Category: French Culture

552 History of Perfume in France with Elyse (June 29)

 

[00:00:15] Introduction and Topic Overview

Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France, episode 552, cinq cent cinquante deux.

Annie Sargent: Bonjour, I’m Annie Sargent, and Join Us in France is the podcast where we take a conversational journey through the beauty, culture, and flavors of France.

[00:00:31] Today on the podcast

Annie Sargent: Today, I bring you a great conversation with Elyse Rivin of Toulouse Guided Walks about the rich history of perfume in France. Discover how fragrances evolved from ancient rituals to modern luxury and why perfume remains an iconic part of French culture. You’ll learn about the surprising origins of perfume in France, influential figures, and the timeless allure of French perfumes, and how also you can enjoy all of that on your next trip to France.

[00:01:03] Podcast supporters

Annie Sargent: This podcast runs on chocolatine, caffeine, and the support of lovely humans like you. You book itinerary consults, take my VoiceMap tours, ride shotgun in my electric car, come to the bootcamp, or slip me a few Euros on Patreon, and I love you for it.

Annie Sargent: Want to keep me going and skip the ads? There’s a link for that in the show notes. And for all of my services, head to joinusinfrance.com/boutique. And Merci. Want all the links and the full episode transcript? You’ll find everything you need on the page that lists all episodes by month at joinusinfrance.com/episodes.

Annie Sargent: And if you’d like a handy summary of the conversation with all the useful links, subscribe to the newsletter at joinusinfrance.com/newsletter. It’s the best way to stay in the loop.

[00:01:59] No Magazine segment

Annie Sargent: There will not be a magazine part of the podcast today because this recording ran long, but I do want to send my thanks and a shout out to a new patron: David Kelly.

Annie Sargent: To join this wonderful community of Francophiles, go to patreon.com/JoinUs and to support Elyse go to patreon.com/Elysart.

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[00:02:33] Annie and Elyse about the History of Perfume in France

Annie: Bonjour, Elyse.

Elyse: Bonjour, Annie.

Annie: We have a fun topic today, we are going to talk about the history of perfume in France. It’s a big part of our national, I don’t know, national…

Elyse: Identity?

Annie: Yes.

Elyse: Yes, it is.

Annie: You have the right words.

Elyse: I have the right words, yes, this is going to be a fun… I’m so excited, this is a very fun topic that I have actually wanted to do for quite a while.

[00:03:01] Perfume as a French Identity

Elyse: Two things made me think of this. One was, of course, the fact that lots of tourists, one of the things that they buy to take home, as a souvenir of France, besides the bags, you know, Vuitton and all that kind of stuff, is perfume.

Elyse: So perfume is very much associated with France. And also several years ago, I was teaching a class about European culture to students from Asia. A lot of them were from India and then other, Indonesia, places like that. At the beginning of the class, I asked them what they associated with France.

Annie: Sure, yeah.

Elyse: And aside from football, or soccer, the next thing that came up was perfume.

Annie: How interesting.

Elyse: And I went, “Oh, okay.” I mean, I knew that there was a long history of perfume in association with France, and of course we have Dior and Chanel, and Chanel No 5 and all of that. But then it made me think, “Oh, what is the history really of perfume in France?”

Annie: Since you’ve mentioned that we’re going to do this episode, I’ve paid more attention to this and there is definitely a lot to this, so it’ll be very interesting to hear the stories.

Elyse: Yes, they’re wonderful stories. And you know how I love to tell stories.

[00:04:15] Understanding Different Types of Perfume

Elyse: So I know that you don’t like to wear perfume, but what do you think is the difference between, for instance, an eau de cologne, which is basically generic, and an eau de toilette and an eau de parfum?

Annie: Okay. I’m really an ignoramus when it comes to these things, but I think eau de parfum is something you would use very sparingly, because it has a very strong scent.

Annie: Eau de cologne is more like something you would put around your neck or something, but you would put more of it, you would use more of it because it’s less concentrated. What was the one in the middle? Eau de… I don’t know.

Elyse: Okay. Well, you’re pretty good.

Annie: Uh-huh.

Elyse: That’s pretty good. Yeah.

Annie: Oh, good.

Elyse: In fact, it’s a trap question. It’s a piège question because eau de cologne is actually a little bit different, but it’s a question of dilution. It’s a question of intensity of the amount of actual molecules of perfume that are in the solution. Because these are all solutions. Eau de cologne has a separate history, which I’ll talk about when we talk about the evolution of how it came about. But basically we’re talking about degrees of concentration of the, what they call the head notes, which create perfume. They get more and more concentrated and therefore more and more expensive.

Annie: Okay, that makes sense.

Elyse: And honestly, what I didn’t know, because I’m very naive about a lot of this stuff, especially when it comes to luxury goods, is that even the most concentrated perfume, we’re talking about the incredibly expensive things, are never more than 40% essence of perfume.

Annie: Okay.

Elyse: And that is enough to make it strong.

Annie: Yes, when I was younger, I would occasionally wear perfume, and the one I liked was called Poison.

Elyse: Oh.

Annie: But I don’t remember who made it.

Elyse: I’m not sure. I think Dior, but I’m not sure.

Annie: I remember the shape of the bottle. It was this kind of round, very purple bottle. I remember the bottle, but I don’t remember who made it, but it… And I didn’t wear it every day, you know, it was something like if I was going out or something, I would put some on. And then at one point I kind of stopped, I don’t know why.

Elyse: Yeah. Well, I think me too. I think it was a period, maybe it’s a certain age, I don’t know, that people were wearing perfume all the time and then stopped. And now people wear… it still sells a huge amount. I mean, look at all the stores that sell perfume.

Elyse: But I think that there’s a difference in the kind of fragrances that are the most popular except for one or two. I mean, honestly, Chanel’s No 5 is still the world’s most sold perfume and has been for 100 years, basically.

Annie: And it has a very distinct kind of fragrance. I mean, you can tell when someone is wearing Chanel No 5.

Elyse: Oh, we’ll talk about Chanel later on. But what’s really interesting is… Yes, and I wore Shalimar, which is by Guerlain, you know, one of the big, big perfume houses, and it’s very… I didn’t know, but now having read all this about the names and the way you can describe them, Chanel No 5 is actually a floral fragrance, and Shalimar is an oriental fragrance. Oh my God.

Annie: You are so exotic, Elyse.

Elyse: It’s ombre and it’s… And I can… Now that I think about it, I go, “Oh yeah, that was definitely my period,” to do things like that.

Annie: Yes.

[00:07:38] Historical Significance of Perfume

Elyse: So let’s talk a little bit about the history of perfume and why it is in fact associated so very, very closely. And maybe less so now actually, now that we have international perfume houses that are connected with fashion among other things. I think of Kenzo, of course, and lots of fabrication. There’s lot of perfumes being made by designers in other countries.

Elyse: But certainly, starting in the Middle Ages and up through, into the end of the 20th century, France was the capital of perfume.

Annie: Yeah. Well, and honestly, if you go to the duty-free stores, they sell it. I mean, they have a lot of choices, options for perfume still.

Elyse: Still, yes.

Annie: Yeah, it’s… So they must be selling a fair bit.

Elyse: Oh, they sell. It sells everywhere. I mean, it’s really a multi-billion dollar industry to sell perfume.

Annie: I guess it’s because it makes such a good gift?

Elyse: It does, except that sometimes, how do you know what perfume to get somebody? That’s the hard part, you know? I mean, you have to kind of know what people are like to know what kind of fragrance they might like.

[00:08:46] The Fragonard Perfume Store near the Opera House in Paris

Annie: Well, if you go to one of these stores that we’re going to mention, then you can try different things and…

Elyse: You can.

Annie: I went with my sister-in-law to the Fragonard store near the Opera House, very close to the Opera House in Paris, and we were both very happy to look at the displays and whatever, but there were a lot of things we could smell and test and, it was fun. And I was very surprised, she wanted to find a specific kind of patchouli.

Elyse: Yeah.

Annie: And to me, like, “Run away. Patchouli does not smell good.” But I didn’t tell her this.

Elyse: Everybody their perfume.

Annie: Yeah, but… No. Tastes like skunk smell. I don’t know.

[00:09:30] Finding Your Perfume

Elyse: Oh, no, no. But you know what? There is an adage, and I really believe it. I’ve read this and I’ve had people say this to me. And I’ve been to the Fragonard museum store near the opera house many times. They say that if a perfume lasts a very long time on your body, it’s for you. That there’s a chemical reaction between… it could be an eau de toilette or it could be an eau de parfum, it doesn’t have to be the most concentrated form. A few months ago, we were in Grenada I was in Grenada with my husband, and there was a perfume store that they were advertising that they make their own perfumes, and I went in, it was lovely, and I was testing all these things and sniffing them all. And I like things now that are a little bit light and floral, and one of them said it had rose in it, and I thought, “Hmm, that one might be nice.”

Elyse: So I bought a little, I don’t even know what the word is in English anymore, a flacon, you know, a little spray bottle. But it’s an eau de parfum and I brought it home, and to my great surprise and chagrin, it doesn’t last on my skin at all. It’s like I put it on and it’s gone!

Elyse: And I realized… I found an old perfume, an old eau de parfum that somebody had given me from another thing that was actually from one of the Fragonard perfumes, and all I need is to put an infinitely tiny drop on, and it lasts for all day long.

Annie: Interesting.

Elyse: So the magic is finding your perfume.

Annie: Right. And I think it would be fun, you know, if you’re in Paris and you have the time, to go experiment.

Elyse: Yep.

Annie: And they give you these little pieces of paper that you can spray a little bit on that, and smell that, instead of trying to find new bits of skin that don’t have anything yet.

Elyse: Yes, after a while it gets to be absolutely overwhelming, you know?

Elyse: It’s also true that there are some people who are allergic to perfume. And I’ve been on tours where I’ve taken people around, and there would be always one or two people who don’t want to go in because they can’t stand perfume.

Annie: Makes sense.

Elyse: It is like that. I mean, some people really can’t stand it, you know?

Annie: So there’s a fine line between “Oh, that’s a nice smell,” and, “Oh, that’s Pepe Le Pew,” you know?

Elyse: Yes.

Annie: It’s like, ugh.

Elyse: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s many degrees these days of, you know, in between the two, you know?

Elyse: And then of course now we have fragrances for men. Now in the Middle Ages, that was the norm also. But in terms of modern times, you know, there are a lot of men who use aftershave that has a perfume to it and things like that. But the whole world has changed in the last 40, 50 years, and so there are lots of fragrances that are now considered to be androgynous.

Annie: I think for men, when I notice that a guy is nicely dressed and is wearing some sort of scent, they really stand out.

Elyse: Yeah.

Annie: They stand out like well put together, you know? To me, that’s what it means. Like someone who takes care of themselves and cleans up really nice. That’s what it means.

Elyse: Well, there you are.

Annie: Yeah.

Elyse: You guys listening out there.

Annie: So it would make the guy more appealing,I think.

Elyse: Okay.

Elyse: She has said it. Annie has said it. There you are.

Annie: But women wearing perfume is less noticeable, perhaps because I don’t notice women? But also because it’s more common.

Elyse: Yes, but it is true that there are places where people overdose on the perfume they wear, and it gets to be overwhelming. And that’s not particularly pleasant either, you know? I mean, it’s interesting. It’s a very… to me, perfume is a very private affair. It’s like I, if I put any on, it’s just after my shower, you know? And then it’s not so much for other people, so that me, I can smell it myself, you know?

Elyse: “Oh, I feel good this way.” You know? That kind of thing.

Annie: Yeah. Makes sense.And there’s also a lot of people nowadays who like to experiment and make their own scents. That’s a new area of, kind of, not a tour, but an activity you can do when you visit France, so perhaps we’ll discuss those as well.

[00:13:27] The word Perfume

Elyse: Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about the background of all of this. And

[00:13:30] Origin of the word “perfume”

Elyse: Oh, here’s my other question. Oh, I’m so filled with good questions today. What does the word perfume actually come from? This one surprised me. Let’s see how good you are.

Annie: Parfum, parfum.

Elyse: It actually comes from two words in Latin, per and fumare, which means to smoke, because the oldest in antiquity, in terms of the ancient Egyptians and the Assyrians and all of those people, they smoked pieces of what are now mirrh and all the things that we would use for,what do you call those? The…

Annie: Incense.

Elyse: Incense. Thank you. Incense. And it was the smell of the smoke that was the first form of perfume. And when the Romans discovered all of this, because basically, of course, they bathed a lot, but it was by conquering parts of the Middle East and Egypt and all of this that they started picking up all of these things that could make incense. The words actually come from the idea that this was smoked at first.

Annie: Interesting. Interesting. Yeah.

Elyse: And I would never have guessed that in a million years, so there you are. I thought it had something to do with smell, but no, it has to do with smoke.

Annie: Interesting.

[00:14:44] Perfume in Religious and Cultural Practices

Annie: But, you know, I’ve noticed also that at Notre Dame, they burn an awful lot of incense.

Elyse: Yeah.

Annie: Yeah. Well, of course, I went back so many times when I was writing my latest tour, and I, since it included the inside, I went inside a lot, and very often, it was like, oof, the smell is like, it’s kind of strong.

Elyse: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because the real history of the beginning of what we would, could generically, I’m going to call perfume, you know, because it’s substances that have fragrance is more correct probably, but let’s just say perfume.

Elyse: But it really began, in terms of our history as humans, it began probably 6,000 years ago as something to do in special ceremonies. So it has come down, for instance, the fact that there’s incense in the churches. In the Orthodox Church, there’s a lot more incense actually than in the Roman Catholic Church. In Buddhist temples, they burn incense. In Hindu temples, they burn incense.

Elyse: So it’s very interesting that the whole idea of having some kind of special fragrance is in fact connected with special ceremonies, the idea that you communicate somehow with the gods by having these scents. That’s actually fascinating if you think about it.

Annie: It’s a whole new dimension that we clearly understand as humans. I think dogs smell even better than we do. But the thing is, dogs like to put their nose into things, which we don’t.

Elyse: Exactly.

Annie: But if you walk into a house and it smells like nice food, it’s very pleasant, and yeah, scent is a big part of our perception.

Elyse: It’s a very big part of our perception.

[00:16:27] Perfume in Ancient Civilizations

Elyse: And what happened was the, I think that the Romans and the Greeks when they went and basically conquered Egypt, they discovered, I’m not sure about the ceremonies in Syria and places like that, but the Egyptians, when they did the embalming, they perfumed the cloth that was used for the embalming so that the people going to the next life would smell nice. And it was partly for preservation because obviously they used certain things, certain fragrances and certain oils that were helpful in keeping the body intact, and also the linen that they used to wrap the bodies.

Elyse: But it was very important that everything smell good even for the next life in the next world, wherever that was. And so a lot of these practices were taken back to Europe, and also over the centuries with the, and the discovery of the Silk Route going to China, going to the Asian countries, a lot of things were taken back to Europe to be used for making fragrances.

Elyse: And of course, the Romans rubbed perfumed oil on their bodies and they bathed literally every day. I mean, it was just an obsession with the Romans.

Elyse: So the whole idea of something perfumed that you put on your body, that you keep on your clothes in this life or in another really goes back as far as our notion of civilization. It’s really fascinating, you know?

Annie: Yeah, and a lot of these scents you can also buy them as a hand cream or as a body lotion, you know? So if you want to do it that way, you could smell nice that way. I would bet that’s what a lot of people do, really.

Elyse: Oh, I think that that is what a lot of people do, and ironically, it’s kind of going back to its origins because for centuries that wasn’t really what was done. There were lots of oils that were made, you know, like essential oils that were burned and things like that.

Elyse: But it is true that now we have such a wide range of products that have perfumed or scented parts to them, I love my lavender soap, you know? I mean, I just, you know?

Annie: Yeah. Yeah. But lavender soap doesn’t smell that long. It doesn’t linger.

Elyse: No. It doesn’t linger, and that’s the big magic of what really is perfume. So, of course, the Italians… What’s interesting to know, and I didn’t know, was that until the middle of the Middle Ages, let’s in vague we’re large chunks of time here, it was Venice that was the center of anything connected to perfume.

Elyse: And for the simple reason that they had mastered all of the trade routes going to Asia and the Middle East, and they were at the forefront of all of this with their ships, and you know, the Marco Polo, and the Silk Route, and all of that. So, for a very long time, they were really considered to be the center of all of this, because the word perfume was not synonymous with but very much associated with the Orient, which is of course the old word for talking about the Asian, and Middle Eastern parts of the world.

Elyse: And they used incense, they used myrrh, they used all these things that had not been available to the Europeans.

Elyse: And so what happened was that the second group of people that started using perfume and discovering new spices and scents was the Spanish. As they navigated around the world and they went to the Americas and all these places, they brought back vanilla, and they brought back all these things that, of course, have also now started… Certainly now, I mean, my mom, my dear mom was someone who loved perfumes that had vanilla. I can’t … I love vanilla in my ice cream. I can’t stand vanilla in my perfume. I know it’s just- … you know, we each have our scents that we really could deal with and the ones we can’t.

Elyse: But this was a new thing to bring back all of these spices that could be added into. And so, the second group of people basically was the Spanish, and then… then lo and behold, we get to the end of the Middle Ages in terms of perfume, and civilization, and sophistication, and this is where the French come in.

[00:20:24] The Renaissance Influence on French Perfume

Annie: Okay. So like 1500s?

Elyse: Yeah. We’re talking about the very end of the 1400s and the beginning of the 1500s. And basically what happens is that the Italians, who were basically the first to create this period of time that we like to call the Renaissance. They, of course, were extremely sophisticated, they had inherited all of these notions of bathing and perfuming and being very well-dressed and all of this is… this is not today.

Elyse: I mean, this has been for centuries that it’s the Italians that have known for doing all of this before it was actually a united Italy. And what happens is you have at the same time two things. The first is that you have the French King François I who winds up being taken prisoner in Northern Italy. We’ll just for the sake of this to call it Northern Italy, near Milan.

Elyse: And he discovers everything Renaissance, you know, he discovers the architecture, he discovers the painting, and among other things he discovers the way of living using a fork to eat food, the clothing that they wore, hm, and the perfumes, all of this. And he thought that they were, and probably was right, the most civilized people in the world.

Annie: Mm-hmm. And he discovered all that while a prisoner?

Elyse: While a prisoner, yes.

Annie: Okay.

Elyse: You know, a king being a prisoner in the early 1500s was basically it was like, “Okay, you stay in this city where you can’t leave,” but he could do whatever he wanted to do inside, you know. I mean, he…

Annie: Ah, okay.

Elyse: You know, this is not like being in a little cell in the Tower of London, you know. Poor old Mary Queen of Scots.

[00:21:58] Catherine de’ Medici and the Rise of French Perfume

Elyse: Andwhen he was finally liberated and went back to France, he decided that it would be a good idea to marry off his second son. It was not his first son because his first son had to marry someone who was destined to be a queen, that is a daughter of a queen, of a king or queen.

Elyse: But he decided to marry off his second son Henry II to the daughter of one of the Medicis. And of course, the Medicis were one of the most important, noble, wealthy, powerful families in Northern Italy. Catherine de’ Medici was the daughter of the Duke of Urbino, and of Florence, and of course, was extremely wealthy and came from this long line of prestigious people. And she was actually, I didn’t know this, but she was actually half French. Her mother was from Auvergne. She was a member of the nobility from Auvergne.

Elyse: But she was, of course, brought up in Italy and was extremely well-educated and extremely refined. Now, if you look at portraits of Catherine de Medici in the Louvre, oh my God, she looks like the worst severe high school teacher you would ever have in your life, you know.

Elyse: She doesn’t look like fun.

Annie: No. No. No fun. No.

Elyse: Really. No. But she was really an interesting woman and she got married off at the age of 14, which was the norm for the day, you know. So she arrived in France in 1533 at the age of 14.

Elyse: And one of the people that she brought with her in her entourage because this is before Marie Antoinette who was forced to leave everybody from her home country behind when she arrived in France. She brought with her a man named Renato Bianco, who was her perfumer.

Annie: How nice.

Elyse: Her personal perfumer. Yeah. And so his name very quickly in France became René Le Florentin.

Annie: Nice. I approve. Yep.

Elyse: He made perfumes. He made concoctions. I mean, at this time, we’re still talking about basically concentrations in oils and different things not in the form that we actually know them today, but from pure elements, from concentrations of plants and from flowers and things. He was also a poisoner. It’s very interesting.

Annie: Uh-oh.

Elyse: Because just like chemists were also poisoners, they could make their mixes that were poisons, he was known for making wonderful perfumes and poisons as well, so you had to stay on the good side of him, you know?

Annie: A bit of belladonna for you.

Elyse: A bit of belladonna, exactly.

Elyse: Anyway, Catherine, who was horrified by the manners and the level of cleanliness of the royal court in France.

Annie: Poor Catherine.

Elyse: She brought with her the fork. She brought with her perfume. She brought with her all these things, and of course, very quickly other people wanted to do like she did, which means that in the court, in the royal court in Fontainebleau, in Versailles and in Louvre, wherever they were, other young women wanted also to have these lovely perfumes, so it started to be something in great, great demand.

Elyse: And the other thing that happened in relation to Catherine de’ Medici was that she loved to wear gloves, and I think it was very much the fashion, and you know, very nice, soft kid leather gloves. I mean, I even have a couple, a pair. I don’t wear them anymore. I don’t know why, but they, they are very lovely.

Elyse: But there was a problem, and the problem was that at least in France, I don’t know if any other country, but the leather makers who made these very soft, beautiful leather gloves did not know how to make them without the gloves stinking.

Annie: Oh.

Elyse: Because if you’ve ever been to a tannery…

Annie: Oh, yeah. It smells.

Elyse: I mean, they smell like you can’t imagine. I’ve gone to the ones in Morocco, not just the ones here, and you know, it’s famous for the fact that the smell of it is just horrific because part of the, what they use to treat the gloves is urine, among other things.

[00:25:59] Grasse: The Perfume Capital

Elyse: And so she had brought with her some gloves, but she wanted more gloves, and it turns out that the center of glove-making was Grasse, the city near Nice in the south of France.

Annie: Okay.

Elyse: It’s not anymore.

Elyse: But it was for several centuries. And one of the reasons why they had established a lot of the glove-making there was because it was very close to Genoa, in Italy. Genoa’s a huge port, and so they were doing commerce by exporting them from the coast, from very close to the coast. Of course, Grasse isn’t in the hills, but it’s very close to the coast, through Genoa to other parts of Europe.

Elyse: And so a huge commerce of glove-making developed in Grasse.

Annie: Okay.

Elyse: Somebody, it was a man named Molinard, a tanner in Grasse, who offered a pair of gloves to her, and he put a mix of lavender fleur d’oranger, mimosa, and rose in the water that they soaked the leather in.

Annie: Okay, yeah, that would make it better, I think.

Elyse: That would make it a whole lot better, wouldn’t you think? I would love to have those gloves, you know? And she loved them. She absolutely loved them. And so what happened was, she took them, showed them to the people at the court, and of course, everybody wanted perfumed gloves.

Annie: Sure.

Elyse: And this began the rage for perfume not just to put on your body, but perfumed clothing and perfumed leather, and this started two things, one, that it became more important as a perfume industry basically, and the idea that you have perfume for all kinds of things, cloth and everything, but it put Grasse in the center of making perfumes in France.

Annie: Okay, so at least it caught on. I mean, they didn’t have the best hygiene in the world, but at least this bit caught on.

Elyse: Yes. Well, we’re going to talk about the hygiene in a second here, but what’s really fascinating to know is that this led to what was called the Maître-Gantier-Parfumeur.

Annie: Ah.

Elyse: And this was a huge, incredibly wealthy corporation in the sense of the Middle Ages of a guild or corporation. They were given, Catherine de’ Medici’s son, Louis XIII, gave the Maître-Gantier-Parfumeur of Grasse a license to be the sole and only ones in all of France to make perfumed leather, and particularly leather gloves, which meant that the whole perfume industry, which had a little bit been in Montpellier, completely died out.

Elyse: And the other reason why it started to center around Grasse is because in the region around Grasse, there are huge, huge, huge areas filled with wild roses, tubular roses, violets, mimosa, lavender, irises, all of these flowers that even at that time, were used for making perfumed substances.

Annie: Yeah, this is a great climate for growing flowers.

Elyse: So Grasse became extremely wealthy, and it became the center of perfume, and that led to France being known as the country that produced these wonderful perfumes.

(mid-roll ad spot)

[00:29:19] Impact of the Plague on Hygiene and Perfume

Elyse: Now, Catherine de’ Medici is, before everybody went to live in Versailles, but unfortunately, the history of not using water and not bathing in France started a little bit earlier than that. It actually started in the 14th century. Why? Because of the plague.

Annie: I see. Because they thought that the water…

Elyse: Because in spite of the fact that the heritage of the Romans and all through the Middle Ages was that people washed, basically. I mean, very poor people, I’m sure, did not wash as often as people who had the luxury of having a way of having water, fresh water all the time. But washing was considered to be a norm. I mean, people washed their bodies, and they washed their clothes, and things like that.

Annie: Yeah, even if you washed in the river or in the, you know, in the…

Elyse: Exactly.

Annie: You washed.

Elyse: You washed. But what happened was the word spread. It’s interesting how rumors, and we know about that today, even with things like other substances and other controversial subjects. But the word spread that the way people caught the plague was by being exposed to having their pores, the pores of their skin opened up by water.

Annie: That is insane.

Elyse: People believed that water was the most important vector of disease in the world.

Annie: Well, it’s true of cholera, but that’s a different issue.

Elyse: It’s a different issue, right? So little by little, believe it or not, especially among the middle class and the upper middle class and the aristocracy, people stopped bathing.

Annie: Okay, that’s not good.

Elyse: Seriously stopped bathing. Seriously, seriously stopped bathing. In fact, there are texts that explain, that you can find from that time period, where they say when a baby is born, you wash it and then swaddle it in these, what amounts to almost a mile of linen.

[00:31:16] The Unwashed Aristocracy

Elyse: I mean, they… And then you leave him, and you don’t wash him, and they had to have an opening, of course, for-

Annie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elyse: … other things coming out. But otherwise, you left him for two years…

Annie: Ohh.

Elyse: … without being washed.

Annie: How did that not kill them?

Elyse: I don’t know, but I think it made a lot of them crazy. I think it had to have.

Annie: Yeah. No, that’s a terrible thing.

Elyse: Yeah.

Annie: And it was mostly wealthy people who followed this bad advice.

Elyse: Yeah. Peasants are always basically… I mean, their lives can be miserable in other ways, but basically, the Middle Ages in relation to bread, the peasants ate the bread with the whole bran in it and didn’t suffer from malnutrition. And the aristocracy wanted white bread and wound up having malnutrition. So, too bad for them, you know? So literally, what happened was that the upper classes stopped bathing, and when we get to Louis XIII’s son, Louis XIV, who starts to live in Versailles and has this group of people of… We’re talking about several thousand people living in Versailles at all times, you know, hanger-on and all kinds of people. They did not bathe.

Elyse: And I was reading, I mean, I got so into this, I was reading texts of people who described what it was like to walk through parts of Versailles and the smells of all of these unwashed bodies.

[00:32:41] Perfume to Mask the Stench

Elyse: Well, of course, what did they do? Well, to cover the smells, they started using perfume, and they used it everywhere. So they powdered, they made powders that were perfumed, and they dusted their wigs every day. You were allowed to wash your face and your hands and occasionally your intimate parts, but with a little cloth. You weren’t supposed to put your whole body into water. You weren’t supposed to submerge your body into water at all.

Elyse: And so they put perfume on their bodies … I’m looking at Annie’s face. I wish I had a picture of this right now. They perfumed their wigs. They tried to mask it. There was one person who wrote about going to Versailles and saying that he couldn’t decide which was worse, the body odors or the overwhelming smell of all these different perfumes that just got to the point where it was suffocating to walk through the different reception rooms in Versailles because of all of this. And this lasted for about 200 years.

Annie: Oh my God.

Elyse: But the worst, the worst was Louis XIV and Louis XV, that time period. So we’re covering about 150 years there between the two of them, where basically the clothing was gorgeous, they had incredible jewelry, but everybody stank. This is being very crude, but this is basically what the story was, you know? There is a rumor that the only time Louis XIV ever bathed was when he jumped into a river.

Annie: Did he do that on purpose?

Elyse: Well, that’s a good question. Who knows? But apparently, he never specifically sat down in a bathtub that anyone ever saw. So, they say that the only times in his life that he actually ever washed his body was by… And he did jump in water, in the rivers, when he went traveling, but can you… I can’t even imagine. I cannot imagine, you know?

Annie: That sounds horrible. That sounds like you do not want to be there. These people were insane.

Elyse: So, of course, the irony is that this is what put perfume on the map in relation to France.

Annie: Okay,

Elyse: you know? I mean, huh? You know, there’s always a good and bad side of everything, but there you are.

[00:34:52] The Spread of Perfume Culture

Annie: Did the other courts, like in England and in Spain and Italy, did they do that?

Elyse: They did not. Interestingly enough, they didn’t do it in Austria, which is where Marie Antoinette, of course, came from. They did not do it in Spain because it was one… The ironies of things is that the Spanish, as much as they hated the Arabs and chased them out, they had many things that came from the Arabs and one of the things that came from the Arabs was the idea of having fountains and water and cleansing.

Annie: Yeah, you have to wash yourself before you pray, right?

Elyse: That’s right. And so the idea of having fresh running water and using it on your body was not foreign to the Spanish. It was just a strange, strange thing that this has became notorious that in France, this is what it was like at the court.

Annie: Worse than every place else, you know?

Elyse: It’s really hard. It’s really…

Annie: It would be torture.

Elyse: It would be torture. Yeah.

Annie: Sometimes, I read stuff about astronauts, like their space station, whatever.

Elyse: Yeah.

Annie: They can wash, but it’s pretty limited. They don’t have a lot of water, so. And to me, that would be torture.

Elyse: Yeah. I suspect that it would be, too, you know?

Elyse: So, this is basically, we’re talking about really from the end of the 1400s into the very, very beginning of the 1700s, this is what it’s like in France, okay?

Elyse: Grasse has become this incredibly wealthy city. It is one of the most important centers of perfume in the known world at this time, you know? And of course, the more exploration and the more that people discover other parts of the planet, the more they bring back spices and things, so it is fascinating the evolution of how perfumes are made.

Elyse: By the way, it’s the Arabs that introduced the alambic. When you have an alambic, of course, you can use it for alcohol, but you use it also for creating vapor and therefore, you can make… they’d use concentrations of essences and then they would capture the vapor and then condense the vapor and then they’d take the drops out, so that added to a certain sophistication in terms of the production of perfume.

Annie: How do you say alambic in English?

Elyse: I think it’s the same word. I think.

Annie: Okay.

Elyse: I think it is, but it may not be. I don’t know.

Annie: Let me check.

Annie: Apparently, it is alambic. So alambic in French is A-L-A-M-B-I-C, and in English, it’s A-L-E-M-B-I-C, alambic.

Elyse: Oh, okay. They had to change one letter.

Annie: it’s a type of still used in distillation processes, and often associated with the production of spirits and essential oils.

[00:37:30] The Birth of Eau de Cologne

Elyse: Okay, so this is what happens, lo and behold, since there is always an evolution and there’s always somebody who tries something new. What happens is that in the very, very, very beginning of the 1700s, which thank goodness is now what we call the Age of Enlightenment and people are starting to come out of this ‘moyen age’ Middle Ages kind of theory about water and about disease, but also there’s more scientific stuff that is being discovered. Is interesting, there is an Italian, here we go back to Italy again, an Italian man named Farina, that’s his last name, who was making perfumes. And he winds up going to the City of Cologne in Germany, for whatever reason, I don’t know, but he opens up a shop.

Annie: Oh, I see where this is going.

Elyse: But he uses an alambic and he discovers that if you use citrus essences, the essences of citrus fruits for the beginning and you mix it with distillation, alcohol and water, but at a very low concentration, he used a concentration of 4%, which is really almost nothing, you create this very lightly fragranced refreshing liquid, which is…

Annie: Eau de Cologne.

Elyse: Et voila, Eau de Cologne. And it came to be called that because it was in Cologne that he had his shop, and this was taken back to France and it was like, “Woo, woo, we have this new thing.” Because what that meant was that the perfumers in France discovered that they could do something lighter than they had been doing before.

Elyse: And so this became all the rage. And they used the local flowers and the other essences, and they used musk by the way, which, you know, comes from animals, but it’s very important in a lot of perfumes in general. And so what happened was that this added to the “gamme”, if you want, of the kinds of perfume you could have. And so eau de cologne has existed actually since 1709.

Annie: Yeah, and it’s lighter and, in many ways, nicer I think.

Annie: It’s refreshing.

Elyse: Yeah. It’s not like this hits-you-over-the-head scent.

Annie: Right. Yeah.

Elyse: Yeah. And it’s interesting too that it inspired the perfume makers to change the formulas for some of the perfumes, and also it was the first time somebody used citrus in a perfume. Which is very interesting, because I happen to love eau de cologne, but I splash it on cushions and things like that, you know.

Annie: Yeah, yeah.

Elyse: It’s really nice because it has that light quality to it. Why, who knows, but he got this idea that he could use the essence of lemons and oranges and things like that. Now, of course, Germany is not the place that grows these things.

Annie: Nope.

Elyse: So he obviously brought them with him. But then they soon came to be the fashion also in France. Fragonard, by the way, the House of Perfume, it’s actually cousins of the painter, Fragonard.

Annie: Oh, wow.

Elyse: The first perfumers of the House of Fragonard were around in the 1700s at the same time as the painter, which is really interesting. I had… you know, I never really thought about it one way or the other. The association of perfume with the aristocracy was such that even with…

Elyse: Oh, the… And that was the other thing that I need to mention, is that the fact that there was this new thing called Eau de Cologne, it was less expensive so it was more accessible to a middle class. We’re not talking about poor people, in the real “bidon

villes”

Elyse: and, and then the peasants in the countryside.

Elyse: But now, as there’s a burgeoning and very, very, very important middle class everywhere, eau de cologne was a way for people to have access to a lot of these things. And it helped at the same time that suddenly everybody started bathing again, so this was not necessary to have oodles of this very thick, heavy, perfume on you all the time.

Elyse: The first two perfume shops that were not necessarily for the Court of Versailles were opened in Paris. The first one was in 1774, and it was called A la Reine des Fleurs.

Annie: Nice.

Elyse: On Rue Faubourg-Saint-Honoré.

Annie: Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, where there still is a lot of fashion and things like that.

Elyse: And it was a man named Pivet who ran the shop. And the second one, a year later, is 1775, was called A la Corbeille de Fleurs.

Annie: Nice. I like the names.

Elyse: Right next door on the same street, and that was created by a man whose name was François Houbigant. But I’m going to say it the way a American would say it, which is “Who” because it starts with an H. Like “Hoo.” Houbigant. And that House of Perfume still exists.

Annie: Really? Wow. Amazing. So spell it.

Elyse: H-O-U-B-I-G-A-N-T.

Annie: Okay. Don’t remember noticing it, but of course there’s so many shops along that street that it’s hard.

Elyse: Because I did all this research, so now I keep getting ads from him popping up on my computer all the time.

[00:42:45] Perfume Revolution in the 1700s

Elyse: We have a revolution in the history of perfume, and that is in the 1700s, it is democratized so that the middle classes have access. And you can go into a shop, and for the very first time in history, you have ready-made perfumes. Which is, you know… I mean, this is what we imagine.

Elyse: Now, of course you still have little boutique places I’ve seen in the Marais where you can go in and ask them to make you one, but oh my God, I can’t imagine how expensive that would be. So these two men revolutionized the world of perfume forever.

Annie: So this is prêt-à-porter but for perfume.

Elyse: For perfume, exactly. And this is the neighborhood, because this is of course where a lot of the aristocracy and the middle class people lived. So all through the 1700s, perfume is more and more important, and it’s a huge economy because it’s now open to the middle classes. But we get to the revolution. Uh-oh.

Annie: Yeah, they had other fish to fry.

Elyse: They hated perfume.

Annie: Really?

Elyse: Oh, it’s weird.

Annie: Well, because it was a sign of wealth.

Elyse: It was sign of wealth. It was a sign of the aristocracy. So, would you believe this? But what happened was that they created a law, and the law was… I’m trying to find it, I had it somewhere, I can’t find it. Oh yes, here it is. The Loi Chapelier.

Annie: Okay.

Elyse: And this is a law that meant that the corporations of perfume makers had to stop.

Annie: All right.

Elyse: Literally. They shut down all the perfume makers in Grasse and in Paris. They literally forbid them to make perfume anymore.

Annie: Right. So it’s leveling by the, you know, the lowest common denominator is what they were looking for here.

Elyse: It’s not good. It’s not good.

Annie: It’s not good.

Elyse: It’s not good.

[00:44:33] Napoleon and the Return of Perfume

Elyse: Well, you know, like with lots of other things, repression is not something that lasts very long, and it didn’t take more than a few years and the advent of a man named Napoleon Bonaparte…

Annie: Aha!

Elyse: … for this to change. Because Napoleon was someone who used eau de cologne and perfume every day of his life.

Annie: Yeah, see, that’s the image of the well-put-together guy…

Elyse: Yeah.

Annie: … that probably subsides.

Elyse: So he said, “No, no, no, no,” and he revoked this law that had been put into place and allowed the perfume makers to create their own corporation again. Of course, it was not quite the same since this is already at the beginning of the 1800s, and after the Middle Ages and all of this. It is said that he personally consumed 120 liters of Eau de Cologne a month.

Annie: Oh-ho-ho-ho.

Elyse: He drank it.

Annie: No!

Elyse: He diluted it and drank it. He soaked everything. He took baths every day, and he soaked himself in Eau de Cologne. He was such a fan of this kind of stuff that everywhere he went, everybody was supposed to be sprinkled with Eau de Cologne and with perfume. So, we can thank Napoleon for putting perfume back into France.

Annie: I wonder if he perfumed his horses, because he also liked horses.

Elyse: Probably.

Annie: The poor horses.

Elyse: And Josephine Bonaparte used a perfume with vanilla because she came from the Antilles. She came from the French Antilles. She came from Martinique, I believe, right? So she used a special perfume that had vanilla.

Elyse: So we’re back after this little hiatus because of the revolution into, “Ooh, perfume is cool.”

Annie: Okay. So at least it was a short hiatus.

Elyse: It was very short. And that’s Napoleon. Okay, so unfortunately for poor Napoleon, you know, he apparently, when he was sent to, which is the island he was sent to second? I can’t remember because he was sent to Elba and then he was sent to anoth- I can’t remember which is the first one and which was the second one. But he apparently wanted to have a perfume maker be sent with him, and they said, “No. We’re sorry.”

Annie: I don’t remember the name of it, but that was the one in the middle of the Atlantic, right?

Elyse: Yeah, yeah.

[00:46:45] The Rise of Guerlain and Synthetic Perfumes

Elyse: However, keeping up with the Joneses, we have a little bit later on in the 1820s, we have a family of perfume makers named Guerlain.

Annie: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Elyse: Yeah, yeah. And they create lots of perfumes. They open up their big boutique and they become the official perfumers for Napoleon III…

Annie: Right.

Elyse: … and his wife, Eugenie.

Annie: Okay.

Elyse: And for her, they created a perfume called Eau de l’Impératrice.

Annie: Oh-ho!

Elyse: And it was all the rage.

Annie: Well, of course.

Elyse: And this is in 1853. Now the Guerlain family has been making perfume since the very beginning of the 19th century. And of course, they still, you know, it’s one of the biggest perfume makers in the world still. I happen to love their perfumes. I don’t know what there is special about them, but I just love them.

Annie: Yeah, you like them, yeah. Do they have a museum?

Annie: I don’t think so, no. Molinard has a museum in Grasse. So the Molinard, of course, there’s a Fragonard museum. And we didn’t say this, but the one in Paris is very nice. You know, if you have a chance, stop in. It’s interesting.

Elyse: It’s really fascinating.

Annie: Yeah. It’s well done, it’s well done.

[00:48:00] The Introduction of Synthetic Fragrances

Elyse: It really is. And then what happens is that the son and the grandson of Guerlain, as they move towards the end of the 19th century, become interested in a new technique that enables the creation of synthetic aromas and fragrances.

Annie: Ah, yeah, yeah.

Elyse: And this changes everything. Literally changes everything. In 1889 there is a perfume that is created called Jicky.

Annie: Okay, never heard of him.

Elyse: It’s very, very famous because it was the very first perfume ever that combined natural and synthetic essences.

Annie: Okay.

Elyse: And from this point on, so this is the, okay, this is 1889. From this point on, the world of perfume changes because it becomes industrial. Even though it’s still wonderful in terms of the perfumes, the fragrances and everything, the ability to create perfumes.

Elyse: And I was reading about this and it says that there are certain flowers, for instance, doesn’t matter what you do to them, you can crush them, you can boil them, you can whatever, you won’t be able to get the fragrance out of it that, well, that you can sniff when you’re smelling the flower.

Elyse: And so there were chemists who were geniuses, and I don’t know exactly who these people were, but they were able to figure out how to reproduce these fragrances that, in fact, resemble these flowers and these plants synthetically.

Annie: It’s true that in nature, you sometimes smell flowers that have a very subtle, you know, and even if you crush the leaves on your fingers or whatever, it smells different. I mean, it’s really interesting. The whole world of perfume is very subtle, I think.

Elyse: It’s very subtle. And a real, a famous perfume, I mean, it doesn’t matter which one you name, there’s 50 or 80 things in it. There’s not one thing, I mean, this is not just squeezing a couple of grains of lavender, you know, that kind of thing. But, this is fascinating. So the grandson of Guerlain, the family Guerlain is incredible in the history of all of this in France particularly. The grandson, in 1904, created the very first perfume for men, that is since the Middle Ages when perfume was for everybody, using only synthetic essences, and showed that it was possible to make perfume without having to use anything other than synthetic essences.

[00:50:24] Perfume in 20th Century

Elyse: And, so this opened up a whole world of things.

Elyse: This takes us to the 20th century, and this is incredible. So perfume is still associated heavily with France, and it is still a world of invention of perfume, but now between the Guerlain family and a man named Francois Coty, and I remember when I was a child that there were ads in United States for products, cosmetics that were Coty, C-O-T-Y.

Elyse: So, it turns out that there’s this man named Francois Coty who was an independent perfume maker, and he was the ultimate great businessman, because not only did he create a synthetic perfume called Le Chypre in 1917, but he said and he decided that you needed to make derivative products as well, powder, cosmetics, boxes, and he was the first person to decide that it was important to make a bottle.

Elyse: I was thinking about that when you were talking about how you remember the shape of the bottle of the perfume that you wore, because he was the one that created the idea that each perfume had to be identified with a specific design of a bottle.

Annie: Yeah, that’s the… Yeah, yeah.

Elyse: And that is, of course, exactly what we have.

Annie: That’s genius.

Elyse: That’s genius. The only other person that is really important at the beginning of the 20th century is a man who was a couturier, he made clothes, named Paul Poiret, who I knew about as a designer actually. And he was the first person to decide to associate a perfume with high-end clothing.

Annie: Uh-huh.

Elyse: And that was in 1911. So this is just at the very beginning of the 20th century. Between the two of them, they revolutionized the world of perfume.

[00:52:15] Coco Chanel and Chanel No5

Elyse: And then the next person to come along, only a few years later, is Coco Chanel.

Annie: Right.

Elyse: And in 1921… Now, she was a woman who was extremely interesting. We really should do a podcast about her. She was a rebellious woman. She was an independent woman. She was a woman that was not easy, I’m sure, in any sense of the term, but she was a genius as well.

Elyse: So, she decided, having learned about this guy, Poiret, who was doing clothing and perfume, that she was going to have her first big fashion show on her own, and this is in 1921.

Elyse: And she asked a perfumer. Now a lot of what has happened since then, and this, of course, existed before, but there were two or three places in the South of France, near Grasse, where you have people who are making perfumes on order for other companies. And so she goes to one of them, I don’t have his name here, butthey do know who the person was who created it.

Annie: Sure.

Elyse: And she said, “Make me a perfume that is a perfume for women that smells like a woman.”

Annie: Hmm.

Elyse: And it was apparently the fifth version that she liked, which is why it came to be called Chanel Number Five.

Annie: There you go.

Elyse: In 1921. Isn’t this fun? I love all of this, yeah.

[00:53:34] Christian Dior and the Perfume for the “New Women”

Elyse: And the next person to come along to revolutionize things is Christian Dior in 1947. We’re talking about just after the war when they need something to make people happy again, basically. I mean, this is the reality of what was going on. And he decided that he was going to ask for a perfume to be made that would be the perfume for the new woman.

Annie: Uh-huh.

Elyse: And so he went to a perfume maker and he asked for that, and that is the perfume Miss Dior, and it was introduced at the same time, on the same day with the models who took his first independent showroom collection out.

Annie: Right, the runway.

Elyse: The Runway and the collection.

[00:54:18] The Golden Age of French Perfume

Elyse: And so Chanel and Dior basically revolutionized the world of perfume forever and ever in the 20th century.

Annie: Interesting.

Elyse: So, the glory and the… the golden age of French perfume basically, really goes up to the end of the 20th century.

Elyse: Now, the difference is that we have so many different companies, from other places in the world making perfume, and making clothes, and associating clothes and perfume, but these are the people who really revolutionized it for everybody, and these are the perfumes that, of course, are still the ones that sell the most in the world.

Annie: Right, because if you want to give a gift, you get one that is famous, you know, that you’ve heard of, that everybody’s heard of.

Elyse: I mean, you know, there are others. There’s Lanvin, there are, you know, all these others. But let’s face it, Chanel, Dior, Guerlain, two or three others, the only other one outside of this group is Kenzo that I think of, you know, because I know he’s made a lot of perfumes, but we still associate them, and notice these are associated with people who do clothing, do haute couture, and do fashion. And they are conscious, and they were conscious even in the 20th century. Chanel was an astute businesswoman among other things, and she said one of the reasons for creating the perfume is because “I will make a lot more money selling the perfume than I will ever selling my haute couture.”

Annie: Ah, yeah, that… Well, that’s probably true. It’s cheaper.

Elyse: When you think about it, it’s a lot easier to get a bottle of perfume that’s marked Lanvin, Patou, Givenchy, Lacroix, any of these others than to go out and get a first edition dress.

Annie: Definitely.

Elyse: So, basically the history of perfume has come down through all these centuries to be associated with France and with innovation, which is what I thought is also interesting. It’s not just that it’s in France, it’s that each step of the way it was a French person that in- created a new concept. And of course now, it’s a multi-multi-billion dollar industry everywhere in the world, you know?

[00:56:17] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Annie: What an interesting conversation. I’m surprised. But we have to stop because you’ve been talk… like, you’ve talked a lot.

Elyse: I’ve talked a lot. I know. I know I did, but it was like this was so much fun. You can’t even imagine. I learned so many things. And if you want to know more about the different essences and things, write to us and I’ll add this as a little side, little note in a Facebook page, you know?

Annie: Yeah, yeah, if you have more put it on your Patreon page as well.

Elyse: Oh, God I just thought about so many things like, of course, you know, what kind of perfume do you like? I want to know. Tell us, please, what kind of perfume do you like?

Annie: I would love to know as well.

Elyse: And the great thing is perfume keeps forever.

Annie: Yes.

Elyse: If you have a bottle, you know, things go bad, but perfumes don’t seem to.

Annie: Pull it out and try it again.

Elyse: … and try it again.

Annie: Merci beaucoup, Elyse.

Elyse: De rien.

Annie: Au revoir.

Elyse: Au revoir.

 

Annie: The Join Us in France travel podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent, and Copyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance. It is released under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives license.

 

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Category: French Culture