Hové Parfumeur

Hové Parfumeur was started in New Orleans in 1931 by Mrs. Alvin Hovey-King, who had learned perfume making from her Creole French mother. After the 1929 market crash ruined her husband's investment business, she opened a shop at 529 Royal Street, in the former house of Spanish Governor Estevan Miro, and the family lived in the apartment above. The house calls itself the oldest continuous perfume maker in New Orleans.

The same family has run it for four generations. The shop moved to 723 Toulouse Street in 1938, to 824 Royal Street in 1982 and, in July 2011, to 434 Chartres Street, a building from 1809 where the Wendel family lives on the top floor. Hové makes perfumes, colognes, soaps and bath goods with essential oils from around the world. Its Standard Line holds the lighter scents, many of them single notes; its Luxury Line holds more complex ones with rare ingredients.

You buy it at its own shop at 434 Chartres Street in the French Quarter, open Monday to Saturday 10 to 5 and Sunday 11 to 5. A 1 oz perfume costs $92, a half ounce $59 and a dram $23. Try Tea Olive first, the house's take on the southern sweet olive. Then smell Vetivert, a dry root scent the Creoles valued for keeping stored things fresh in a humid climate; the shop also sells the root itself.