Eau de Cologne Impériale

Impériale is the Boldoot signature: a clear glass flacon whose faceted shoulders and gold-bordered label were made to be recognised across a dressing table. It arrives in the deep blue-and-gold box that has framed the cologne for well over a century.

The character is the classic cologne accord the house built its name on — bright citrus peel over rosemary and orange blossom, drying down clean rather than sweet. It was never meant as an elite perfume: it was made to be splashed on a Sunday collar, kept in a kitchen drawer, and carried in a travelling bag.

Jacobus Cornelis Boldoot opened his pharmacy at Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 46 on 1 May 1789, where an alcoholic “Cologne water” was prepared as a remedy against migraine and fainting. Over the following century that remedy became a fragrance.

In November 1875 Boldoot bought the Cologne house of Johann Maria Farina on the Sternengasse 9–11 — recipes included — and the Impériale line carries that cologne lineage. The name eventually became so commonplace in Amsterdam that the night-soil cart was nicknamed the Boldootkar: anything that smelled strongly smelled of Boldoot.