Think back — way back — to the year 1612, and, okay maybe bathing wasn’t the most popular pastime, but clearly they knew from soap.

Not just soap, but the cult line of colognes, herb waters, and fragrances from Santa Maria Novella, founded by 13th century monks. This week, Lafco debuts its first freestanding store, and you couldn’t imagine a more sumptuous line of products: herb-based waters (Feeling edgy? There’s the seventeenth-century “anti-hysterical water”), fragrances, and colognes. The shop also sells low-slung postmodern Italian cabinets, Greek sheepskin rugs, a German line of lighting, the coveted Korres skin-care line, and Lafco soaps.

It’s pretty neat stuff, and?history aside?just might challenge the old joke about Europeans and hygiene.