International Perfume Museum

The International Perfume Museum in Grasse, France, showcases the history and art of perfumery through extensive collections and interactive exhibits.

Planning your visit

Grasse has been the centre of European perfumery since the sixteenth century, and the reason is leather. The town was a tanning centre, and when perfumed gloves became fashionable at the French court, its tanners began scenting them — then found the fragrance business more profitable than the hides. The surrounding hills, with their jasmine, rose, tuberose and lavender, supplied the raw material.

The International Perfume Museum sets out that history across a building combining a restored eighteenth-century mansion with modern galleries. The collection covers 4,000 years — Egyptian unguent vessels, Greek and Roman perfume flasks, Renaissance pomanders, Marie Antoinette's travelling case — alongside the industrial story: distillation and enfleurage equipment, the chemistry of synthetic molecules that transformed the trade in the nineteenth century, and the labour of the flower harvest.

The olfactory sections are the point. Smelling the raw materials individually, then the compositions they build, teaches more in twenty minutes than reading about perfumery ever does.

The museum's garden at Mouans-Sartoux grows the flowers used in the industry. Allow two hours. Bookable options include excursions to Grasse with the museum included, some by electric Mehari through the hills. Current availability is listed below.