Posted on Sep 25, 2021
In France's Perfume Capital Of The World, There's A World Of Beautiful Fragrance
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https://www.npr.org/2021/09/25/ [login to see] /grasse-perfume-france
The town of Grasse sits in the hills above the more famous French Riviera city of Cannes, and it doesn't have the Mediterranean Sea at its doorstep. What it does have is fields of flowers — jasmine, May rose, tuberose, lavender. It is known as the perfume capital of the world.
It wasn't always this way. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, the industry took off in Grasse in part because this was an absolutely putrid-smelling town.
"Grasse, in the Middle Ages and especially in the 16th century, is well known all over Europe for leather, not for perfume," says Laurent Pouppeville, the director of Grasse's perfume museum.
Thanks to its tanneries, the town reeked of dead animals and lye. It was the glove makers who first tried to make their product smell better, using a technique called maceration.
The town of Grasse sits in the hills above the more famous French Riviera city of Cannes, and it doesn't have the Mediterranean Sea at its doorstep. What it does have is fields of flowers — jasmine, May rose, tuberose, lavender. It is known as the perfume capital of the world.
It wasn't always this way. Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, the industry took off in Grasse in part because this was an absolutely putrid-smelling town.
"Grasse, in the Middle Ages and especially in the 16th century, is well known all over Europe for leather, not for perfume," says Laurent Pouppeville, the director of Grasse's perfume museum.
Thanks to its tanneries, the town reeked of dead animals and lye. It was the glove makers who first tried to make their product smell better, using a technique called maceration.
In France's Perfume Capital Of The World, There's A World Of Beautiful Fragrance
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France World History
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
...""They used animal fat and they're going to put flowers in this fat and so the fat is going to take the perfume of the flowers," Pouppeville explains. "And they're going to obtain after two months a perfume pomade. And they're going to perfume the leather gloves with these perfume pomades."
The tanners switched to full-time perfume making after taxes on leather rose too high. The hillside springs they once channeled to clean the hides were instead used to distill perfume and water the fields of flowers.
Pierre Chiarla, a grower standing in a field of jasmine in full bloom, is with a small group plucking the tiny white blossoms from bright green bushes planted in long rows. He says his grandmother and her sisters picked jasmine in this same terraced field rimmed by an old stone wall.
"In Grasse, perfume is often a family story," he says. "She was just 12 years old. That was about 70 years ago. And do you see that little shack?" he says, pointing to a terracotta roofed structure covered with vines. "That's where the pickers cooked and slept, so they'd be right on the spot at dawn to begin working."
Chiarla says jasmine is so delicate that it still must picked by hand. Before the tiny flowers can wilt, they are quickly transported to a factory less than a mile away, where the pure flower scent, known as "concrete" and "absolute," is extracted.
Pierre Chiarla, picking jasmine, says his grandmother and her sisters picked jasmine flowers in this same terraced field 70 years ago. But climate change is a concern. "We are worried because we are seeing, for example, freezing temperatures and hail in the spring much more frequently," says Chiarla.
It takes between 7,000 and 10,000 jasmine flowers to make up 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds). And it takes about a ton of flowers to extract a kilo of jasmine absolute. Each kilo is worth over 50,000 euros, about $59,000."...
...""They used animal fat and they're going to put flowers in this fat and so the fat is going to take the perfume of the flowers," Pouppeville explains. "And they're going to obtain after two months a perfume pomade. And they're going to perfume the leather gloves with these perfume pomades."
The tanners switched to full-time perfume making after taxes on leather rose too high. The hillside springs they once channeled to clean the hides were instead used to distill perfume and water the fields of flowers.
Pierre Chiarla, a grower standing in a field of jasmine in full bloom, is with a small group plucking the tiny white blossoms from bright green bushes planted in long rows. He says his grandmother and her sisters picked jasmine in this same terraced field rimmed by an old stone wall.
"In Grasse, perfume is often a family story," he says. "She was just 12 years old. That was about 70 years ago. And do you see that little shack?" he says, pointing to a terracotta roofed structure covered with vines. "That's where the pickers cooked and slept, so they'd be right on the spot at dawn to begin working."
Chiarla says jasmine is so delicate that it still must picked by hand. Before the tiny flowers can wilt, they are quickly transported to a factory less than a mile away, where the pure flower scent, known as "concrete" and "absolute," is extracted.
Pierre Chiarla, picking jasmine, says his grandmother and her sisters picked jasmine flowers in this same terraced field 70 years ago. But climate change is a concern. "We are worried because we are seeing, for example, freezing temperatures and hail in the spring much more frequently," says Chiarla.
It takes between 7,000 and 10,000 jasmine flowers to make up 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds). And it takes about a ton of flowers to extract a kilo of jasmine absolute. Each kilo is worth over 50,000 euros, about $59,000."...
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The hos is to tired to bath between Johns, so they splash on lots of Perfume... hahahahaha....
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