Guerlain's Eau de Cologne Impériale and the Empress's Bee Bottle

In 1853 a Paris perfumer made a cologne for an imperial wedding, and the bottle designed for it is still made to order. Its story is told by Guerlain itself, by LVMH, which owns the house, and by a 2022 history of the bottle in W Magazine. The three agree on the year and the bride; two of them name a court title, in different words.

What is Eau de Cologne Impériale?

Eau de Cologne Impériale is the cologne Guerlain created in 1853 for the marriage of Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie. LVMH's profile of Guerlain says the founder, Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain, gave it to the young bride as a wedding present. LVMH also dates the peak of the house's reputation at the courts of Europe to that commission. Guerlain's history of the house says he dedicated the cologne to the Empress.

W Magazine's 2022 account of the bottle lists its notes as bergamot, lemon, neroli and petitgrain, four notes of the citrus family. Eau de Cologne itself was already an old style. Germany's patent office, the DPMA, dates Farina, the Cologne firm whose perfume gave eau de Cologne its name, to 13 July 1709. Its history of the Farina brand says that perfume was built on bergamot, lemon and orange rather than musk.

The Impériale came 144 years after Farina's founding (our arithmetic from the two dates). Our article on Farina and the first eau de Cologne tells the earlier story.

Why is the bottle covered in bees?

Because the bee was an emblem of the Empire, and this bottle was made for an imperial wedding. Guerlain's history puts the commission in one sentence:

He entrusted the Pochet du Courval glassworks with the manufacture of a bottle adorned with the Empire's bees, painted in fine gold ...

Guerlain, "La Maison Guerlain: History"

The same sentence ends with a festoon motif inspired by the Vendôme column. W Magazine calls it the Napoleon I column in the Place Vendôme and credits it with the bottle's cylindrical shape. The magazine adds that the flacon was engraved with the emperor's coat of arms.

The bee as an imperial sign goes back to 1804. The Fondation Napoléon's history of the symbols of Empire says Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor on 18 May 1804; his councilors then argued over new emblems. Cambacérès preferred bees, since France was "a republic with a head, like a hive". On 10 July 1804 Napoleon imposed the eagle as the principal element of his arms. The bees went onto the imperial mantle behind the shield, a scarlet velvet "spread with bees".

The new symbols were meant to break with the monarchy of the Ancien Régime. The bee, the Fondation explains, was chosen to link the new dynasty "to the very origins of France". Golden bees, in fact cicadas, had been found in 1653 at Tournai, in the tomb of Childeric I, founder in 457 of the Merovingian dynasty. They were considered the oldest emblem of the sovereigns of France. The Second Empire re-used the arms largely unchanged, so in 1853 the bee still stood for the Empire.

What title did the cologne win?

An official title at court, though the two sources that name it word it differently.

Guerlain's page is the primary source for its own past, but it is a brand page. Neither text quotes the grant or gives its date. We put the house's wording first and treat both as reported. Our video keeps to what both support: an official title at court.

W Magazine also reports that after Eugénie, Guerlain's royal customers included Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Queen Isabella II of Spain. It gives no dates for either.

Is the stopper still sealed by hand?

Yes, by the most recent accounts. In 2022 W Magazine reported that Guerlain's artisans, known as les dames de table, still seal the stoppers by hand with fine thread. The magazine names the technique baudruchage and says it predates modern vacuum seals. A Dame de Table quoted on LVMH's current Guerlain page lists it among her skills:

Another technique is 'baudruchage', wrapping thread to hermetically seal the top on a bottle.

LVMH, "Guerlain", a Guerlain Dame de Table on her work

Her wider job, she says, is decorating the house's bottles with silk or golden threads, jewels made by artists, knots, bows and braids. Cord and seal are part of buying a bee bottle today, too: Guerlain's page asks the buyer to choose their color.

Is the bee bottle still sold?

Yes. Guerlain sells the bee bottle made to order, "exclusively at guerlain.com and in Guerlain boutiques", according to its US bee bottle page, still listed on 23 October 2026. The page sets out four steps:

1. Choose a fragrance from the Guerlain collections.
2. Choose the size and design of the bottle.
3. Choose the color of the cord and seal.
4. Engrave the bottle with initials, a name or a message.

The buyer, in other words, picks the perfume inside. In 2022 W Magazine reported that, besides the original Eau de Cologne Impériale, buyers could fill the bottle with the Guerlain fragrance of their choice. Guerlain's page adds a 30 mL spray bottle with a funnel for everyday use, and refills, on quotation, in its boutiques only.

The glassmaker has not changed either. The page says the bottle has been entrusted to Pochet du Courval since its creation. In the golden version, it adds, the bees and festoons are hand-painted with fine gold. The design dates from 1853, so it is 173 years old in 2026 (our arithmetic). Another meeting of glass and perfume is told in our article on how a Coty order turned René Lalique into a glassmaker.

How old is Guerlain?

Guerlain dates itself to 1828, which makes the house 198 years old in 2026 (our arithmetic). Its history treats the opening of the founder's first boutique, on the rue de Rivoli in Paris, as its "founding act". LVMH places that boutique at 42, rue de Rivoli and describes Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain as a perfumer, chemist, inventor and researcher.

LVMH's history of the group, in its entry for 1994, calls the house it acquired "one of the oldest family-run luxury houses, founded in 1828". LVMH gives Guerlain's headquarters as 68, avenue des Champs-Élysées, the address of that town house. It also says Guerlain has made its products in France, in its own factories, for nearly two centuries.

Is Guerlain the oldest perfume house?

No. At least three houses still trading count from earlier years, each on its own records or, for Farina, on the German patent office's account. Our guide to the oldest perfume houses compares six houses, Paris included, with the record behind each date.

The sources hedge their superlatives. The DPMA says Farina "is assumed to be the world's oldest perfume factory still in existence". LVMH calls Guerlain one of the oldest family-run luxury houses: a claim of age, not of first place.