The piece of furniture in front of you is called an organ. It is so called because it looks just like an organ but also because it is aimed to contain essences also called notes. About 3000 notes exist nowadays and most of the perfumers knows 2 to 300 by heart and mainly work with those to compose olfactive symphonies, also called fragrances.
Notes are divided into three categories: the head notes last the shortest time and are the introduction of the perfume; the heart notes give the perfume its identity and personality; and the base notes, or “sillage”, the trail, are the deepest and more fixative notes.
On the large screens above the stairs, you can discover another extraction technique, obsolete nowadays but that allowed Grasse to reach the peak of its art. It consisted in spreading a layer of animal fat on top of a glass pane held by a wooden frame. The delicate flowers that couldn’t be distillated were placed in the fat manually, left to soak overnight and changed everyday for a whole month. In the end, the fat saturated with scent would be whisked with alcohol and the scent would pass onto the alcohol, making the absolute.
On the screen, you can also discover our artisanal production carried out in our three factories located in Grasse and Eze in the south of France. Perfumes, cosmetics, and soaps have been the know-how of Maison Fragonard for 4 generations and we are happy to continue producing them in France.
This audio-guide is coming to an end, we hope you enjoyed this historic stroll which we invite you to continue with an olfactory discovery downstairs. The Fragonard team will be happy to answer your questions and help you.
Have a lovely day and see you soon!
FRAGONARD PARFUMEUR
A family business with ancestral know-how, Parfumerie Fragonard was founded in 1926 in the town of Grasse.
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