Byredo Bibliotheque was a perfume I missed, which is weird because I love book/library scents, like CB I Hate Perfume In the Library.
When I sprayed it, i was thinking it would be more like In The Library, that kind of musty page smell with some leather bindings. Should have read the notes first! Peach, plum, peony, violet, leather, patchouli, vanilla.
Huh.
So I’m just shoving to one side the whole book/library idea in my head. It opens with mostly fruits, a jammy plum with a little sweet violet. Give it some time, and the leather and dusty patchouli show up, veering it into a library direction, then richness with the vanilla comes through.
As long as I don’t think of Byredo Bibliotheque as a book/library scent primarily, I really do like it. I’ve read a lot of reviews on it, and it seems to either really amp out the fruits – people HATE IT – or it softens into a beautifully jammy slightly dusty leather, which is what it does on me. It’s the inside of the leather bag where you have been keeping your breath mints and chewing gum and lipstick. I wound up loving it, despite being somewhat disappointed in what I thought it would be.
Byredo Bibliotheque just doesn’t strike me as being very bookish. Maybe it’s because it originally was a candle, and they translated that into a perfume. I’m guessing the way a candle throws may have been closer to the name.
Are there other library/book scents I’m not recalling or do I just stay with In the Library, which I do NOT have on hand right now, and that just makes me mishish.
So much of my life was spent with my nose in a book, and the smell of pages brings me so much happiness. I never smell it now because, well, Kindle. That happened because I kept giving away bookcases of books every time I moved, and I swore this last time was the last. I still have two bookcases full of books I need, knitting books, other texts that are special or books I just love, but all the rest? In my little electronic device. I miss the smell of books, so sometimes you’ll find me sitting cross-legged in front of my bookcase pulling books out and sniffing the pages. I’m totally okay with wearing Byredo Bibliotheque while doing that, it blossoms on my skin, and even more so in the warmed days we are having nearing 90.
Hey Patty,
My eyes were getting so bad that books were becoming really hard to read so I also transferred to Kindle. Interestingly during C19, and without APJ, my eyes are a lot better. Maybe spending 15+ hours every day glued to my computer screen was unhealthy for them. So I’ve been reading books again. Shiny pages are still a punish but my older, reread many times books are fabulous.
Portia xx
Uh…. so clearly we all need to go try Parchment, right? Right? I love the smell of books. We had a ton of books in our house growing up, and we spent a lot of pleasure time in libraries and bookstores. I have fewer books now because I’ve moved so much, but I can’t quite let these last few go.
I grew up in a very small agricultural town and reading was my getaway. I always had a couple of books going and was one of those under the covers with the flashlight kids (this was back in the day). My favorite job was (and probably still is!) working at the town library while I was in high school. I would have done it for free.
Thanks for bringing back an old memory. Me too – reading “under the covers with the flashlight”. Big smile!
🙂
I think we had the same childhood! And ditto on the library job.
And yes, please – let’s try Parchment. Surrender to Chance? Patty?
I desperately wanted to love this scent but it just doesn’t do it for me. So sad.
yeah, I get it. I”m glad it worked for other reasons on me, and I sorta get a vague notion of a library, but pretty obscure. 🙁
ex-DH had a marvelous used & rare bookshop and one of the first things one smelled upon entering was, well, BOOKS! There is nothing quite like that smell and it is such a wonderful one. Other than CBIHP’s In the Library I cannot think of another ‘bookish’ perfume. That Parchment one sounds intriguing, though…
90s. Yah. Us, too. I’ve been up at 5 every day, getting stuff in the ground or…. up until 11 every night, getting stuff in the ground, then up at 5 to continue watering it in – so far, so good… but it’s a hard-knock life right now, out there in the garden. xoxoxo
What parchment one? Do I need to hunt it down?
For a big chunk of my working life – about 20 years I was a bookshop owner and my home was also full of books. Now we have retired from the book business and downsized but books are still hugely important in my life and still try to fill my home. I was drawn to Bibliotheque and it’s nice but it’s not bookish enough for me . The best book fragrance in my opinion is Parchment by Angela Flanders. That really gives you old books in leather bindings, oak shelving, candlewax and incense. Like an ancient, mystical library in haunted mansion. For me that’s bliss.
So that Parchment one! I need to go find this! Yeah, I liked Bibliotheque a lot, but I had to put to one side the dusty leather book pages I wanted, and then it was great. I’m off to find this parchment one, thanks!
Wow, that sounds amazing! In college I worked in a music library with records, CDs, books about music, music scores, etc. Loved that place. It was separate from the main campus library — it’s own wonderful little haven. I’ve always been a book love and still am. Last summer I went through my books to “declutter,” and only got rid of, like, a dozen. Ha!
I have the small sized candle of this and totally agree it doesn’t really smell of library/books. I do like it, especially the leather/patchouli aspect, but I don’t love it. On books, bookcases, and online reading, I use Apple Books and the iPad. I feel slightly guilty about this, but I too have found in the last few moves I’ve given away a lot of books that weren’t deeply loved. Now, sitting in storage awaiting the return to the house-house, I’ve got cookery books, house design stuff, history, politics and novels. And they should fit on the two big bookcases I still own.
Same. I have this level of guilt about not having all the books, but I feel okay about having given them away, and they went to shelters and prisons, so somewhere someone without a kindle is hopefully getting some enjoyment or something from them. I do have cookbooks, some color and design things as well, gardening books. I don’t even have the two bookcases full, and that’s okay with me. I have the OTHER part of me that is thinking all those trees that go into those books aren’t great either. I like trees, I live in a house that is almost a treehouse with how the front side is elevated up to a tree level. So I really like trees. 🙂