Last September we had a family holiday in the South of France, and on that trip, we booked a “make your own perfume” workshop with Galimard in Grasse.
As the Galimard perfume house has two buildings very close to each other, we mistakenly showed up at the Galimard Perfume Factory & Museum first, which is the more obviously signposted of the two.
We were kindly informed of our mistake but since we had arrive in plenty of time before the start of our workshop (held in the other building 5 minutes away) we were offered a quick free tour of the factory/museum (all the tours are free and offered in several languages).
Once past the velvet rope (which feels very VIP), you’re immediately greeted by a whole slew of copper equipment. The process of perfume making starts here; with the raw material.
There are a few different ways of extracting essential oils from flowers; enfleurage, maceration, steam distillation and solvent extraction. While Galimard did have a very helpful diagram on their wall, I didn’t capture it, instead here’s a link to someone that did.
An adept summary of the history of perfume and its different production processes can be found on How Products Are Made here. Have a quick read before continuing as I found it super informative and helpful!
Essentially, after the introduction of perfumes to Europe (which had been till then an Oriental art) through 13th century Crusaders; France (from the 14th century onwards), namely Grasse, quickly became the epicentre of perfume production for the continent. And to this day, the country remains a powerhouse in the industry.
In the above photo you can see the many stacks of wooden frames which are part of the enfleurage process. This procedure developed in the South of France in the 18th century, hence the name, still remains a pride and joy. Although a less efficient extraction method than the steam distillation process (the most common one), this more traditional method produces the highly sought after absolute (also produced by the solvent extraction process) which is a higher quality and more concentrated oily substance than essential oils.
All these copper stills (part of the steam distillations process) and vacuum concentrators (used in the enfleurage, maceration and solvent extraction process) were quite a sight to see. The copper sadly being replaced in the modern day by industrial grade stainless steel of course.
Speaking of out with the old and in with the new, once past the factory/museum part of the building (but still part of the tour) you get a glimpse of the modern-day laboratories.
After all, noses (graduating from being an apprentice for a minimum of 6 years) have to have a good understanding of chemistry as well as being un artiste! The science of perfume is an art. ;)
Finally, the pièce de résistance of the tour; the organ. An orchestra of notes and accords from which a nose will make his symphony. And if you’ve opted for the Galimard Perfume Workshop too, you can have your very own organ to play with without the 6 years of training (granted, results may vary lol)!
That’s it! The end of the tour has the mandatory goodie shop which you can see in my next post Galimard Perfume Shops, see you there! :)
For a better visual idea of the perfume making process I highly recommend the movie Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Minus the dead bodies #spoiler it’s a good representation of this art form.
Been to any good factories or museums lately? Although not a chocolate factory #Heaven #goals it was just as fun and not as calorific! Although now I’ve made myself want to rewatch Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory (the original one).
But don’t worry, there is still plenty of Galimard content to come…
xxxemma