A Multi-billion dollar industry - not to be sniffed at
Today’s perfume industry is very profitable. It's predicted that the US perfume market alone will exceed sales of 7 billion dollars in by 2020. Multinationals now control the major perfume houses. Paris-based “L’Oreal” , founded in 1907 by chemist Eugene Schueler who invented the world’s first synthetic hair dye, has a portfolio of twenty-one leading brands including “Lancome“,” “Giorgio Armani”( acquired in 1980 and including “Mania”, “Acqua di Gio” and Armani Pour Homme“), “Ralph Lauren”, “Cacharel” and “Lancome” (bought in 1964) perfumes and fragrances.
Someone once worked out that more than eighty-five of its products are bought every second - every day. Which is a stat not to be sniffed at.
Along the Boulevard Victor Hugo in the “Molinard” (depuis 1849) workshop, I achieved my lifelong ambition of creating my
own fragrance. A smell that is uniquely me.
One day soon I hope to create a whole range of smells. That will turn heads.
I learned the art of alchemy and seduction and was allowed to indulge in my mad professor fantasy in order to create my own toilet water. Using pipettes, I concocted my own personalized scent and received a “diploma l’eleve”, certifying that I had attended the “tarinology” workshop and graduated as a “trainee nose” from one of Grasse’s highly-respected perfume schools.
I am now qualified to boast that I know what it takes to smell well.
I haven’t named my scent yet. But I have dedicated it to Giorgio Armani who once said
“For those who live with style and elegance, dressing is a ritual. The final act in that ritual is fragrance.”
Grasse is especially known for its fragrant May rose, the pale pink flower that blooms in May, and jasmine. Both flowers are at the heart of more than a few famous fragrances, including Chanel’s star, No. 5.