There’s haute couture, haute joaillerie and now, thanks to Cartier, haute parfum.

The Les Heures de Parfum collection, created by in-house nose Mathilde Laurent, is a flight of five fragrances, each named after an hour in the day. Britt and I got a chance to visit the Cartier mansion this morning for a tutorial with Laurent on how each parfum, which retail for $250 a piece, was conceived.

I liked L’Heure Promise, a mix of petitgrain, iris and sandalwood. Britt preferred Folle, a berry scent inspired by Cartier’s 1920s fine jewelry collection called Tutti Frutti. We both thought Brilliante–a mix of lemon gin–was indeed, brilliant. The two more intense fragrances–Le Treizieme and Mysterieruse–were a little too much for our olfactory senses, yet we’re confident they’ll appeal to others.

But forget about the way these actually smell for a minute. The compelling thing about this collection is that, like haute couture houses use the same sewing techniques year upon year, Laurent incorporated techniques in her blending that have been used for centuries, taking cues from the likes of Guerlain and Chanel.