A very kind person sent me a sample of Guerlain’s Cologne du 68 last year, some time after it had launched in France back in 2006. I liked it, so I put it on my “to buy” list. Mind you, my “to buy” list isn’t really a list of things I actually mean to purchase; it’s more a list of things I’d like to have in my collection and that I might hypothetically be willing to spend some hypothetical amount of money on in some hypothetical future. At the time, Cologne du 68 was only sold in Paris, and only in a 490 ml bottle for 180€, so the likelihood that it would ever grace my perfume shelves was pretty much nil.

Fast forward to 2008. As part of their 180th anniversary celebrations, Guerlain has now issued Cologne du 68 (named for their address on the Champs Elysées) in a 100 ml bottle, and it can be had at your local Neiman Marcus for $100. I went to visit it there to see if it was worth having now that it was affordable (at least in the relative sense), decided it was not, and promptly bought it anyway. Serves me right, doesn’t it? My advice: don’t go hanging around the Guerlain counter if you don’t want to spend money…

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