Etat Libre d’Orange

Those looking for subversive scents should drop into the independent Marais parfumerie, Etat Libre d’Orange, a niche perfume house founded by Etienne de Swardt, a marketing maverick who, like Frédéric Malle and MDCI, has assembled a dream team of perfumers including Antoine Maisondieu (the grandson of the Nobel Prize-winning author and philosopher Albert Camus). The company specializes in provocative accords and taboo-breaking names, and while the bottles are a little too risqué to make gifts for conservative friends, you’re unlikely to encounter too many other women wearing Jasmin et Cigarette.

69 rue des Archives, 3rd, 01.42.78.30.09. website

Originally published in the October 2011 issue of France Today