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Colony(1938)

At a glance

Did you know? This scent's leather note traces back to 16th-century Grasse, where perfuming foul-smelling gloves accidentally built the world's perfume capital. Read the full story →

Brand

Jean Patou

Perfumer

Henri Almeras

Launched

1938

Family

Chypre

Created by Henri Almeras for Jean Patou, Colony opens on pineapple and ylang-ylang, moves through an unusually structured heart of oak, opoponax, carnation, vetiver, and iris, and closes on leather, musk, and oakmoss. Its pineapple opening was a genuinely novel choice for the period, a bold tropical-fruit note rarely used so prominently, reflecting Patou's continued interest in exotic, vacation-adjacent theming following Chaldee a decade earlier. The combination of bright tropical fruit against a dry, leathery, oakmoss-heavy base produced a distinctive contrast that perfume historians still cite as one of Almeras's more technically adventurous constructions.

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Top notes

Heart notes

Base notes

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