The Pays de Grasse (“Grasse Country”) is located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Alps. In this region, soil, climate, and long-transmitted skills have allowed perfume plants to grow and be transformed. In this region, three flowers are the trademarks: roses, jasmines, and tuberoses.
It all started in the 16th Century when Italian leather began to be perfumed. As a result of its proximity to this neighboring country, the pre-existing tannery activity, which employed most adults in Grasse Country, evolved and a new job, the “glove-perfumer”, was created. These individuals bought essential oils from farmers who also distilled perfume plants for them. As a result, a collaboration between peasants and perfumers started. This is still ongoing today.
In Pays de Grasse, the skill of making perfume is divided into three different areas: the cultivation of perfume plants, knowledge and processing of natural raw materials, and the art of perfume composition. This is done by a variety of communities and groups that work together under the Association du Patrimoine Vivant du Pays de Grasse (Living Heritage Association of the Region of Grasse).
Historically, in the sixteenth century, the practice of growing and processing perfume plants has existed in Pays de Grasse, a tradition long dominated by leather tanning. The cultivation of perfume plants requires a wide variety of skills and knowledge, for example, observing nature, soil, weather, biology, plant physiology, horticultural practices, and specific techniques such as extraction and hydraulic distillation.
Grasse's inhabitants have made these techniques their own and improved them. Besides technical skills, however, this art also requires imagination, memory, and creativity. By the middle of the 18th Century, glove making vanished to make way for the perfumery business. As a result, it was the natural raw materials that evolved, and the transformation took place in factories rather than on familial farms.
It was during the first half of the 20th century that perfume plants' culture and their transformation peaked. Around 1900, the perfume industry landscape changed dramatically. There were over 5000 acres dedicated to the cultivation of jasmine, roses, tuberoses, oranges, violets, verbena, or even mint. From 1923 to 1927, there was an increase in the production of the most cultivated flowers. The factories exported their knowledge overseas. Research started in 1927 and continued from 1932 to 1980.
Farmers select flower plants for the most aromatic perfumes. They ensure their optimal development by ensuring the most suitable conditions. This includes soil amendment and drainage, periods of planting, sunlight, humidity, weather conditions, grafting of the plants, wintering, cuttings, and size. The farmer also decides when to harvest the flowers, based on the maturity of the flowers.
To accomplish this step pickers and gatherers learned from their ancestors and passed them on to the younger generation. For example, how to harvest to get the perfect scent and how to avoid damaging the plant. After this step, they turn the flowers into natural raw materials, which is used to make perfume. This transformation gathers all of the technical aspects of manufacturing odorous essences for use in perfume composition. Whether the production of perfume is hand-made or industrial, it always includes the stage of transformation of an organism for the purpose of collecting the smell it possesses.
A few modern extraction techniques are used in addition to steam distillation as well as enfleurage with fatty substances. To cope with the ecological transition, Grasse industrialists are now doing experiments with novel extraction methods, such as the use of supercritical CO2 or microwaves.
Perfumers have changed their position over time, adapting to changing conditions, but also finding new positions that have strongly influenced the evolution of perfumery. As part of its efforts to interest local kids in perfume-making jobs, Pays de Grasse organizes hundreds of meetings between professionals and students in high schools from kindergarten through high school. These programs allow children and teenagers to discover new jobs like laboratory assistants, transformation technicians, lavender cultivators, or perfumers.
However, the activity itself, which dates back to the 16th century, is at risk today. This is due to the growing chemical cosmetics industry, as well as the lack of young people who are interested in succeeding the older generations.
Despite this, the perfume-making tradition remains very meaningful to the locals, and they consider it to be part of their DNA. While related knowledge is still mainly transmitted through long learning processes in perfumeries, there is a growing interest in formalizing learning through formalized teaching in recent decades.