During the Renaissance, when the trade in Grasse was leather, workers started scenting gloves to disguise the smell left by the tanning process. Perfumed gloves became fashionable among the French nobility and, in 1614, the city’s glove makers and perfumers were formally recognised as a trade guild. As fashions changed and the leather industry declined, perfume became increasingly important in its own right.
Grasse was well suited to the new industry. Flowers and aromatic plants could be grown in the surrounding countryside, while the knowledge required to extract, blend and preserve their fragrances passed between generations. By the eighteenth century, perfume houses were becoming established in the town and Grasse’s attention had moved decisively from scented leather to fragrance itself.
From Aleppo to Marseille
While Grasse was developing its expertise in perfume, Marseille already had a long history of soapmaking. Aleppo soap, made from olive oil and laurel berry oil, had reached Europe through the Mediterranean trade routes and is widely regarded as the ancestor of Marseille soap. Marseille’s soapmakers adopted the same principle of cooking vegetable oils with an alkali in a cauldron, using the olive oil readily available in Provence but leaving out the laurel berry oil.
The first officially recorded soapmaker in Marseille dates from 1371, and the industry grew around the city’s port, which provided access to oils and other raw materials as well as the trade routes needed to sell the finished soap. By the seventeenth century, Marseille was already established as an important centre of soap production, with its manufacture formally regulated under Louis XIV in 1688.
These early Marseille soaps were not fragranced. Traditional Savon de Marseille was made as a practical soap for washing laundry, cleaning the home and personal washing, with its characteristic smell coming from the saponified oils rather than any added perfume.
The connection with Grasse came later, with the development of fragranced toilet soaps. Soapmakers now needed perfumes that could be successfully incorporated into a soap formulation, and the established fragrance houses of Grasse had the knowledge and experience to create them. This later relationship between the perfume industry of Grasse and the soapmakers of Marseille and Provence is why the two are now so frequently mentioned together.
Why does fragrance for soap require specialist knowledge?
Creating a fragrance for soap involves more than choosing a scent and adding it to the formulation. Some aromatic materials work well in soap, while others fade, change or are overwhelmed by the natural smell of the saponified oils. The perfumer has to understand the soap base and develop the fragrance so that the finished product smells as intended when it is made, stored and used with water.
Bleu Jaune is a particularly good example of how this relationship works. The company works with an independent perfumer in Grasse to design its fragrances, which are created exclusively for Bleu Jaune and only approved once the family is completely happy to put its name to them.
Bleu Jaune also makes a range of liquid soaps for French Soaps UK, using some of the familiar fragrances from its solid bars. Because a fragrance developed for a bar will not produce the same result in a liquid formulation, Bleu Jaune’s perfumer has to develop a separate version of each fragrance for the liquid soap.
Its Verbena soaps are a good example. The liquid soap and solid bar smell the same, but two completely different perfume compositions have been developed by the perfumer to achieve that result. What the customer recognises as one Bleu Jaune Verbena fragrance has been separately developed for each form of soap.
This is the sort of work for which Grasse became so important to French soapmakers. Its perfume industry does not simply produce attractive scents; its perfumers understand how to take an idea for a fragrance and make it work across different products and formulations.
What does “perfume from Grasse” mean?
A perfumer working in Grasse is rather like a jeweller working in Hatton Garden. You expect a certain level of expertise, training and credibility from someone working at the centre of their industry, surrounded by other specialists who understand every part of it.
This is why French soapmakers mention Grasse. It tells us that the fragrance has been developed by a perfumer within this established perfume industry, often exclusively for the soapmaker rather than simply chosen from a list of standard fragrances.
It does not mean that everything used to make the fragrance was grown in Grasse. The early perfume industry relied heavily on the flowers and aromatic plants cultivated around the town, but today its perfumers work with ingredients from across France and the rest of the world.
Is perfume from Grasse natural?
No. Perfume is a composition made by a perfumer, although essential oils and other ingredients of natural origin may be used within it.
Think about some of the fragrances we know well in French soap. There is no Fig essential oil, and Honey, Cotton Flower and Sea Breeze cannot be extracted from the things they are named after. A perfumer creates them by bringing together different fragrance notes until the finished perfume smells as it should.
The same applies to Rose, Lavender and Orange Blossom. An essential oil may be included, but it will be only one part of the perfume and combined with other ingredients to give the soap its finished fragrance.
Nor does using an essential oil automatically produce a better fragrance. Essential oils naturally contain fragrance allergens, including limonene and linalool, and may present more potential allergens than a perfume specifically developed without them. For some customers, particularly those sensitive to fragrance allergens, a carefully composed perfume may be the more suitable choice.
What “perfume from Grasse” often does mean is that the soapmaker is not using a standard, off-the-shelf fragrance that can be found in products from manufacturers around the world. Where the fragrance has been developed with a Grasse perfumer to the maker’s own brief, it is likely to be more rounded, more complete and particular to that maker.
This is certainly the case with Bleu Jaune. Its fragrances are created exclusively for the company by its independent perfumer in Grasse, with each one developed and adjusted until the family is happy to sign it off. They are recognisably Bleu Jaune fragrances rather than generic versions of Lavender, Verbena, Fig or Rose.
Does a good French soap fragrance have to come from Grasse?
No. Grasse has the greatest concentration of perfume expertise in France, but it is not the only place where very good fragrances are developed.
Fer à Cheval works with TechnicoFlor, a fragrance company in Marseille, to create the perfumes used across its fragranced soaps. It is a much smaller fragranced range than Bleu Jaune’s, but the perfumes are developed specifically for Fer à Cheval and the formulations in which they will be used.
TechnicoFlor has a particular focus on the quality and sourcing of its materials, using local ingredients where possible. Fer à Cheval’s fragranced soaps therefore have their own Marseille connection, with the soapmaker and fragrance company working in the same city.
Bleu Jaune works with its independent perfumer in Grasse, while Fer à Cheval works with TechnicoFlor in Marseille. Both have chosen fragrance specialists who understand their products and can produce something particular to them.
What about Traditional Savon de Marseille?
Traditional Savon de Marseille has no added perfume at all. Its smell comes from the oils used to make it and the cauldron process, which is why an olive oil cube has a very different natural soap smell from the pale vegetable oil version.
A fragranced soap can be made in Marseille, and Marseille soapmakers including Fer à Cheval produce fragranced ranges alongside their traditional soaps. They are still French soaps made by a Marseille savonnerie, but they are not Traditional Savon de Marseille.
Today, “Marseille soap” is used very broadly for the colourful fragranced bars sold throughout Provence, whether or not they have been made in Marseille. It is mainly through these soaps that Grasse has become associated with French soap, rather than through the traditional unfragranced soap for which Marseille originally became known.
So, why is Grasse associated with French soap?
Grasse is associated with French soap because, when soapmakers began adding fragrance to their bars, the leading French perfume industry was already established nearby. Its perfumers understood both the materials and the technical work needed to create a fragrance that would work properly in soap, and relationships developed between the soapmakers of Marseille and Provence and the perfume houses around Grasse.
Those relationships continue today. For makers such as Bleu Jaune, working with an independent Grasse perfumer means developing exclusive fragrances rather than choosing standard versions of familiar scents. It also means that a fragrance can be reworked for different formulations, as with the separate perfumes used to make its Verbena bar and liquid soap smell the same.
Grasse is not part of the original history of Traditional Savon de Marseille, which remains unfragranced, and it is not the only place in France where good soap fragrances are made. Fer à Cheval’s work with TechnicoFlor in Marseille is a very good example of that.
“Perfume from Grasse” represents a genuine relationship between a soapmaker and its perfumer, It has been developed within one of the world’s most established perfume communities, usually to a particular brief and often exclusively for that maker, which is why Grasse continues to be mentioned and why, in the right context, the name still carries real weight.