit, well-scented boutique. I am tempted to try them all before the season changes, but if there is one thing I've learned is that patience and letting time soak up it's scent is the necessary element in making a defining perfume.

Bisous,

Reba