Fragonard perfumes are a French perfume company with a long history dating back to before World War I. Eugene Fuchs launched a perfume company with a mission to sell perfumes to the tourists who were just discovering the beautiful French Riviera area. Its name came from the French painter, Fragonard, who was born in Grasse.
The Fragonard family has run this French perfume company through three generations, as they continue to modernize some of the methods of perfume-making without sacrificing quality. The family has collected a number of rare, antique perfume pieces that are in display for the public. I went through this museum on a Sniffapalooza trip to Grasse, and it is really unique. They have a huge display of antique perfume bottles that span decades, as well as old equipment that was used to make perfume centuries ago. It’s a fascinating museum and shouldn’t be missed. The amount of work that went into the manual distillation of products, using steam to capture the essential oils is astounding. The distillation method has been used back as far as you can see, but it was the Arabic perfumers that perfected the technique around the 8th century.
Agnes and Francoise head up the Fragonard perfume company, which is still located in Grasse.
Fragonard has a number of perfumes that are just beautiful and are best-sellers. Billet Doux is one of their historic perfumes that have been re-created, with notes of sweet William carnation, peony, frangipani, bergamot, lemon, mandarin, cedar and vanilla. Caresse is also re-created from their historic perfumes, with notes of rose, jasmine, orange blossom, mandarin, peach and apricot.
Fragonard has also branched out into soaps, cosmetics, home fragrances. Stepping into their store is really a lovely experience. Their cosmetics include bath products, shower gels, hand cream, makeup remove, face creams and body lotions.