grasse, the riviera, and a shift in perspective

i recently spent some time in the south of france. nice, cannes, monaco, and grasse.

i went in excited, knowing i’d enjoy it. i didn’t expect it to change how i look at perfume.

but somewhere between smelling orange blossom on the street, walking through grasse, and stepping into a few of those boutiques, something clicked. not in a dramatic way, more like understanding where the value actually sits, and where it doesn’t.

cannes and nature's perfume

walking down the croisette in cannes, there were stretches of the street lined with orange trees in bloom. i could smell it immediately. orange blossom, neroli, just in the air. not a perfume version, not something reconstructed, just the real thing.

what struck me was how soft it actually is. slightly sweet, a bit green, not as loud or sharp as i expected. it doesn’t jump out, but it stays.

it also made me realize pretty quickly that many fragrances that claim “orange blossom” don’t really smell this delicate, at least not to me.

i started thinking ahead. if this is what cannes smells like, what does grasse smell like in may, when rose centifolia is in season?

that’s probably a completely different experience. warmer, fuller, heavier in the air.

it made me start thinking about materials differently, not just as notes in a formula, but as something that exists in a place, at a specific moment.

grasse is less romantic than expected

grasse is often presented as the heart of perfumery, which is true, but not in the way i imagined.

what stood out to me had very little to do with finished perfumes and everything to do with raw materials.

you start hearing about yield, and that changes things quickly. it takes thousands of kilos of rose petals to produce a small amount of absolute. the same goes for jasmine. massive volumes of raw material for something that ends up being used in tiny percentages.

it puts things into perspective. when you see a bottle with rose or iris in it, you’re not just smelling a “note.” you’re smelling something that required a huge amount of raw material, time, and effort to extract. suddenly, pricing starts to make more sense, at least for certain natural materials.

at the same time, you realize why so much of perfumery relies on reconstruction. you can’t build everything with naturals alone, not at scale and not consistently (since harvests will differ from year to year). everything is shaped by constraint.

it does take some of the romance out of it. but for me, it replaced it with something more interesting. once you understand the constraints, you start appreciating the decisions. that’s really where the craft is.

the fragonard workshop

i took a workshop at fragonard, a historic french fragrance house, and built an eau de cologne centered around verbena. fresh, green, slightly citrus, clean and easy to wear.

the workshop itself was simple: top, heart, base. mix, smell, adjust. i already knew it wouldn’t be advanced, and it wasn’t, but it still had value.

it made me pay attention to how quickly a formula shifts, how certain materials take over, and how hard it is to keep something balanced, even with a simple structure and limited materials. it reinforced something i already knew. the basics are not that basic.

structure, instinct, and what actually makes something interesting

one thing that really shifted for me during the trip was experiencing materials in three different ways: on their own, inside a composition, and in nature. smelling orange blossom on a blotter is one thing, smelling it in a finished perfume is another, but walking down a street in cannes puts everything into perspective. it’s softer, less defined, less controlled.

once you start looking at materials this way, you also start seeing the constraints behind them. that’s when it clicks. perfumery isn’t about perfectly recreating nature, it’s about interpreting it.

at the same time, i met independent perfumers who are just making things. some are very structured, others clearly aren’t. some of what i smelled was polished, some of it was rough around the edges. the ones that stayed with me weren’t always the most technically correct, they were the ones that felt intentional.

structure still matters. without it, things fall apart quickly. but the most interesting fragrances aren’t always the most technically correct. they’re the ones that feel intentional.

boutiques & photorealism

in cannes and saint-tropez, i walked into a lot of high-end perfume boutiques, places like matiere premiere and houbigant.

i was smelling perfumes that were clearly trying to recreate what i had just experienced outside. orange blossom, neroli, that same floral brightness from the trees, but interpreted in a bottle. some of them got close. others didn’t.

there were a few where i sprayed, got hit with what felt like a dense wall of rose. the kind of scent that makes you pause, try to stay composed, and casually put the bottle back like nothing happened.

a week ago, i would have just written it off and moved on. this time, i didn’t. i found myself being curious instead. not “do i like this?” but “how did they build this?” how do you take something that exists in nature and turn it into something this dense? what choices get you there? where does it stop feeling real?

some of them were convincing. others missed completely. but that almost didn’t matter. i walked out with a different kind of appreciation. i still wouldn’t wear most of them, but i don’t dismiss them the same way anymore.

sanremo, and a different kind of creativity

after all of that, sanremo felt like a reset. i also spent some time in sanremo, “la città dei fiori.” it felt different from everything i had just seen in france, less structured, less technical, and more expressive.

i walked into a few shops and came across fragrances that didn’t feel like they were trying to recreate something specific from nature. they felt more interpretative. i remember one in particular built around an ebony note, not realistic in a literal sense, but convincing in how it came together. it was dark, textured, almost abstract.

after grasse, the workshops, and all the conversations around materials and constraints, it would have been easy to fall into a very rigid way of thinking. sanremo pulled me back out of that.

it reminded me that perfumery isn’t just about getting things right. it’s also about taking liberties, pushing things in a direction, and trusting that it works. structure matters, but if you rely on it too much, everything starts to feel predictable. sometimes the most interesting fragrances are the ones that aren’t trying to be accurate, but intentional.

prestige, pricing, and what's in the bottle

the other thing this trip confirmed for me is how much pricing in this space is driven by brand and perception. you walk into these boutiques and everything is positioned the same way: heritage, exclusivity, craftsmanship. the language is consistent, and the pricing follows.

a lot of them also push “extrait” or “elixir” versions, which usually just means higher concentration, and in some cases, very high. you spray once and it’s on you, it’s on your clothes, and it’s not going anywhere. days, sometimes longer. i’m pretty sure some of these would survive a washing machine. possibly bleach.

i understand where that comes from. people want their fragrance to last. longevity has become a proxy for value. if it’s still there at the end of the day, it feels like you got your money’s worth.

but at some point, that gets pushed too far. it stops being about how something evolves, and more about how long it sticks.

personally, i don’t want to layer a new fragrance on top of whatever is still stuck in my clothes from a previous day. if i like something lighter, i’d rather just reapply at some point during the day. that feels more intentional.

but that’s just one part of it. concentration is how it shows up in the product. the bigger story sits behind it.

some of the larger brands don’t just use rare or expensive materials, they control access to them. through long-term relationships with growers, they secure specific harvests. on the synthetic side, certain aroma chemicals are kept as “captives,” used internally or reserved for select clients.

what’s interesting is that behind most of the perfumes you come across, regardless of the brand on the bottle, you’ll often find the same few companies. houses like givaudan, iff, and firmenich. they supply the materials, develop the formulas, and even train the perfumers through their own schools.

so when something feels “exclusive,” part of that is the composition. part of it is simply access.

this is something i’ve felt directly as well. with the unrest in haiti, sourcing haitian vetiver has become less predictable. that kind of uncertainty makes it hard to commit to a launch, and it’s pushed back the release of something like ayiti chérie.

for independent perfumers, a lot of those materials are out of reach. they have to approach things differently, rebuilding, interpreting, getting close without having access to the original. in that context, creativity isn’t just a choice, it’s a constraint.

at the same time, i walked into smaller shops and smelled perfumes that were just better. more interesting, more creative, sometimes better blended, sometimes just more original, and not priced the same way.

that contrast was hard to ignore. it made me more selective, less impressed by labels, and more focused on what i’m actually smelling, how it evolves, and whether i even want to keep smelling it hours later.

longevity of a perfume isn’t the only thing that matters.

where that leaves me

this trip didn’t teach me how to make perfume. it clarified how i want to approach it. i care about materials. i care about structure. but i also care about instinct, creativity, and not overcomplicating things. i care about being honest about where i want to play.

what this trip made clear is that perfume is a big business. raw material growers, suppliers, large brands that control supply chains and access to certain materials. and then there are independent creators, working with what’s available, trying to differentiate through formulation, interpretation, or the story behind it. that’s where i sit. not trying to compete on scale or exclusivity, but focusing on what i can control, the composition, the balance, and the intent behind it.

ciccio isn’t trying to compete with legacy houses on prestige. it’s made in montreal, by me, fairly priced, and focused on quality materials and compositions that feel right. but more than that, it’s rooted in something else, memory, culture, and the idea that a scent can carry with it a place, or a moment, or a feeling. that’s where things like ayiti chérie or eau de lune come from, not just a formula or a concentration, but a reference point.

in the end, i want to build something that has a bit more to it. something you don’t just smell, but feel. something with soul.