Grasse did not grow up around perfume, though. The perfume business grew out of the region's reeking tanning industry, which relied on the area's numerous springs and flocks of sheep to produce leather and leather goods. Grasse's glovers and perfumers used wild myrtle--which grew locally and in abundance--to powder their products and cut the strong smell of the leather. They also used ambergris, musk, and an assortment of aromatic plants native to the region to perfume gloves as the fashion changed.
       
       In 1614, King Louis XIII officially recognized the city's Guild of Perfumed Glove Makers, and in 1689 Louis XIV granted the guild the exclusive right to manufacture powder for the wigs that were then fashionable. But before the Industrial Revolution, in the mid-nineteenth century, perfume was only a cottage industry in Grasse. Farmer-perfumers hauled their stills into the fields, where they distilled their products on the spot.
       
       Today, more than two dozen companies in Grasse produce perfume and related products, including scented soap and food flavorings such as the extract used to make Greek ouzo. According to the International Perfume Museum, which is located in the heart of Grasse, the city provided 95 percent of the raw materials for the perfume industry until the 1950s.

       During a family visit to Grasse, we decided to visit Galimard, one of the largest and oldest perfumeries in the city. Galimard is second in size only to Fragonard and is bigger than another rival, Molinard. Competition between the companies is polite, fierce, and evident. Where there is a Fragonard billboard, Galimard and Molinard billboards cannot be far away. Signs touting tours of Galimard's perfumery are usually surrounded by others from its competitors.
       
       Jean-Pierre Roux, Galimard's general director, comments that flowers are not as plentiful in the region as they once were. Visitors to Grasse in search of great fields of blooms will be disappointed. For the most part, he explains, the flowers are grown in small family plots. Admittedly the kinds in bloom change according to the time of year, but we were indeed hard-pressed to find flowering fields beyond the violets of Tourette-sur-Loup and the lavender on Isle St. Honorat.
   

The Nose Knows

          While one might think of perfume as an expensive commodity, a closer look at the process helps to make its cost more understandable. One example is the extraction method, introduced in the mid-nineteenth century, which uses heated solvents that evaporate during the process.
       
       A pound of jasmine contains almost four thousand flowers. A worker typically picks five to seven pounds before sunrise (after which the jasmine blossom loses its scent). In the extraction process, more than twelve hundred pounds of jasmine petals are steeped in a volatile solvent in an extractor tank for about three and a half hours. This results in the production of slightly over two pounds of concrete, a solid, waxy mass that will be mixed with alcohol and churned in a batteuse (thrashing machine), filtered, and chilled to produce the absolute essence. The man-hours alone go far to explain the expense. Synthetic products, virtually indistinguishable from the natural ones, have helped to provide less-expensive scents.
       
       Not all of the natural materials used for perfumes are vegetable. Sometimes a floral scent can be considered too delicate or ephemeral. When that happens, the perfumier turns to earthier substances, including animal secretions or by-products. For example, the International Perfume Museum reports that Arp�ge, by Lanvin, contains ambergris, the waxy secretion discharged naturally (and found floating in the ocean) from the intestines of a sperm whale. So do the popular Bal Versailles and a number of scents from other companies.
       
       Historically, animals such as the musk deer were killed to obtain extracts, a process known as "killing the hen to get an egg." With time, however, economics and pragmatism led to extraction from live animals. In Ethiopia, for example, civet is harvested from caged civet cats every 5--7 days in a crude and painful procedure. Today, because of growing public concern for animal rights, Grasse perfumes have replaced at least 75 percent of the animal by-products with synthetic chemicals.
       
       Whatever their source, odors form a palette of fragrances that olfactory artists use to create a unique scent. Fragrances are arranged on a "perfume organ," with the scents ordered according to whether they are base, middle, or top notes. The perfume organ is an array of two thousand or so odors--not all of them pleasant--used to compose a harmonious scent. The professional who has the final word in the creation of any scent is known as le nez (the nose). This person must work according to an awareness of changing tastes, now more at the direction of the owners than of his own imagination.
       
       The nose must memorize thousands of individual scents and accurately recall and distinguish their nuances and subtleties. He must be able to mentally formulate how various scents interact with each other, in order to conceive of balanced aromas with a range of subtle components. The nose must also be able to deconstruct a scent at one sniff. As Jacques Maurel, the Galimard nez, dryly observed when I asked whether every perfumery had a nose: "Without a nose, there can be no perfumery."

        The profession is celebrated in Grasse's annual Concours des Nez (Nose Convention), which is sponsored by the Rotary Club. My friend Rogelle Furet's physician-brother, Tancrede Bonnici, is one of the organizers. For those who cannot make it to the South of France, a more accessible insight into the making of a nose (as well as an imaginative basis for committing a murder undetected) is Patrick Suskind's novel Das Perfum, which has been translated into English as Perfume: The Story of a Murder. At one point Suskind's hero, J.B. Grenouille, declares: "Who masters fragrances masters the heart of man."

       Le Nez for a Day

       Although I have known Jean-Pierre Roux casually for a number of years, it was through our friends, Guy and Rogelle Furet, that he and his wife, Chantal, agreed to meet us at Galimard's Studio des Fragrances on the Route de Pégomas in Vieille Grasse, the old section of the city known as the Perfume Capital of the World. There Galimard's nez, Monsieur Maurel, would walk us through the process of designing a personal scent.
       
       The perfumery was founded by Jean de Galimard in 1747 and has been in Roux's family for generations. John-Pierre's father was a chemical engineer who developed scents for the company. His grandfather had raised plants, especially orange and jasmine, for perfume. Roux's whole family remains intimately involved with the operation of the perfumery. His sisters Martine and Genevi�ve often work in the shop, and when a third sister, Elizabeth, is not at her home in the United States, she helps out too. More recently, Jean-Pierre's daughter Delphine has joined the sales force.
       
       Based primarily in Grasse, Galimard also has outlets in Eze, a charming medieval town overlooking Cap Ferrat and Villefranche on the Mediterranean, and Gourdon, a village high in the Alps. Each site has something unique to offer visitors. At Eze, one can watch Galimard employees making soap and then visit the exotic gardens of thousands of cacti and its magnificent view of the Mediterranean. Across the street from the quaint Galimard shop sprawls a Fragonard outlet.
       
       At Gourdon one can enjoy le source, where perfumed water seems to flow from hidden springs. We overheard a man telling his children the local legend that the perfume fountain had been discovered here hundreds of years ago. There is also a towering view of the French Riviera from the Eagle's Nest (Nid d'Egle) restaurant. Probably the most fun that a visit to the Galimard facilities offers though, is in Grasse.
       
       At the Grasse studio, for the cost of a moderately priced perfume, you can spend about two hours learning, experimenting, and developing a personal scent. Not only do you get a diploma certifying completion of the perfume seminar, but you take home three and a third ounces of the fragrance you have developed. Galimard will even file the formula in case you want to reorder your creation. Of course, like fine wine, the perfume will not be ready immediately. It takes about two weeks for the essences to blend.
       
       At the start of our visit, Chantal Roux asked me a series of pointed questions about my daughter-in-law's age, coloration, and skin type. This was intended to help me select a suitable perfume as a gift. I was impressed by the depth and precision of her questions. Who would have guessed, I mused, that, in addition to their harassment quotient, department store mass spritzers were being unscientific when they randomly sprayed unsuspecting customers?
       
       Maurel then walked us through the scent-making process. First he evaluated our varying olfactory sensitivities. He explained the five families of scents and the nature and function of the three notes, or component parts. The floral scent family probably does not require elaboration. The cypress (chypre) family includes blends of oakmoss, castor, labdanum, and patchouli. The fern family includes woody notes, the notes of the amber family are warm and woody, and the leather family notes are spicy, dry, and long-lasting.
       
       Typically, a good perfume contains from nine to more than a hundred fragrances, with three notes. The top, key, or peak notes are the floral scents. These are most readily evident when one first smells a perfume, but they are also the first to dissipate. It is because of the ephemeral quality of the top notes that experts suggest you wear a scent for about twenty minutes before evaluating whether you like it.
       
       The middle, core, or heart notes modify the top notes. They are more enduring than peak notes and give the perfume its character. The base or bottom notes are those that persist the longest and hold the composition together.
       
       After about an hour of trying to identify such a variety of aromas, we had to give our noses a rest. However much we were enjoying whiffing the mouillette, a strip of unscented paper dipped in our concoction, we had to air out our nasal passages in preparation for the final stage of olfactory assault involved in the second hour of formulation. Soon we would be ready to continue with the creation of Notre Parfum.
       
       Of course, for most customers it is easier to allow someone else to develop the scent. At one time, this was the exclusive purview of the nez. He would conceive of a formula for perfume and use his mental repertoire of odors to combine exactly the right proportions of moss, whale intestinal discharges, flowers, and citrus fruits to create l'essence juste. Today, a nez is just as likely to receive inspiration and suggestions from management, who sniff at the shifting winds of fads to decide what is marketable. (For a virtual tour of the Galimard factory, visit www.galimard.com/1grasse0.html.)

The International Perfume Museum

       For an overview of the history and techniques of perfume making, there is no better place than the International Perfume Museum at 8 Place de Cours in Grasse. Rogelle's father, Roger Bonnici, recently retired from a long tenure in the perfume industry, was kind enough to arrange for a private tour.
       
       Appropriately enough, the Perfume Museum is housed in a nineteenth-century building that once housed the Hugues-Ané perfumery. It also includes space in a fourteenth-century building that was once a Dominican convent. Outside the entrance, visitors encounter the statue of a seventeenth-century perfume peddler in full regalia, including a display of his wares.
       
       Thérese Roudnitska, representing the friends of the museum, greeted us before we toured the complex. Her ties to the industry were not readily apparent. Madame Roudnitska is the widow of Edmond Roudnitska, a self-taught nez who created many well-known perfumes. In 1939, he created his first popular scent, It's You, for Elizabeth Arden, followed by a host of scents for Marcel Rochas including Moustache, considered the first scent for men. Later came Eau d'Herm�s and Grand Eau d'Herm�s and a half-dozen scents for Christian Dior, including Dior-Dior and his chef d'oeuvre, Eau Sauvage.
       
       Madame Roudnitska handed us off to her associate, Arane Lasson, who guided us through the museum, explaining the exhibits that represented four thousand years of perfume and cosmetic history. The Perfume Museum presents more than the history of scent; it also displays the evolution of the containers for the scents, from the ordinary blue-glazed Egyptian ceramic makeup pot from three or four thousand years ago to the elegant Baccarat cut glass of the twentieth century.
       
       The exhibit begins with an array of the containers, tin-lined copper drums that brought geranium and rose oils from Turkey, buffalo horns that imported civet secretions from Ethiopia, camel bladders that carried sandalwood, and stoneware that brought cloves from India. While containers today are less exotic, vigorous international trade continues with bergamot and irises from Italy, mint from Brazil and the United States, oakmoss from Yugoslavia, and citronella from China.
       
       More intriguing was the wonderful assortment of bottles and phials designed to contain scents over the past four millennia. They were arranged in periods that clearly demonstrate changes in attitudes toward the function of the containers, from the primitive pieces of Northern Africa through Marie Antoinette's cosmetic case, Art Deco containers, and novelty bottles. We are reminded that, in the early twentieth century, perfume maker Francois Coty offered his simple formula for success: "Give a woman the best product that you can make [and] present it in a perfect bottle."
       
       Following his own advice, Coty formed a partnership with master glassmaker René Lalique, who went on to design bottles for other perfumers, as well. Baccarat Crystal joined in, creating elegant bottles for perfumes such as Guerlain's classic Shalimar.
       
       The Perfume Museum also maintains its own rooftop greenhouse. There visitors may see and smell the natural plants that are cultivated for perfume. Because the museum's education programs include one for the visually impaired, signs in the greenhouse include a braille panel. Tubes at each sign contain samples of the plant's scents. (For a virtual tour of the International Perfume Museum, visit museesdegrasse.com.)
       
       Students and visitors come to the Perfume Museum to touch, smell, and taste the various infusions made with ingredients harvested in the greenhouse. It doesn't take them long to realize that, in Grasse, there is more to the perfume business than they ever expected. It is all there, right under their noses.