Wonderful perfume factory!!…read more
If you are in the south of France, you must go to Grasse. Grasse is one of the perfume capitols of our lovely planet and this factory is a gorgeous, sensually stimulating experience.
You can go through the museum part of the factory which is upstairs and see the antiques that they used to use to draw pheremones & hormones from animals (sad I know!) back in the day. Kinda gnarly. This part is boring. If you go downstairs, you can get into the formal tour portion, but you better speak some french bc it's done in French! They go into the entire modern fragrance making process of this working factory.
Now...onto the besssst part. The BEST part of Fragonard is definitely their downstairs retail shop where the stunning, chic sales women do even more educational chats to an eager, always full crowd. You get to walk around and smell all the formulas and learn about the notes in a hands on fashion. They teach you the differences between the fragrance in any given true perfume, eau de toilette, lotion, candle, etc.
They literally have something for everyone and I bought what became my signature summer scent there. It was a sexy oriental with amber and musk under notes and a very subtle floral in the middle. Amazing. Bought loads of gifts for other people too which were well received back here in Cali bc they came with such a good story of my lovely weekend in sunny Grasse!
There is a multi-leve car park underneath the museum which they valet for so definitely park there b/c afterwards you'll def wanna walk around and take in the sights as the museum is perched on an amazing vista and is walking distance to many little cafes and local vendors.
You won't find a lot of American or British tourists here but you will find a good deal of French tourists taking in their summer which for me was true bliss.
