Plisson Paris 1808 Jour de Sacre, image via the brand 

Plisson has been sitting on the dressing tables of emperors, dandies, and discerning men for over two centuries. Founded in Paris in 1808, it is the oldest shaving brush manufactory in the world – and that is a well-documented historical fact. By the time the rest of the world caught up with the idea of grooming as ritual, Plisson had already been around long enough to become the official supplier of Napoleon Bonaparte himself. And I have something to confess – the reason I really wanted to try Plisson as a perfume house is that I have lived, for years, with a Plisson hairbrush, and it is, without exaggeration, THE BEST hairbrush I have ever owned. A luxurious and beautiful object that made me feel, every single evening, like Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca sitting at my vanity in the West Wing. So, I assumed, correctly, as it turns out, that the scented offering from Plisson would certainly be worth our attention.

Jacques-Louis David, The Coronation of Napoleon

Here’s the part most history books skip: Napoleon was, in his daily life, quite an obsessive groomer. The man who rewrote the legal code of France and redrew the map of Europe also spent hours every morning getting himself ready. He took hour-long baths, with his servants topping them up constantly with boiling water, to keep the temperature just right. He shaved himself, as he never trusted anyone else with a blade near his throat – having his trusted valet, Constant, standing by to hold the mirror. And when he went off to war, he packed a fitted travel case full of combs, razors, nail scissors, toothbrushes, and cologne bottles that followed him all across the world. Napoleon was probably the most fragranced head of state in European history, as records show he had a standing order with his perfumer Chardin for fifty bottles of Eau de Cologne a month (a surviving bill from 1806 shows 162 bottles delivered in a single quarter, alongside 26 pots of almond paste and 20 sponges). After every bath, he’d splash it across his shoulders and neck, and he’d pour a few drops onto a handkerchief and press it to his lips, his forehead, his temples, in a ritual he claimed to have picked up in the Orient, and which he was convinced kept him healthy. He especially loved the rosemary in it, because rosemary grew wild on the cliffs of Corsica where he’d grown up, and the story goes that on the eve of every decisive battle, he kept one of those famous green Farina flasks within arm’s reach on his desk.

Plisson Paris 1808 collection, image via the brand 

Plisson has just unveiled the 1808 Collection: six fragrances that distill two centuries of house heritage into scent. A starting word about the collection as a whole: all six lean quite masculine. But don’t think the modern, brash, linear sense, but in the older European tradition – as timeless colognes for a gentleman of discerning taste and impeccable manners. Refined, sculpted, never sweet, never loud, each one carrying a timeless, discreet charm. I have spent the last weeks moving between them, and here they are in a nutshell: Voyage de l’Empereur by Vincent Ricord, translated as “The Emperor’s Voyage,” is an ambery iris-leather, powerful and elegant, the most opulent of the six. Picture a state coach with purple velvet upholstery and gilt fittings, the scent leaving a faint trail in the air after the carriage has cinematically stormed out.  Âme Insulaire (Vincent Ricord), a.k.a the “Island Soul,” is a citrus, orange, galbanum, and peppermint veil –  dry, green, fresh. Noblesse des Bois (Marine Ipert) or Nobility of the Woods is all about fir trees, pine needles, cedarwood, and hinoki. A smoky, resinous winter forest of a perfume; the cold air after a wood fire has been put out, the smell of a hunting lodge, early morning, before the dawn breaks. Le Temps des Conquêtes (Marine Ipert) “Time of Conquests” is a modern fougère built around an intense black tea note, less herbal than a traditional fougère, and more gentleman’s club library, with the bitter depth of the infused strong tea cutting through the lavender-coumarin spine. Laurier Impérial (Alexis Dadier) “Imperial Laurel” builds around the idea of bay leaf and adds the clarity of cool spices, neroli, and orange blossom in the most aromatic-classical fragrance of the bunch, a laurel wreath lit from inside by a beautiful and well-tempered orange blossom.

Plisson Paris 1808 cap detail, image via the brand 

It was Sunday, December 2nd, 1804. It had snowed all night, and the day broke cold and overcast over Paris. Cannons announced the event across the city, and, at six in the morning, every church bell began to ring. By late morning, twelve thousand guests had filled Notre-Dame, the ancient walls draped in tapestries, four hundred choristers waiting in the nave. The Pope, summoned all the way from Rome, travelled in the carriage, his cross carried before him by a nuncio riding a donkey. Napoleon and Josephine entered the cathedral just before noon, robed in imperial purple and ermine, a golden laurel wreath resting on the Emperor’s dark hair. Pope Pius VII anointed Napoleon with the sacred unction and prepared to lift the imperial crown – and at that exact instant, in front of the assembled court of Europe, Napoleon reached out, took the crown from the Pope’s hands, and placed it on his own head. He then turned and crowned Josephine himself. This was the Day of the Consecration, celebrated with the perfume we will focus on today, Jour de Sacre.

Plisson Paris1808 Jour de Sacre, image via the brand

The perfume takes us to Ajaccio, to a bright summer morning. This was Napoleon’s birthplace on the western coast of Corsica, where a dark-haired boy used to run under the orange trees of the family courtyard, the maquis growing right down to the sea. It captures the clear light on a whitewashed wall, shadows playing in the bright morning sun. It evokes the midday shade beneath an old citrus tree, the cool stone underfoot before the heat of the day, the bitter-green smell imprinted on your fingers when you brush an orange leaf.

The opening is a dappled-shade seaside melancholy captured with citrus,  bergamot and neroli lifted by a fresh thread of mint that reads on the skin slightly salty, like a breath of sea. Petitgrain follows with its slightly green, twiggy, almost bitter facet,  the smell of the leaf and the small branches moved by the wind. Then blood orange opens up, juicier and more sparkling than ordinary sweet orange, with that faint raspberry-pink undertone that gives the composition its glow. The orange blossom is one of the cleanest, most luminous versions, and there is a softness to it that reads almost like sun-warmed cotton, and the base, a quiet warmth of amber woods, settles in a subtle echo of the sun-drenched landscape outside. There is the suggestion of skin, of clean wood, of an afternoon that has gone on long enough to acquire a faint glow. It is the same gentle, civilised, put-together feeling that a good Plisson shave is supposed to leave behind. The connection between the rituals — the morning brush, the morning bath, the morning fragrance.

 Senior Perfumer Alexis Dadier of Robertet (courtesy of Robertet) and Plisson Paris 1808 Jour de Sacre via the brand

Plisson Paris 1808 Jour de Sacré is a daily ritual of freshness and warmth,  a discreet presence woven into everyday life. Think of a clean, sun-bleached t-shirt, still warm from the line, slipped on first thing in the morning: comforting, refined, oh-so-perfect for summer.

Top notes: Bergamot, Neroli, Nana mint; Heart notes: Petitgrain, Blood orange Orange blossom absolute; Base notes: Amber woods – Ambroxan

Nicoleta Tomsa, Senior Editor

Disclosure: Discovery kit kindly gifted by the brand, as always, opinions are my own.

Plisson Paris 1808 Discovery Kit, image via the brand

Thanks to the generosity of Plisson Paris 1808 we have a discovery kit for one registered reader in the US or EU. You must register or your entry will not count. To be eligible, please leave a comment saying what sparks your interest based on Nicoleta’s review of Plisson Paris 1808 Jour de Sacre and where you live. Draw closes 7/23/2026

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