These luxury perfumes will last a lifetime

Few beauty products can evoke such deep emotions and create new memories like fragrance. It can be hard to choose your signature scent among the plethora available on the market. The one that people will always remember you by.

Henry Jacques perfumes understands the importance of personalizing fragrances. Henry Cremona, founder of the brand, flew across the globe in 1975 to find unique notes and create custom fragrances. In 2010, Anne-Lise Cremona became the CEO. She wanted to continue with the custom fragrance tradition and offer customers an exceptional retail experience.

The businesswoman shared her experience, “Creating a custom bespoke is very interesting because it allows you to enter into the lives and follow them for years,” she said. You build a relationship that is loyal and it forces you to maintain those high standards.

Anne-Lise teamed up with Christophe Tollemer (French interior designer, Henry Jacques’ Artistic director) to open 10 boutiques around the world, including the iconic US-based shop at 204 N Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills. Customers can enjoy the Classic fragrances at all these locations and learn about the brand’s rich history.

Anne-Lise explained that all 50 Classics were from the bespoke. They are a part the history and she knows each one so well. “The problem for me was to reduce the number of Classics to 50 for the first collection… [and] I had to think about how I could envision the future of perfume.” But I was certain there was a demand for luxury.”

THE SPLURGE: Henry Jacques Perfumes

I was able to have a one-on-one consultation with a French perfumer while visiting the French boutique. It was difficult to choose the right scent. I had to look through over a million notes before finding my perfect one. But, I settled on Temporaline, which is a fragrance essence that has top notes of rose centifolia and ylang-ylang. Middle notes include lily-of-the-valley, carnation and lilac, base notes of cedar wood, iris, and white musk.

They create a beautiful, fresh, and airy scent that evolves throughout the day. It brought back memories of spring and summer, when the plants are in full bloom. But it also reminded me of a new beginning. It was a fresh start. This is how I wanted my morning to start.

Despite the high price tag, Henry Jacques perfumes can be considered an investment rather than a luxury purchase. Pure essences are made without alcohol, which means that the scents last longer and contain less juice. These fragrances can be kept forever if you take care of them.

Anne-Lise shares that the ingredients were “naturally” sourced from all around the globe — all kinds of cultures, stories and passions. They can last for a lifetime if they are kept out of sunlight, heat, and light. Some perfumes I have had for more than 20 years.

For more than a decade, the fragrance expert has maintained the family tradition of creating bespoke fragrances while offering a new retail experience to a wider range of customers. Anne-Lise does not want to be conformed to the current expectations to produce a new fragrance at a certain pace. She rejects this notion completely in terms of her business.

She says openly, “I’m in no hurry.” “I don’t expect Henry Jacques to be at every corner. That’s not the goal. What do you do when you are everywhere at once? What next? You get forgotten about.”

With nearly 50 years of tradition and the legacy she has left, why would she not continue the long-game? This is especially true when you are in the business creating perfumes that last a lifetime.