Nestled between the Mediterranean and the French Alps, Grasse in France is known as the town of a thousand scents and has been the perfume capital of the world for three centuries. Its surrounding hills, filled with the most, colourful and fragrant flowers, are hand-picked each year and then turned into the most exquisite perfumes like Dior and Channel.

Grasse, on the French Riviera, is the fragrance capital of France and can be an olfactory odyssey for perfume enthusiasts. Even though the town is hailed as a haven for fragrances, it used to actually be covered with the stench of foul smell, instead. Before the 17^th century, Grasse was well known for its leather production and due to its numerous tanneries, Grasse always reeked of dead animals and lye.

To mask the foul odours from the tanneries, a local tanner, Galimard invented scented gloves and presented it to the Queen Catherine de Médici. The Italian-origin queen loved it and soon the gloves became popular at the French Royal Court and afterwards in the upper class.

With rising orders for gloves and as taxes on the hides increased, tanners switched to full-time perfume-making. Gradually they completely forgot about the leather and instead concentrated on production of perfumes. The hillside springs they once channeled to clean animal hides were instead used to distill perfume and water the fields of flowers. It didn’t take long before Grasse became one of major perfume producers of the world.

Today, Grasse is the hub for the fragrance makers and its perfume industry employs a workforce of several thousand. It is also a proud city that produces one third of the country’s aroma for both perfumes and food. From the production of natural raw materials to extracting and manufacturing, all the knowledge and technology is available here.

Many big and small  perfume companies source their ingredients from Grasse. Some very famous names like Chanel still cultivate the Mai de Rose of Grasse that has been making the inimitable style of its Chanel No 5 fragrance for almost a century. The brand even has its own fields of roses and jasmine in Grasse, which are used exclusively for their own production of extract.

Another big name, Dior has a magnificent laboratory – Les Fontaines Parfumées in the town, which is open in autumn every year to the public during the LVMH Group Special Days.

While in Grasse, one should definitely visit the famous Musée International de la Parfumerie or International Museum of Perfumery, a glassy modern makeover of an 18^th century building which is crammed with perfume-making paraphernalia, olfactive stations, essence fountains and vapour trails that tells the story of distillation, absorption and supercritical carbon dioxide volatile solvents, all involved in the process of perfume making.

Grasse is also home to three perfume houses – Fragonard, Molinard, and the oldest one, Galimard that dates back to 1747. These perfume houses, unlike the famous giant companies, have been able to maintain a centuries-old traditional cultivation to extract perfumes. These fantastic places give one a chance to learn about how perfume is made and the history of this glorious industry.

Every year, 27-tonnes of Jasmine are still harvested from the surrounding countryside and used by the local ‘fumeries’. There is also a weekly market in the Genoa-inspired square, a rose festival in May and a jasmine festival in August.

Visitors to Grasse who want to try their hands at creating their own unique perfumes can also do so, since every factory here have a workshop that allows people to do so.