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Best Men's Fragrance House: Guerlain

We asked you, the Basenotes visitors to nominate which fragrance house you thought was the best.

All the popular houses recieved votes, Chanel, Klein, Dior Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Creed, Aramis etc..

Yet one name kept cropping up time and time again.

The house of Guerlain.

Guerlain's history goes back to 1828 when a young Pierre-Francois-Pascal Guerlain opened up a shop in Paris, his policy still lives on in Guerlain today:"Make good products. Never compromise on quality. For the rest, stick to simple ideas and apply them scrupulously" Although it was probably in french.

In 1853, Guerlain creates Eau de Cologne Imperial which earns him the title of His Majesty's Official Perfumer. Pierre-Francois-Pascal then goes on to create perfume for Queen Victoria of England and Queen Isabella of Spain amongst others.

When in 1864, Pierre-Francois-Pascal dies, the business is passed on to his two sons, Aimé and Gabriel. Thus beginning the tradition of passing down the Guerlain family business.

Aimé goes on to create Jicky, widely heralded as the first 'modern' perfume. Apparently Sean Connery is a big fan of Jicky.

Later the business is continued by Gabriel's sons, Jacques and Pierre.

Jacques goes on to create amongst others, Apr�s L'Ondée and L'Heure Bleue. His last perfume is Ode, which he is helped in the creation by his 18 year old grandson, Jean-Paul.

Jean Paul is still Guerlains perfumer today.- the trouble is, he keeps threatening to retire, and with no-one to carry on the Guerlain family business, what will be the future of one of the worlds finest fragrance house?

Anyway enough doom and gloom. Let's take a look back at Jean-Paul's triumphs.

In 1959, when JP was just 22 he creates the classic Vetiver, six years later in 1965 he creates Habit Rouge, which is considered the first male oriental fragrance

1992 gives us Heritage and in 1998 Jean-Paul creates Coriolan.

The house of Guerlain has created almost 400 fragrances in its 150 year history, so we could not possibly list them all. Here's a selection..

• 1853 Eau de Cologne Impérial
• 1889 Jicky
• 1894 Eau de Coq
• 1904 Mouchoir de Monsieur
• 1906 Apr�s L'Ondée
• 1912 L'Heure Bleue
• 1919 Mitsouko
• 1925 Shalimar
• 1933 Vol de Nuit
• 1959 Vetiver
• 1965 Habit Rouge
• 1975 Parure
• 1985 Derby
• 1989 Samsara
• 1992 Héritage
• 1998 Coriolan
• 1999 Launch of Aqua Allegoria range
• 2000 Mahora

The Finalists...