Jovoy Paris: Fragrances from One of Paris’s Leading Perfume Boutiques

“I am not a collector, but a curator. I believe perfume should tell the story of the person who wears it.”

— François Hénin, founder of Jovoy Paris

Essential Information

• Founded: 1923 (original house) / 2006 (revival)
• Founder of the present-day house: François Hénin
• Official website: https://www.jovoyparis.com

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

1923: The Emergence of Blanche Arvoy

Jovoy’s story goes back to Paris in 1923. Its founder was a woman named Blanche Arvoy, at a time when it was unusual for a woman to establish an independent perfume house.
The name “Jovoy” combines Blanche’s nickname, “Jo,” with the “voy” from her husband’s name, Arvoy.

The perfumes Blanche created were distinguished by their bottle designs. Rather than the classical decoration common on perfume bottles of the time, hers were known for their animal shapes and playful forms, designs one might call “whimsical.” Her creations are said to have included Allez Hop and Gardez-moi.

Blanche’s house, however, subsequently entered a long slumber. Over the course of the twentieth century, the brand ceased operating, and the name “Jovoy” was all but forgotten.

An Encounter with François Hénin: “Discovering the Name”

The year was 2006. A Frenchman named François Hénin would uncover this dormant brand name.

François Hénin grew up in a traditional French household, with a mother who was a university professor and a father who worked in finance. After boarding school and graduating from business school, he traveled to Vietnam as though setting out on “a slightly longer trip.”

That trip, however, became a four-year stay.

Based in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, Hénin established a small trading company connecting French buyers with Vietnamese businesses. Gradually, he turned his attention to the country’s botanical resources. He became involved in distilling essential oils for fine perfumery from Vietnamese leaves, roots, bark, and flowers.

“I think the entrepreneurial DNA in me was too strong. I simply was not born to work in a large organization.”

— François Hénin

After returning to France, he joined Argeville in Mougins, near Grasse, working with perfume raw materials. Known as the “capital of perfume” in southern France, Grasse is a center of production for ingredients used in fine fragrances around the world. Spending five years there gave Hénin an intimate understanding of both fragrance materials and the industry behind them.

Five years later, he moved to Paris and began working toward a perfume project he had in mind: reviving the name of Jovoy, the brand that had fallen dormant in 1923.

When Hénin discovered the name Jovoy, he is said to have sensed in it “the memory of Parisian perfume culture.” Rather than creating a vanished brand “from scratch,” he chose to breathe new life into a name with a history.

2010: Reborn as a Boutique

The form in which Hénin initially revived Jovoy was not a brand selling perfumes he had composed himself, but a multi-brand boutique selecting and selling niche fragrances from around the world.

In 2010, he opened a shop in the first arrondissement in central Paris, close to Place Vendôme, creating a space filled with the work of rare fragrance houses that shoppers would not encounter in major department stores.

At the time, this was a highly forward-looking concept in Paris. In an era when the idea of niche fragrance was not yet widely understood, Hénin worked as a curator to broaden awareness of perfume culture, guided by his belief that “perfume is not a mass-produced commodity, but an art with a personal story.”

“What I wanted to do was become a ‘translator’ for the world of perfume: someone who connects customers with wonderful fragrances that are not yet known.”

— François Hénin

The Birth of an In-House Fragrance Line

As the boutique’s reputation grew, Hénin developed Jovoy beyond a “place to sell” into a maison de parfum, a house of perfume, creating original fragrances. Its in-house perfumes were made in collaboration with renowned perfumers from around the world and came to be distributed as “Jovoy” creations through specialist retailers worldwide.

It is also known as a European shop from which customers in Japan can import products for personal use, offering a safe, reassuring place to buy unquestionably authentic goods.

The Birth of Jeroboam

Hénin’s business interests extend beyond Jovoy. Around 2015, he launched a separate brand, Jeroboam. Positioned as Jovoy’s sister brand, Jeroboam specializes in more exotic, sensual fragrances and has a distinctive format: it offers extraits de parfum in portable 30 ml bottles.

The Brand’s Commitments

The Philosophy of “Curation”

The philosophy underlying Jovoy has consistently been curation. Hénin defines himself not as a perfumer, but as a “curator of fragrance.” This remains true when he creates perfumes for his own line: he values the process of talking with perfumers he trusts and having them translate his vision into scent.

“I am not a nose, a perfumer. But I know what makes a beautiful fragrance. I think that difference is precisely what my work is about.”

— François Hénin

Hénin has also been a forceful advocate for the importance of independent houses in the face of the growing influence of large conglomerates in the perfume industry. As major capital absorbs the niche fragrance market, he has remained steadfast in his conviction that “independence itself has value.”

Bottles and a New Identity in 2025

In 2025, Jovoy underwent a major visual renewal, introducing a new bottle design and a refreshed brand identity. According to the official blog, the change was presented as a sign that the house had “entered a new phase,” marking a shift toward more refined packaging.

Just as the original founder, Blanche Arvoy, used playful animal-shaped bottles, Jovoy has continued to imbue its bottle designs with a certain message.

Jovoy’s own perfumes take ideas from François Hénin’s experiences and encounters and develop them in collaboration with perfumers. Incense, patchouli and vetiver, vanilla confectionery, citrus, and mango give each creation its own central materials and setting. The house’s fragrances are distinct from Petits J, the boutique’s selection of products from several houses, and from its sister brand Jeroboam.

La Liturgie des Heures

La Liturgie des Heures draws on François Hénin’s childhood memories. During the Second World War, his grandfather befriended a monk while a prisoner of war. After the war, the family often visited the monastery. Jacques Flori translated its burning incense and the dampness of the old building into fragrance, evoking aged stone through smoke and the feel of the air.

Cypress and green notes open the composition, followed by incense, olibanum, myrrh, and cistus, with musk and patchouli at the base. Green, woody and resinous notes connect with memories of those visits. The perfume’s imagery also evokes a chapel in southern Italy and a monastery on a Greek hillside, setting summer heat against cool stone floors.

Incident Diplomatique

Incident Diplomatique began with an Italian regular at the Paris boutique. In 2017, Hénin recalled that the customer’s request for a perfume with strong sexual appeal sparked the idea, which he developed with Vanina Muracciole over about two years. Its playful story imagines a woman borrowing a man’s perfume and the resulting confusion escalating into a diplomatic incident.

The woody composition opens with mandarin, moves through vetiver and nutmeg, and settles into patchouli and sandalwood. Muracciole has also described combining Javanese vetiver with Australian sandalwood and oakmoss; the launch materials name both Haitian and Javanese vetiver. Hénin’s image was an English gentlemen’s club at dusk, smoke in the air and the first glass of whisky. Citrus and spice accompany the strength of woods and roots.

Fire at Will

In Fire at Will, Vanina Muracciole brought rich vanilla together with French mimosa: “A radiant French mimosa meets intense vanilla.” Mimosa’s honeyed sweetness and powdery texture add a floral presence to the vanilla. Released in 2021, the fragrance reflects Hénin’s wish for sweetness that could be both seductive and light.

Vanilla and mimosa lead into a heart of brown sugar and vanilla, above musk, amber, and vetiver. Vanilla is central from the outset, with flowers, sugar, woods, and musk adding different facets. The story accompanying the perfume imagines a scent that announces its wearer and lingers on a scarf or jacket after they leave, a gourmand signature for daytime and a lingering presence at night.

Psychédélique

Psychédélique connects with the patchouli Hénin came to know in Vietnam through harvesting, soaking, and distillation. He brought that familiarity with the material to his work with Jacques Flori. The inspiration also embraces 1970s counterculture, evoking the Isle of Wight and Woodstock festivals, rain-soaked earth, and patchouli lingering in hair and on skin.

Citrus opens into a patchouli-centered heart with cistus, amber, geranium, and rose, above vanilla and musk. Flowers and sweetness accompany the earthy, woody theme, bringing memories of an era of freedom together with Hénin’s knowledge of patchouli. The perfume was released in 2011.

Citrus and Fruit in Jovoy’s Own Collection

Aqua Memorabilis links the brightness of clementine flesh and peel to a substantial woody base. Vanina Muracciole combines it with grapefruit, bitter orange, and pink pepper, keeping clementine at the heart alongside violet and black pepper. Citrus carries through the middle of the composition rather than ending with the opening.

Cedar, vetiver, sandalwood, musk, and ambergris notes form the base. Muracciole says touches of raspberry and oakmoss “add sparkle to this volcanic accord.” These details support the meeting of citrus and powerful woods.

Ha Long Bay expresses an attachment to Vietnam through the name of its famous bay and the scent of Hoa Loc mangoes. This fruity-woody perfume gives mango facets suggesting peach, banana, and apricot, with cardamom and black pepper adding spice to the fruit’s sweetness.

Soft leather, cedar, and nagarmotha occupy the heart, followed by amber woods, patchouli, and Orcanox. Leather and woods support the richness of tropical fruit, combining a bright opening with a quieter woody trail.

The Petits J Selection

Petits J is a boutique initiative for choosing small-format perfumes and scented care products at accessible prices. It brings together Jovoy’s own creations and products from other houses carried by the store, offering travel companions, small bottles for trying a new scent, and gift ideas.

In November 2025, the selection included 15 ml bottles of Jovoy’s Fire at Will and Histoires de Parfums’ Ambre 114, alongside Giardini di Toscana’s Bianco Latte body cream. A vanilla gourmand, a fragrance combining amber and patchouli, and care products suggesting milk and honey belong together here because of their size, use, and suitability as gifts, rather than a shared perfumery theme.

The Jeroboam Collection

Jeroboam is a sister brand that grew from Hénin and Vanina Muracciole’s experiments with combinations of musks. Its starting point, Origino, is an extrait de parfum that layers different musks over Australian sandalwood. Esperanto names and portable 30 ml bottles express the idea of fragrances for urban nomads. Origino is now also offered in 100 ml, so the range is not limited to 30 ml bottles.

Gozo layers saffron, neroli, tuberose, and violet over patchouli, amber woods, and musk. Its orange bottle, chosen to evoke happy memories, departs from the house’s usual black and gold. Rich flowers and spice come to the fore, expanding the floral brightness while retaining the musk-centered approach that began with Origino.

About the Boutiques

The main Paris boutique is located in the first arrondissement, around Rue de Castiglione in the Place Vendôme area. Stocking hundreds of niche perfumes, it is nicknamed the “embassy of rare perfumes.” The house also has a shop in London’s Mayfair and is expanding in the Middle East’s GCC region.

By the Way…

• Blanche Arvoy, whose name gave rise to Jovoy, was one of the few pioneering women to run an independent house in the Parisian perfume world of the early twentieth century. Hénin’s choice of her name seems to express his respect for the history of Parisian perfumery.
• “Jeroboam” is both the name of an Israelite king in the Old Testament and the name of a large, three-liter Champagne bottle. The choice can be interpreted as expressing a commitment to offering “an almost excessively concentrated experience” through perfume.
• The new fragrance Ha Long Bay, released in late 2025, was inspired by Vietnam’s World Heritage site of Ha Long Bay. Hénin’s connection with Vietnam also informs Psychédélique, whose patchouli theme draws on his experience of harvesting, soaking, and distilling the plant there.