Hammam Bouquet by Penhaligon's is a beautiful intense rose perfume for men, which offers a primitivist charm mainly due to the sheer energy unleashed by the otto of rose used in the scent, while being undeniably elegant at the same time. As the rose blooms and then lightens, freshening with the lavender and some other aromatic herbs, the composition starts feeling like an unusual rose fougère.

The perfume retains a somewhat ancient exotic-in-time cachet; it was, in 1872, the first fragrance created by the founder of Penhaligon's (Est. 1870), William Henry Penhaligon, a barber to the chic London establishment who debuted his career by working in the fashionable Turkish Baths in Jermyn Street after which the scent is named. Another story that circulates is that it was created for or inspired by a Turkish sultan. The scent is said to have been inspired by the characteristic smells of "sweat and sulphur of the Hammam". It remained W.H. Penhaligon's favorite. Hammam Bouquet was more recently re-released in 2003 as the masculine counterpart to a then newly launched feminine perfume, Malabah.....

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The Turkish baths on Jermyn Street in St James, 1862, at the time when W.H. Penhaligon was working there, Illustrated London News.

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