Preface Pickers around the world.
Perfume, for us, is both familiar and mysterious. It always evokes parts of our olfactory memories and childhood memories, intense and distant. No one is exempt. People will never forget the smell of lilacs, a path full of gorse, and the smell of their loved ones. As a child, I remember the discoveries I found in the woods. In the month, under the great oak trees of the Rambouillet forest in France, the bushes are covered with lily of the valley, and the air is filled with fragrance. I was amazed by the scent, as I was reminded of my mother, who used to use Dior Rhyme, a luxurious fragrance that pays homage to the white bell-shaped flowers. As soon as the bottle is opened, the intimate familiarity of the scent evokes memories, and this evocative power makes it feel mysterious. Perfume first speaks to us about ourselves, which is reassuring; Then tell us about itself, which is fascinating.
Here are the fruits, the flowers, the leaves and the branches", Verlaine's well-known verse beautifully elicited the natural raw materials of many perfumes. I will continue this list: roots, bark, wood, lichens, seeds, buds, berries, balsam, resins, the ever-changing world of plants is a treasure trove of essential oils and balsams——— it is they that create the perfume industry. Before the advent of scent molecular chemistry in the 19th century, natural substances were the only raw materials for perfumes for three thousand years. Today, perfumes are luxury, but these scents are still a favorite of perfumers. They naturally have a rich and deep layering, and some scents are perfumes on their own.
Before evaporating from ours, perfume takes a moment to tell the story of its many ingredients, the chemical ones tell the story of the laboratory, and the natural ingredients tell the story of flowers, fragrances or resins. After distillation or extraction, these plants become essential oils, net oils, or balms, which, together with synthetic molecules, become the ingredients of perfumes. They offer a rich olfactory experience and become an integral part of a true fragrance, which is why the branding of perfumes does not forget to mention these natural ingredients. Essential oils have their own story. They are the result of the meeting of territory, landscape, land and climate, the product of people who have taken root somewhere or who have passed by. In the past and present, the perfume industry has demanded harvesters of aromatic woods for cedar, agarwood or sandalwood; Pickers of wild plants are also needed to collect juniper berries, cistus branches, or tonka beans; Fat collectors are required to collect frankincense, benzoin, or Peruvian balsam; Cultivators who need flowers, leaves, and roots to grow roses, jasmine, vetiver, and patchouli; Juicers are needed to squeeze bergamot and lemon; transporters and merchants, descendants of caravans in the Arabian desert and sailors who set sail in the Indian and Mediterranean oceans, were needed; Finally, there are the distillers who make rose water, who have been essential oil refiners since the 17th century and extractors and chemists in modern times. Scattered all over the world, they pick in the desert and in the forests, plough with hoes and tractors, work in seclusion at first, then gradually become transparent, they don't know what will become of their products, and they even receive visits from master perfumers and the most prestigious perfume brands in the fields.
These rich and diverse people and events unconsciously form a grand historical community, like a tapestry, and the inextricable threads on it guide lavender, roses and frankincense to us. Mysterious journeys, changing origins, traditions that have been preserved, migrated, lost and rediscovered, perfumers have nurtured humanity's unwavering fascination with the scents of the natural world. When a Malagasy farmer pollinates a flower on a vanilla vine, a magical act is happening, repeating it thousands of times before the pod develops, matures, and then picks and extracts it into the rich aroma of a small bottle of vanilla oil.
This book chronicles my thirty years of wandering to the source of perfumery. I'm not a chemist or a botanist, but after completing my studies in management, I followed my long-standing interest in trees and plants and got into the perfume industry. I started this journey out of interest and curiosity, and now it has become a passion, and for thirty years I have been working on **, finding, buying perfumes, and sometimes making dozens of essential oils myself. In the rose garden or patchouli garden, in the forests of Venezuela or in the villages of Laos, the people of perfume country lead me to the door of scent. They taught me to listen to the stories told by essential oils and extracts, and I became what I am now known as a "perfumer".
In a company specializing in perfumes and fragrances, I am responsible for perfumers** essential oils or extracts from more than 150 natural raw materials from more than 50 countries. My role is to ensure their quantity and quality, and to find new ingredients to enrich the perfumer's "perfume pal". In the small bottles from the flower field to the perfume shop, I am the first link in this production chain. Perfume brands are the ultimate players in this story, and in order to launch new products, they bring to compete with perfumers from different perfume manufacturing companies, who have a long reputation for their noses, who create complex and secret formulas, which are the "original solution" for the perfume. Perfumers are gifted and have strong personalities, they are always creating new scents for top brands, and I put my experience at their service.
This is how my journey began while working in a family business located in the forests of the Landes department of France, where I was involved in setting up distillation and extraction plants in countries where aromatic plants are grown. This company was a pioneer in the century, and it chose to build a factory at the source of perfume to produce natural balms. Spain, Morocco, Bulgaria, Turkey or Madagascar, everywhere you need to do is set up instruments, harvest, grow, produce. I discovered places full of stories and ancient crafts that are facing disappearance, and I also developed a deep connection with people.
For ten years I have been a buyer for a Swiss family-owned company, one of the most important companies in the international perfume and fragrance manufacturing industry. In order to provide perfumers with the richest possible natural materials, I have gradually woven a network of partnerships with producers around the world, for which I have reached out to people in the perfume industry who work in a variety of ways. My passion for aroma was formed during these meetings.
Our products are sourced from all over the world, and as a result, buyers are confronted with a wide variety of social, economic and political issues. I have worked with many groups that are often remote, at risk of hurricanes or droughts, and sometimes abandoned by their home countries**. I realized early on the role and responsibility of our profession in the fate and future of these people. This has always been the driving force and guidance for my career.
The book was born during a recent trip in front of an Arabian frankincense tree in the mountains of Somaliland. The rubber picker who accompanied me had just cut the trunk of the tree when small milky white droplets began to pour out. The scent that had just come out was intoxicating, and the breeze at that moment made me feel like I was witnessing the continuation of an extraordinary history, the history of collecting natural aromas, uninterrupted for three thousand years. Breathing in the smell of fresh resin, I was transported back many years ago, to my first memories of the Andalusian cistus garden when I first started my career. It dawned on me that, from cistus to frankincense, I had the privilege of meeting people who had inherited the 3,000-year-old history of the perfume industry in thirty years. What I want to write becomes clear: over time, the changes in the raw materials of perfumes, the life of perfumers, their knowledge and traditions, the beauty of the places where they make their perfumes, and their fragile future. Each part of this story is different and unique, but it has one thing in common: the fruits of human labor condensed in heart-warming perfumes. This is best illustrated by what I saw in the Bulgarian Rose Valley: to produce kilograms of rose essential oil, 1 million flowers need to be picked by hand.
This book pays tribute to perfumers from all over the world.