Grooming & Glamour

GROOMING & GLAMOUR Beauty

& THE BEER

By Amanda Dahl

The Busch family has been brewing something other than beer as of late. Billy Busch and his wife, Christi, recently announced their partnership with former celebrity stylist Gabriel Reboh to create a line of unisex fragrances. The line, dubbed Béatus Paris, was released in St. Louis at Neiman Marcus on Feb. 14.

“My family is very creative,” Billy Busch says. “My kids are creative. They were talking about creating their own fragrance for many years. … We were lucky enough to meet with Gabriel and his wife, Nathalie, over a real estate deal. They were way further ahead in the perfume business than we could’ve imagined.”

Reboh, the artistic director of Béatus Paris, had a clear vision for this line of fragrances (inspired by his time in France, home to the world’s perfume capital), which attracted the Busch family to the partnership.

“They had the quality beyond belief,” Billy Busch says. “They had already come up with a recipe, a place to manufacture, the finest manufacturing plant in the world. It reminded me very much of the beer business – the attitude and legacy I grew up with, only making [something of] the highest quality.”

That common ambition to create only the best is what led Reboh to France in search of a manufacturer for the brand.

“France is … an environment of beauty … of well-being,” Reboh says. “Therefore, that was the choice to go to the best to get the best, right? We chose Symrise – they’re literally No. 1 in the world – and they don’t take everybody, and we succeeded. We got the best.”

In that same vein, they collaborated with French chemist and neurobiologist Dr. Jean-François Rumigny to create the formulas for six signature scents.

“Every molecule, every extra smell, every flower that you add reacts differently,” Reboh elaborates. “You need to know what to mix in order to reach [a] target, to keep the perfume clean and high-end. We have over 22 to 25 percent of concentration, [the highest on market]. The scents last longer. It’s more pure. That’s why everybody loves it.”

The original line categorizes scents by two themes: gardens and forests. Three fragrances reflect the world’s most famous gardens, including Giverny of France and Alhambra of Spain, and are named for their respective locations. The additional three are named for aspects of a forest, as reflected in the name Haute Futaie, which represents the highest branches of a forest, and Sylve Noir, which roughly translates to “black forest.”

“Once we saw the bottle and smelled the fragrances, we knew we were onto something,” Billy Busch affirms. “The consumer understands a quality product from a not-so-quality product. I learned that from my forefathers. We believe that Béatus will be the next success in the fragrance industry.”

Béatus Paris can be found in several retail stores, including Neiman

Marcus, as well as online at beatusparis.com.