If you want to know what Cleopatra smelled like or breathe in a whiff of Napoleon’s Cologne d’exile (my name) from St. Helena or just browse through famous scents no longer available to the public, then go to the Osmotheque. It is primarily a research and teaching center founded to recover and preserve every perfume ever created from Rome to the present. It is the only one of its kind in the world.
What did upper class Roman women smell like? What is the actual medieval Eau de la Reine de Hongrie (Queen of Hungary’s Water)? What was Napoleon’s actual cologne? (Not the scents created in homage, but the actual scents.) Hundreds of lost perfumes have been revived here. Napoleon’s St. Helena cologne was recovered form a formula discovered in a drawer. This holiday season, I would love to experience “Christmas Night” by Caron (1922). How about Grey Iris by Jacques Fath (1947)? Blue Narcissus (Mury 1920)?
Reservations are required. Sessions are held on Wednesday afternoons and some Saturdays. Each session is 2.5 hours, given in French by perfumers. Each includes lectures, videos, and slide shows on perfume, what a professional “nose” does, and what the raw ingredients used are. Visitors can sniff perfumes dabbed onto little strips of paper called mouilletes.
The Osmotheque is located at 36 rue du Parc de Clagny, Versailles, 01.39.55.46.99. Admission is 15 euro. For a preview, check out: