PARIS — Luxury is in the air and beauty retailers have taken note. Over the past couple of months, they’ve opened some niche beauty concepts here, including the following.
L’Appartement 217
Billed as Paris’ first organic spa, L’Appartement 217 is tucked away on the fourth floor of a Right Bank apartment building. The 2,220-square-foot space, including seven treatment cabins, is the embodiment of organic meets high tech.
Each of its rooms is color-themed and designed by a feng shui expert. L’Appartement 217 offers a full range of treatments, including one-hour facials using Dr. Hauschka products for 57 euros, or $68 at current exchange rates, and a laser technique, called Aramis, created by France’s Quantel Medical. That costs 180 euros, or $216. For use, as well, is a lyashi dome — a ceramic chamber using heat to eliminate a body’s toxins and an average of 530 calories in half an hour. The technique, first developed in Japan in the Fifties, is the spa’s most popular treatment since it opened in November. One session costs 50 euros, or $60.
In January, a hair care treatment will be added to the spa’s menu, as will a fragrance later on in the year.
L’Appartement 217’s owner, Stephane Jaulin, Colette’s former beauty manager who’s also worked with Jean-Paul Guerlain and for Kiehl’s, knew where he wanted to open his spa.
“Saint-Honoré is a luxury positioning, and we are offering luxury treatments,” said Jaulin.
He takes a holistic approach, with everything in his spa — from the paint to the curtains to the food — being organic. That includes, of course, the beauty products, which come from brands such as France’s Senteurs de Fee and Germany’s Dr. Hauschka.
L’Appartement 217, 217 Rue Saint-Honoré, 75001 Paris. Open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
The Different Company
The Different Company, a fragrance firm founded five years ago by perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena, designer Thierry Baschmakov and luxury consultant Luc Gabriel, just opened its first freestanding store, in Paris. The 444-square-foot space in an 18th-century building on the Rue Chabannais brings the company’s total points of sale worldwide to 250.
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The store features original stone walls and wooden display units, plus glass counters. It presents The Different Company’s 40-stockkeeping-unit portfolio of fragrance, candles and accessories together for the first time. There, people can buy some items exclusive to the store, such as crocodile-skin fragrance cases. Lizard-skin cases go for 700 euros, or $840 at current exchange rates, for the 90-ml. size, to 1,100 euros, or $1,320, for the 250-ml. version.
Black lacquered, 250-ml. bottles of The Different Company scents sell for 270 euros, or $324, each, and there is also a 250-ml. iteration of the firm’s latest scent, Jasmine de Nuit, created by Celine Ellena, Jean-Claude’s daughter.
In May, The Different Company plans to introduce its sixth fragrance, also by Celine Ellena.
The Different Company, 3 Rue Chabannais, 75002 Paris. Open Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m., or by appointment.
Parfums de Nicolai
French fragrance company Parfums de Nicolai has recently unveiled a store near the Palais Royal in Paris. The 777-square-foot boutique features wooden units displaying 12 women’s fragrances, six eaux de toilette for men, five eaux fraîches and five colognes, as well as home fragrances and scents for lamps, candles and bath.
Perfumer and company founder Patricia de Nicolai has begun a made-to-measure service, as well. A 250-ml. personalized fragrance costs 350 euros, or $420. De Nicolai studied fragrance creation at the Institut Superieur du Parfum, de la Cosmetique et de l’Agroalimentaire in Versailles, France. It’s a school created by her uncle Jean-Jacques Guerlain.
Parfums de Nicolai also has freestanding boutiques in London, Quebec and Montreal.
Parfums de Nicolai, 28 Rue de Richelieu, 75001 Paris. Open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.