When Cornish barber William Penhaligon first arrived on the hustle and bustle of London’s streets in the late 1860s, few could have envisaged that the legacy he would create for himself would still be going strong 145 years later. Originally from Penzance, he took up employment cutting gentlemen’s hair at the famous Piccadilly Turkish Baths on Jermyn Street, then the epicentre of the capital’s flamboyance and excess, and was soon influenced by what he saw – or rather what he smelled – around him every day.
His very first fragrance, Hammam Bouquet, launched in 1872, was directly influenced by the steam and sulphurous aromas of the baths themselves. Penhaligon’s keen eye for business led to him to open a new salon just down the street a number of years later, and he started to create scents and lotions for his discerning clientele.