When we sat down for breakfast with cognac heir Kilian Hennessy, we expected some classic French drama.

Monsieur did not disappoint.

Grandson and namesake of the founder of the LVMH Group, Hennessy is no stranger to luxury. But his previous work as fragrance creator for names like Christian Dior and Alexander McQueen left him creatively unfulfilled.

"I worked at all the best houses, but it's all the same. You have to create a "luxury" perfume that retails for $65, but costs $2 to produce. You can't get away from that model," said Hennessy.

So Hennessy went rogue and created his own line of luxury fragrances -- By Kilian -- which are sold worldwide in swanky boutiques and department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue.

"I wanted to go back to the beginning of the 20th century, to a kind of perfume that today only exists in museums -- with gold leafing and beautiful bottles. I wanted to create a modern, boudoir perfume that was luxurious but didn't look like it belonged to Marie Antoinette," said Hennessy of his line's understated black elegance in design.

This September, Hennessy is launching a scent called Love and Tears, Surrender -- his fourth and last installment in a series of fragrances based on the evolving phases of love.

Indian jasmine, Italian bergamot, French cypress and Madagascan ylang ylang are blended together to form the juice.

The inspiration is très sensuelle.

"Only the jasmine flower, with its endless spectrum of facets -- citrus, green, floral and animalistic -- was able to express the profusion of emotions that I wanted to communicate with this scent: the beginning of love marked with excitement, the fear of the unknown, and, ultimately, the surrender to love!" said Hennessy.

All of the bottles are refillable, so that once you buy a new fragrance, you can keep the bottle and simply bring it to the store for a lower-priced refill.

"For me, luxury can't be disposable. You wouldn't throw away an Hermès handbag. Luxury must be timeless, and something you want to keep for life. My fragrance bottle is something you can keep for a lifetime, and just refill with new fragrance as you need to," said Hennessy.

With a new bottle costing a steep $225 and refill sizes ranging in cost from $70 to $125, we guessed the American market would be less savvy to the price than the French. But we were wrong.

"The French have a socialist attitude about shopping -- they demand luxury for everyone. Americans understand the luxury market, and you don't have to explain to them why a finer product costs more. They get it," said Hennessy.

And the rest of the world gets it too.

Hennessy's five-part series of Arabian Nights scents, specially developed for the Middle Eastern market, feature the spicy oud wood that is steeped in rich Arabic fragrance history. Two of the five scents have been released so far, and have done so well that counters in faraway cities like London have been posting greater sales than established competitor fragrance brands.

We of course had to sniff-test both Love and Tears, Surrender and the Arabian Nights scents first-hand; the quality, clarity and subtlety of the notes left us wanting more.

But would we drop triple digits on a bottle?

We're already dreaming up the rationale to justify such a splurge.

Another splurge? "Vengeance" surgery.