Christophe Pourny - our new love

New products have been pouring in to the store since the beginning of the month, as we excitedly stock up for the holiday season, and though we love all our children, there is one that we have taken a particular shine to!  Drum roll …. Are you ready?  Christophe Pourny furniture polish!

 

 Christophe Pourny's delicious smelling furniture polish

OK, we can hear some of you saying, “Furniture polish?  Are you kidding?” and “Now they’ve really lost their marbles …” but honestly, the truth is that if you try it, just like all the people who have tested it for us, we guarantee that  you too will fall in love.

First off, Christophe Pourny isn’t just any furniture polish.  I mean, how many times has Pledge been on the Oprah Winfrey Show?  Or been selected as #1 product of the year by Elle Décor?  Or endorsed by Martha Stewart?  Christophe Pourny’s celebrity endorsements (and the fact that Monsieur Pourny is  an ever-so-charming Frenchman) aside, the reason we are gaga over this product is that it works!  And it smells divine.

 Christophe Pourny. Hmm... Could you turn down furniture polish from this man?

A little background is probably due here, so let’s just say that Linda, our NY Times aficionado (who doubles as our fabulous Gallery manager), comes to work every Monday waving  some article clipping in her hand, and has on more than one occasion referred to Christophe Pourny furniture polish.  Quite frankly, Meg and I have had the same, typical polite response to this, which is : “Yeah, yeah, yeah … thanks.”

And then, wouldn’t you know that at a recent product expo in N.Y., we got to meet Monsieur Pourny himself  and learned that he has been restoring fine furniture out of his huge warehouse in Brooklyn for years, and that he is French and probably the best known restorer in N.Y.C. (in fact, he has just recently completed two massive projects at Gracie Mansion and City Hall) and all of a sudden the light clicked and we realized that this WAS the man and  the product that Linda has been touting  for the last  two years!

 The display that caught our eye

His assistant demonstrated a little of the product’s magic and we bought it for the store immediately (although we may have done so a little to appease our sweet Linda).  And then we tried using it ourselves, testing it on some fine antiques at the store, and boy were we hooked and excited!  (You may be thinking naughty thoughts about chemicals being in these products and thus our enthusiasm masked as a naïve addiction …  mais non!  These are 100% vegetal, with no harmful bi-products or chemicals at all! Gwynneth Paltrow would be so proud!)

Truth be told, I had a wonderful Tom Sawyer moment when I told my daughter and her cousin about the product a few weeks ago in Maine (yes, I now travel with it!), after a family lobster feast around our huge teak dining table.  Soon, there were at least 3 adorable 20 year olds working the magic and proudly removing the lobster stains from the table, while the rest of the cousins gathered around to breathe in the exquisite scent!

When I headed to France last month, product in hand, I wrestled with a problem child Louis Philippe chest that I have gently loved for many years despite its stubborn refusal to give up its nasty water stains, and decided to put  Christophe Pourny to the test.  You be the judge!  I, was blown away, and Louis says that nobody has treated him this well since King Louis Philippe himself!

 

 Before: my Louis Philippe chest, wearing its stubborn water stain

After: the magic of Christophe Pourny and no water stain at all!

Proud Louis, shiny, stainless and sensationally scented!

And then I remembered that Christophe told us that it works on fine leather too, and that you can clean stubborn stains off leather.  My favorite wallet – and the one I always use in France, because it doesn’t de-magnitize the metro tickets – is white with a bright pink interior.  Except over the past few years, it's lost its "whiteness" and turned into a shameful beige. But not any more!

 The leather wallet that used to be white and used to be my favorite..

 Ta da! It really works.

 Back to being my favorite wallet again.

Not only do I feel like I have a brand new wallet but I think it smells divine too!

 Leather Cream - cleans, moisturizes and shines.. and smells divine.

We joked with Christophe that his product smells so good, we want to wear it ... much less drink it! He admitted that some of his fanatics have been known to wear it, and because it's all natural and doesn't contain any toxins, it wouldn't kill you to drink it (but he strongly advised against it!). So for now, we're just happy polishing professionals, eagerly waiting for our next container of French antiques so that we can slather away and shine all our babies to sweet smelling perfection!

Ta ta ...