There’s a little shop in New Orleans that celebrates and preserves the hedonistic culture of the region, Bourbon French Parfums. With a culture that knows good food, good booze, good smokes, good design and well, um, good-looking bodies, you better believe that they know good perfume too. This little shop is one of my favorites in the United States. It’s been open since the mid-1800’s. It’s been passed down through many hands, but it’s still thriving and making perfume. And for niche perfume, they’re extremely affordable.
La Pluie (the rain) is a cool, clean floral scent. It’s the sort of thing that I would want to wear in a New Orleans summer to counteract all the garbage and piss smells of the city. La Pluie opens as a delicate, cool, and damp lily of the valley that is very much in the tradition of the French “muguet” scents. The lily of the valley in this is clean with a certain “shower fresh” humidity. The heart of the fragrance becomes a powdery, musky lily of the valley that reminds me of the dusting powders that my mother used when I was growing up. The dry-down reminds me slightly of clean, musky scents like China Rain and J.Lo Glow (which for some reason I’ve always had a soft spot for).
Notes listed include lily of the valley, tuberose, vanilla and musk. PERFUMER – Mary Behlar
Give La Pluie a try if you like clean, light floral or lily of the valley scents. Or if you like perfumes like Caswell-Massey Lily of the Valley, Jo Malone London Wild Bluebell, J.Lo Glow, Jessica McClintock, Terranova Rain, Clean Shower Fresh and/or Crabtree & Evelyn Lily.
For an EDT, projection and longevity are above average. I think it wears more like an EDP.
The 4 oz EDT of La Pluie retails for $36 and is available at Bourbon French Parfums. Other concentrations such as a pure parfum can be purchased in this scent.
Victoria’s Final EauPINION – La Pluie is a fresh out of the shower fragrance with muguet soap and dusting powder. It goes from soap to lotion to powder to clean, musky skin. And in the heat, I really like this.
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The shop in the French Quarter is AWESOME.
It is!
I’ve read your blog for several years now but have never commented on anything (or on any other blog, for that matter) as I’m just too shy… how funny though that you reviewed this perfume! I was in New Orleans on a family vacation less than two weeks ago and absolutely fell in love with the place. I was stalking the French Quarter for some kind of beauty boutique/perfumery and found this shop, spent over an hour agonizing over whether to have a custom-blended scent made up for me and smelling almost every vial on the countertops, and finally settled on the eau de partum spray and body lotion in La Pluie since it was so close to what I would have come up with anyway. It’s much fresher and more subtle than a scent one would likely associate to New Orleans, of course, but it will remind me of my trip each time I wear it and bring a smile to my face. Thank you for the review, love your blog!
Thank you so much for reading. I really appreciate it.
Wow, what a coincidence! It’s a really pretty scent. You made a great choice 🙂 I’ve only tried the EDT but I imagine that the EDP is very elegant.
I would love to revisit the shop (as well as New Orleans). We were planning on a trip last summer for our 10 year anniversary but my husband started a new job and didn’t have vacation days, life gets in the way, blah blah. I want so badly to go back there and sniff it all again in person. I would love to get a fragrance with the matching bath/body products too. It’s always nice to have a scent to remind you of a pleasant vacation like that.
And once again, thank you for reading and thank you for your comment!
Very cool! I have always wanted to go to New Orleans so I’m adding their store to my list of places to visit. I stumbled across their website when I was looking for an orange blossom perfume but it all sounds so pretty and the sample list is growing. Any other recommendations?
See, now you have even more of a reason to visit 🙂 They make custom scents too!
I haven’t tried them all and the catalog is really extensive (one more reason to visit in person!). However, I have tried a few. I like this one.
Marguerite smells like Ivory soap (which isn’t a bad thing either since I like aldehydes).
Perfume of Paradise is like a retro green floral.
Ramanov is a vintage peachy rose.
Mon Amour is a cherry amber that frankly reminds me of Victoria’s Secret Amber Romance.
Kus Kus is a spring floral with vetiver – I’ll probably end up buying the EDT of this one for sure.
I also like the Men’s Patchouli and Vetiver, especially for the bath and body products. I want to try more of the men’s scents. And with my soap obsession, it takes everything I have not to order the bar soaps in every scent they have just to sample their scents…
Thanks! I know it’s hard to limit what to order!
🙂