Palais Bourbon

I don't rate many perfumes but this fragrance... is just one of those ones and as you can see flying under the radar... Smelled it for the first time at ScentXplore NYC end of 2025. Purchased it very recently. You know those ridiculous stories that seem unbelievable about how people swear they always get compliments at gatherings and everybody comes up to them? That finally happened to me lol. Wore this for New Years at a small gathering and got the best compliments I've ever received so far on my fragrance journey. "SOMEONE SMELLS SO GOOD OMG" "YEAH THAT SMELLS AMAZING IS THAT YOU??" I was maybe about 3-4 feet away from them. This scent lingers, it projects, it is SEXY. A couple others came up to me after they said that and they all loved it. My collection ranges from 20-25 high end Niche Fragrances and this was an instant banger. I wouldn't wear this to the office.. this is more for date nights, special events and gatherings when you want attention. I would say this leans more masculine but a woman could pull this off. It's power in a bottle.. Best suited for a man who's confident and can dress well.. deadly combination fellas! GO AND BUY IT(Discounters of course)

Some scents are like books you read for years, and Palais Bourbon is that leather-bound volume hiding the secrets of the French Parliament and lavish Parisian salons. When I apply it, the first breath doesn't take me to the street, but into the heart of a palace. I smell time itself—that warm, amber glow mingling with the scent of antique parquet floors and velvet curtains. It’s not just a perfume; it’s the scent of power that doesn’t need to shout to be noticed. At the heart of this fragrance beats vanilla, but not the childish, sugary kind. This is vanilla that has grown up, smoked with incense and wrapped in the finest leather. On my skin, it unfolds like a sunset over the Seine—warm, lingering, and incredibly elegant. There’s a woody depth that keeps me grounded, while the spicy notes make me daydream about Parisian nights that never end. No other scent in my collection carries this weight of integrity. Palais Bourbon is for the days when I want to wear my invisible crown

Out of all the fragrances in this line up, I like this one the most. I think I may be biased though because I happen to like all the notes in here anyway - so whats not to like. I have noticed that a lot of Memo Scents have this ubiquitous base note that I smell in everything I have sampled no matter what the notes are. And, in the beginning, there are definite strong bursts of alcohol and synthetics that blast out before the scent settles. This is a solid ambery-booze frag that will sit well in cooler weather, nights out, and intimate settings. This smells great. I can tell that based on initial wearing this has REAL staying power. I look forward to adding more to this once we are once again in the clutches of winter. For now though, with this 100+ degree heat and 50+ or more humidity - this scent will make you cry so leave it to the cooler climates. Overall: 4.2 - solid performer, decent sillage, limited use for specific seasons.

The opening features a captivating blend, highlighted by a hint of spiced cardamom and incesne with amber notes that evokes the ambiance of a vibrant bazaar. It's an inviting start that certainly drew me in. After about 10 minutes, the fragrance evolves as warm vanilla and earthy notes begin to emerge, enriching the scent without overshadowing its initial intensity. About an hour in, the woods and resins make their entrance, adding a layer of warmth and masculinity that beautifully rounds out the aroma. In terms of performance, Palais Bourbon doesn't project aggressively; it stays relatively close to the skin. This makes it an excellent choice for a cozy, romantic date night in the winter. While it may not be a powerhouse in terms of projection, it certainly lasts well into the seventh hour—a solid longevity for a fragrance of this nature.

Absolutely amazing. Something in the opening reminds me of YSL Opium pour homme Edt. I know, I know, the dry down smells nothing like it and the notes are nothing alike. I'm just writing down my experience. It's warm, it's heavy. Vanillic, incense and spices. No oud detected in my nose throughout the full wear. Together with Loewe, Memo grew to be my favorite perfume house. Ithaque for daily summer wear and Palais bourbon for the winter. It's heavier than African leather, which is more wearable. So definitely not an office scent imo. 4 sprays and you're good to go. I bought 30ML for 125 Euro. This will carry you easily throughout a full fall and winter season. Scent: 8.5 Longevity: 8.5 clothes / 7.5 skin Sillage: 9 Uniqueness: 7.5 Weareability: 5.5 (due to its heavy scent profile)

I absolutely love Palais Bourbon by Memo Paris. It’s quickly become one of my favorite fragrances and always gets me tons of compliments. The scent is a fantastic blend of rich African leather with a touch of creamy vanilla, which gives it a warm, sophisticated edge. The fragrance starts with vibrant spices that add a lively kick, but it’s the combination of leather and vanilla that really makes it special. It feels both luxurious and inviting, almost like stepping into a grand Parisian palace. It’s unique and elegant, and it’s definitely a standout in my collection.

I bought it 3 days ago on sale for around $200. It's a high price even for Turkey. But oh well. One of the best perfumes I've ever tried. As a lover of Tauer's ACDD, LDDM, and African Leather, I fell in love with it the first time I sprayed it. A perfect spicy cinnamon, alcoholic opening. Especially when the oud and ambery drydown arrives, it truly captivates. This is the first time I've experienced this feeling since Tauer ACDD. If you like these 3 perfumes, you should definitely try this one. It's truly beyond wonderful.

This is not a leather fragrance, nor is it an oud. It is more and better. This is a beautifully balanced vanillic amber, spiced with cardamom, patchouli. multiple resins and woods. The vanilla here is the medium within which the other notes rise and circulate; the woods provide structure but do not dominate; the spices and resins bob and weave; and the incense lingers like an echo. The result is an extremely wearable, beautiful scent that is both luxurious and accessible.

The most luxurious perfume Memo Paris has ever released. It opens up as a vibrant, fiery spice bomb of cardamom and cinnamon but it’s very resinous too, the amber and the balsam do a great job at rounding it off. For me, the oud is subtle and the vanilla and leather are the stars of the show. It’s really warm, intoxicating and heavy, a statement fragrance I’d say. One of my favourites, this is very worth it

I personally hate Oud. But this is not an oud scent at all. This does have many similarities to Oud Wood, but the incense makes it deeper and stronger. It last all day, and are a special one This leans masculine for me. Wonderful fragrance!

lovely spicy but not too spicy ..*slightly* spicy ..warm vanilla. Not too sweet but just a little sweet and buttery. Nice base to it and nothing too oudy or artificial. Def in my top 3 from memo.

This ia true masterpiece and hidden gem i guess its harrods exclusive that is why ,oh my god this is so so good,memo is killing it recently now i want the whole collection of memo

So good. A semi-sweet blend of high quality spices. Expertly blended. Pretty much a perfect wintertime fragrance.

Palais Bourbon is a very cozy, warm scent - a bit sexy as well. Very close to a masterpiece to me. 8.5/10

wow! extremely complex! layers and layers of warmth and sweetness. smells like a dream. incredible...

1st sniff reminded me of Au Coeur du Désert Tauer so high quality this is sexy sexy sexy

A big new thing from Memo. Smells African Leather with vanilla. Love, love, love.

Can’t believe I never put my nose go this before now. SO good. 10/10 imo!

Palais Bourbon by Memo Paris, perfumed by Gaël Montero to me is reminiscent of another fragrance from the house of Memo, the crowd favorite African Leather. I find the two to have a similar scent profile even sharing some of the same fragrance notes. The two diverge with Palais Bourbon headed in a better direction to my liking. There's an underlying sweetness that carries itself into the dry down most likely impart from both the Brazilian Tonka Bean Absolute and Madagascar Vanilla Absolute. It's subtle, not too sweet but I would say it's a much better blended fragrance. In my opinion this is the better option instead of African Leather.

This is a really unique fragrance that may not suit everyone's nose. What I smell is very heavy incense and spices (cinnamon-like) followed by a really nice spiced vanilla fragrance. I do not understand the other comparisons here. The only other fragrance this smells like IMO is Ambre Nuit. They are incredibly close, with Palais Bourbon being better in my opinion. I think it is a phenomenal winter time special occasion scent, but the use case is limited in my opinion. If you dont live in an area that has a COLD winter, this can be tough to wear. 8/10

Bought a baby bottle on the notes alone. Yes, warm spicy and amber up front. Smell the incense without getting smoked out. My skin eats perfume and this is one of the ones that lasts for several hours. I’ll take the strident opening because the drydown is lasting and lovely and plant-based vanilla without being cupcake VANILLA. Complex (there is a lot going on here) and smooth except for the incense prickliness up front. I’m female and to me this is perfectly unisex. On the right guy this would be heaven. 8/10

Smells like a sticky bar in France (in a good way). Reminds me of nights at my local in Montpellier. Then it transforms into a little bit of a liquorice and vanilla scent... something very Christmas-y about it. Slight medicinal quality. Very good though. However, I could see this getting old fast on me

It’s nice but nothing new. Ambery fragrance that many others from other brands smell very same. But nothing like Decision from Amouage as someone mentioned down below. Absolutely nothing to do with amouage. Decision is a masterpiece and I’ve never smelled anything like that. ❤️

Finally, a Memo I can live with (in terms of sophistication). Layer this with FDM's Hope in the winter, and you can thank me later....

African leather with a woody vanilla rendition

Like you turned African Leather into a scented candle. The opening minutes are spectacular, I was mind blown by the warm spices and ambers but then it began to dry down and the same lemon cleaner-ish smell from African Leather started coming through. This also somewhat reminds me of Mugler A*Men/Kilian Intoxicated. African Leather fell from grace to me and my nose but I'd much prefer wearing this instead, at least the opening minutes will be blissful.

Prickly, peppery, and finally touch sweet..I typically enjoy cinnamon and cardamom, but the intense spice and incense hits my nose all at once like an exploding holiday party cracker and it's too much. I'm sensitive to black pepper, so that could be the issue, and to be clear, it's not bad, it's just not for me. I didn't pick up any trace of leather, which was disappointing, since that seems to be a highlight for others. Every few months I indulge in a blind buy - I've sampled and liked a few of their other scents like Sintra and Winter Palace - but this is one is a miss. I should know better by now!

I love Memo but this one didn't quite hit for me. A cozy warm scent, suitable for the colder months, Palais Bourbon sort of goes many places but settles nowhere. I liked the amber and incense notes, whilst the patchouli is solid, I felt the other elements don't particularly blend well. It doesn't really hold and starts breaking apart as time wears on and ends up smelling like a generic hodgepodge more suitable to high street than the high standards of Memo. On paper I like this, but upon execution, it leaves much to be desired.

This perfume does have bourbon-like scent in the opening, even though there is no bourbon in the notes. It is very strong and a bit sweet. Later on, in dry down all you can smell is unpleasant mix of amber, wood and aromatic note, maybe because of patchouli? I like all the notes from this perfume, but mixed together, they are disaster.

I can't say I like it. I'm surprised no one has mentioned it before. It seems very similar to Amouage Decision. I didn't like that one either. It's more useful than Decision, like a more user-friendly version of it.

A Memo’s twist of Amouage. It is sweet, kinda reminds me of Outlands, but more approachable due to the sweetness in the opening. However, it has a public toilet smell in the dry down, which is odd...

Black pepper-patchouli-leather in a very synthetic way. I am really surprised by the love Palais Bourbon gets because it is pretty much based on the leather-patchouli accord which was used much more successfully by Maison Crivelli in the past few years. This has a much more amateur composition for me because the stated notes are almost nonexistent for me. I would strongly suggest you to test this because i believe the hype is extremely wrong here.

Opens with the most intoxicating incense opening I've ever experienced....and shortly afterwards it just fell apart on my skin. The melange of notes became an unpleasant wearing experience. It was a metallic, old, stuffy church-incensey, masculine mess that made me nauseous and grateful that I only purchased a sample.

I have tried this fragrance yesterday... I hated it. It is so disgusting. It smells nothing like African Leather. It is all about incense, the main note, and then some spices and a little bit of vanilla. But the whole experience is so disgusting.

This is an absolute tour de force of haute perfumery from MEMO. I've loved their work ever since I fell utterly head over heels with Irish Leather a few years ago, and I love the same things with this one as I do with Irish Leather. It is an intense, almost confrontingly incense sweet opening shot that settles beautifully right in front of you and dries down in a wonderfully refined manner into something that sits close to the skin but stays, like a friend you love who you're having a long-overdue coffee with. The incense never leaves but ties the whole thing together in a really nice way. The accords are different but the profile is the same, and indeed Ive seen the same shape from all the MEMOs I've tried. This is a more hedonistic number than Irish Leather, from the outset at least, with the vanilla in the top notes really powerful but never overpowering. The patchouli in it serves merely to temper the vanilla not to perform in its own right and the effect is akin to a Tunnock's Caramel Wafer if that makes sense. There is a rich sweetness but never overpowering and it stays in the drydown against the woods and resins that characterise the mid and lower end notes. They add warmth and class as opposed to outright musk or savoury notes and the effect against the vanilla, cardamom and tonic bean is hypnotic. It is one of those fragrances where you like it until it dries down and then you understand that you absolutely love it. A classic MEMO in that respect. It is interesting in that, unlike Irish Leather for example, it doesnt initially say "office wear" in the first ten minutes of wear but as it shifts and dries you really get a woody, kind, classy and complex smell, slightly sweet fragrance but with enough minimality and bark to absolutely rock in the office. It sits close to the skin and projection is understated but performance is solid. Ive had it on today five hours already and it is still changing and evolving instead of fading out. I wore this a couple of weeks ago and got an easy 7-8 hours out of it. I'd even go as far as to say that the temptation to top up should be resisted if possible as it will reset the clock so to speak, and the true loveliness of this wonderful frag is at its most apparent after a couple of hours. You could layer this with a very small chest swish of AdP Sandalo or TF Eau de Ombre Leather in the evenings I think, but during the day this is all you need. Lovely, lovely work. Scent - 9/10 Sillage - 6/10 Drydown - 10/10 Packaging/bottle - 9/10 Performance - 7/10 41/50.

This one is easy to describe if you know Memo's Retba because this is Retba without the raspberry-rose opening. Which means that it is really nice and great because Retba started off a Bloomingdale's exclusive and I think is now discontinued. But back to this, it has a very compelling mid and dry down, the latter being my favorite part. Deeply woody with that signature Memo oud (i.e. westernized, faux) that smells fantastic. I don't need this because I own Retba, but it is worth sampling for sure if you like a very heavy hitting woody-spicy scent. Oh, and for all of my haters below (lol, i could care), I just got a sample, so now I can say with 100% certainty that if if you think this smells like Shalimar then maybe you should consider a different hobby. They are literally not even in the same genre!

@DGNY: take a chill pill boss, it was released many months ago... If I tested it in Paris in Dec23 and in London in May24, many other people would have had the time to have an opinion about it too. Totally agree with @sulinskaite.k, the opening reminded me also a lot of African Leather, like a subtler version of it. Lots of cardamom in both. I detected cinnamon and vanilla too in this one. Anyway, to me it felt like yet another ambery oriental. Very "been there, done that". If you like this genre, you will probably find it pleasant but also reminiscent of a ton of other different fragrances in this family. I thought of Parfums de Marly Layton Exclusif (but tamer) and Penhaligon's The Bewitching Yasmine while wearing this one.

It is a crying shame when people that actually have no idea how fragrances are constructed come on here and throw words around like "in a very synthetic way"lol. Like the review below from acc there is absolutely nothing synthetic about this fragrance memo paris use leather pretty much better than any fragrance house and that leather does not change through the line up. As for saying maison crivelli use leather patchouli in a more successful way what are you actually comparing because palais bourbon has NO LEATHER lol another complete novice who doesn't do his research or probably has not even tested the fragrance. Maybe you dont get the hype because you have no idea what you are talking about guy !!

Palais Bourbon on my left, African Leather on my right. They’re nothing alike other than being warm and spicy. PB is creamy saffron, peppery and the most the most addictive vanilla and incense - unisex leaning masculine. AL is woody, aromatic, fresh spicy from cardamom and a good lick of leather. Definitely masculine. Both are proper and grownup, AL has more of a ME flair. Memo Paris makes incredible fragrances and I wish I could own them all. Update: Palais Bourbon reminds me more of Cappadocia- it has that same warmth and creamy sweetness from saffron even tho saffron is not listed.

Whoever is going on here, clearly before smelling the fragrance, and registering 25 "reminds me of" suggestions should be shot at dawn. It's probably one person, so it wouldn't be a mass killing. Fragrantica, reveal the culprit! Then the community could vote for the means of execution. Maybe guillotine is more appropriate here! But seriously, the database is only helpful to the extent it contains good information, so this is a real disservice. I mean, I have not smelled this, but I can virtually guarantee it smells nothing like Shalimar of all things!

Definitely doesn't remind me of either of the Crivellis I see in the comps section. This is primarily a woody amber fragrance - you get a balsamic woody base that reminds me of Raghba, Bouquet Ideale, Golden Powder etc; and on top of that woodiness you get benzoin, vanilla (i.e. amber) as well as light incense & cistus. By no means is this something new or special (which feels like the modus operandi for Memo in the last few years with dupes of various scents like Side Effect, King Blue, Gris Charnel Extrait, Babycat etc).

This is a great fragrance and I’m surprised to not see anyone comparing it to Lattafa eternal oud. While Lattafa eternal oud is supposed to be a dupe of grand soir, i actually find it to be a lot closer to this. It’s not a 1:1 ofc as it is not even the intention but they are extremely similar. Both are great smokey, amber, vanilla scents that i would strongly recommend for someone to have in their collection but if you’re looking for something like this while on a budget i highly recommend trying eternal oud

What's not to love , the notes read like a dream and the fragrance delivers. I only just purchased it and have a few from memo so I haven't had a bad experience with the house. I am on the fence with the new labels on the bottles I understand why they have done it as the price of naturals and everything else increases they have to compromise the packaging to keep the quality. I was a lover of the metal plaque on the bottles so I will miss that with future purchases !

In the top notes, I personally feel the character of African leather, which is not only complemented, but also strengthened by vanilla and a whole host of spices - cardamom, cinnamon, oud, Peruvian balsam - giving it even more character. A little reminiscent of Kotor spices, but without the overpowering nuts. Rich, thick, passionate - you won't go unnoticed on the street. 10/10

Echoing the comments below, the Oud is stinky here and smells like burnt hair (alternating on me with burnt plastic) on a background melange of lovely, but disconnected notes. I’m an Oud fan and never want to smell this one again. Absolutely not a blind buy. Not sure if it blends better with maceration, but my sample is right into my pass along pile after one spritz.

Fuck you @DGNY you a lame and a ranker vato!! ill give you the real spill right now. palabra homie💯 me n my carnal Augie agree Palais Bourbon es la pura verdad SERIO PEDO! Dont let this leva @DGNY change ur mind listen to a real ese🗣️ this right here is if ambre nuit was put on hydraulics and lowered like a bad asss lowrider NETA.

Is memo starting to become in my top list of frangrances niche brands.... Certainly With African leather, Winter Palace, Odeon, Quartier Latin, Honey Dragon, and now Palais Bourbon, I believe I have some of their best. What I want now is a great fresh (that they still don’t have) to add to this beautiful collection.

I tried yesterday this one similar to Layton-Layton exclusive more than African leather.My girlfriend love it to anyway unique enought to buy if you have African leather this one is emplified and vanilla heavy version and More spice heavy than Layton Ex.

Received a sample today and was deeply disappointed. I don't get the hype surrounding this fragrance. Perhaps my sample was compromised? It was just not good and I would never purchase a FB based upon what I experienced from the sample.

Stuff lasts and lasts! Projects really nicely too. A medium level complex vanilla with the smallest animalic touch to it. Stunning stuff.