Some perfume houses are brands that commission scent. Floris is a shop that makes it. The business began in 1730, when Juan Famenias Floris, newly arrived in London from Menorca, took a lease at 89 Jermyn Street in St James’s and, with his wife Elizabeth, began selling perfume, combs and shaving goods to the gentlemen’s clubs and tailors growing up around the court. The same address is still the home of Floris today, and it is still run by the founder’s descendants — the Bodenham family, now in its ninth generation — which makes Floris the oldest independent family-run perfumer in England.
By Royal Appointment
Floris received its first Royal Warrant in 1820, from King George IV, as Smooth Pointed Comb Makers — a reminder that the house was a barber’s and comb-maker’s as much as a perfumer’s in its first century. Later warrants followed as Perfumers to Her Majesty The Queen and as Manufacturers of Toilet Preparations to the Prince of Wales; the two crests still sit above the Floris wordmark on every box. For the Diamond Jubilee of 2013 the house created Royal Arms Diamond Edition, and at that time it described itself as the only perfumer holding a Royal Warrant from the Queen.
The Shop and the Ledgers
Walk into 89 Jermyn Street and you are standing among the Spanish mahogany cabinets and glass that the family bought at the Great Exhibition of 1851, now fitted around the shop. Behind the counter are the ledgers: the order books in which the house has recorded its customers and their fragrances for more than two centuries. They note Florence Nightingale, who wrote to “Mr Floris” in 1863 to thank him for his “beautiful sweet-smelling nosegays”; a December 1934 receipt for Winston Churchill, who bought Special No. 127 and Stephanotis; Ian Fleming, a regular customer, who put Floris into Moonraker in 1955; and a Beverly Hills Hotel receipt from December 1959 recording a purchase of Rose Geranium by Marilyn Monroe Miller.
The ledgers are not only history. In 2017, when the shop was renovated for the first time in more than a hundred years and a small museum space opened at the back, the house launched the Ledger Series, re-releasing eight historic fragrances from those pages.
The Fragrances
No. 89, named for the shop’s street number, was created in 1950 and remains the house signature: a citrus and woody eau de toilette with nutmeg, sandalwood, cedarwood and vetiver. Around it sit the Signature Series eaux de toilette — Santal, Cefiro, Elite, Lily, White Rose, Night Scented Jasmine, Limes, Chypress, Bouquet de la Reine, JF and Special No. 127 — and the Private Series eaux de parfum, richer and more concentrated: Honey Oud, Leather Oud, Jermyn Street, Sirena, Cherry Blossom, Neroli Voyage, Bergamotto di Positano, 71/72, A Rose For…, Platinum 22, Wilde and Celest. Every fragrance is composed in London by the house perfumer, and all are vegan.
Fragrance is only part of the range. Floris still makes the shaving soaps, creams, after shaves and balms it has sold since the beginning; bath and shower gels, body moisturisers, hand care and luxury soaps that are still hand-wrapped at the house’s Devon workshop, opened by Princess Diana in 1989; and scented candles, reed diffusers and room fragrances for the home. Since 2006 the perfumers at Jermyn Street have also offered a bespoke service, creating a personal fragrance with the customer over a series of appointments.
Floris in Canada
El Laguito Cigars brings Floris London to Canada: the eaux de parfum and eaux de toilette in 100 ml, 50 ml and 10 ml, the bath, body and grooming ranges, and the candles and home fragrance, every piece sealed in its original Floris box and shipped from Mississauga, Ontario.
