The Beauty Brand All The Cool French Girls Are Talking About
Alexandre Guirkinger/Courtesy of Buly
Francophile beauty junkies take note: there’s a new Parisian beauty brand all the cool girls (e.g., Caroline de Maigret, Daphné Hezard) are spritzing: Buly 1803. Launched by Ramdane Touhami and Victoire de Taillac-Touhami (the creative brains behind the revival of Napoleon-era candle company Ciré Trudon a few years ago), the line consists of candles, perfumes, skincare staples, and even toothpaste, all artfully packaged to resemble something out of a Balzac novel. (Turns out, the company’s namesake — a popular 19th century perfumer and vinaigre maker named Jean-Vincent Bully — was the inspiration for an actual Balzac character, César Birotteau.)
Alexandre Guirkinger/Courtesy of Buly
The couple’s concept is simple: formulas that appeal to modern consumers (no parabens, plenty of natural ingredients, androgynous scents) in traditional packaging. “With Ciré Trudon, we saw that a French brand with history was something people were really interested in,” says de Taillac-Touhami. “Ciré went from selling in one to fifty nine countries in two years! So for Buly, we worked with a historian for quite a few years to find which brand would work, find a store in the right location. We had to find a brand that made sense to revive.” The couple spent three years zeroing in on Bully (which they renamed “Buly,” since the word in English has rather unsavory associations) and developing the products. “It’s based on traditional beauty secrets,” de Taillac-Touhami explains, gesturing to the jars of different colored liquids, petals, and powders lining the shelves.
Alexandre Guirkinger/Courtesy of Buly
As with Ciré Trudon, candles anchor the collection, but here the duo has upped the ante, pouring the scented vegetable wax into real marble vessels, and also offering all sorts of things in ceramic bottles and chic metal tubes to slather on your body, too. Everything in the Saint-Germain-des-Près shop — from the water-based emulsion fragrances to the pomade virginale (face cream with sweet almond oil) to the cleansers and scented matches (to scent a room, or bathroom…) — is a great gift, or the ideal addition to an otherwise drugstore-stocked medicine cabinet.
Which raises the question: where can you buy this stuff outside of Paris? For now, ce n’est pas possible. But e-commerce is launching soon, and they’re opening a second store on the Right Bank next year. But as for U.S. distribution, they’re taking their sweet time. It’s a 19th century company, remember.
Buly 1803, 6 rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France. For more info, email info@buly1803.com.
