We went on a great trip to Berlin last year, and having done my homework beforehand I had two indigenous perfumeries on my list of places to track down. Here's a little report on the suprising things I found .... Berlin has two indigenous perfume lines with their own shops, Frau Tonis, near Check Point Charlie (Berlin!), a chic modern Perfumery with around 40 lovely original and quite natural smelling scents, a well-informed staff and many options at quite modest prices ... like samplers of 5 or 10 ml bottles, free Int'l shipping, 50 ml for 65Euros and 100 for 89Euros ..... They encourage you to layer their scents, which I found refreshing (ha ha).
Then there is Harry Lehman, in a very commercial neighborhood away from all of the Cultural Activities, but worth visiting for its sense of 1950's Berlin and 30-40 very inexpensive and varied scents, in a multitude of sizes. It turns out that Harry Lehman (Jr or III) composed a number of Frau Tonis' scents, so I was absolutely on the right track, finding 4 scents to buy at each place ....... do check out the scents (and prices!) on the translation of the German site I have linked, subtitled by them "Perhaps the Smallest Perfume Factory in the World". They have been in business since the 1920's and in the same location since 1958!
What I find particularly refreshing is the fact that all of these perfumes are MADE IN BERLIN, which means that they are not subject to the pesky IFRA rules and they have their own particular vibe, and seem to contain quite a lot of inexpensive natural ingredients, with prices to match, and none of these scents are available anywhere else!
Comments