Fabrice Pellegrin: The Flowers of Grasse and the Depth of Simple Fragrances

“Designing something simple is actually very complex. What I love most is creating perfumes that are simple, direct, and thoughtfully structured.”

Fabrice Pellegrin, from an interview published by Everfumed

Born January 22, 1969, in Grasse, France.

Picking flowers, supplying raw materials, creating fragrances: Fabrice Pellegrin’s family encompassed the work that goes into making a perfume. His grandmother picked jasmine, his grandfather supplied natural raw materials, and his father was a perfumer.

That environment did not produce a perfumer who privileges natural materials alone. Rather, knowing plants’ appeal so well, Pellegrin seeks science’s help in revealing facets not yet seen. Moving between flower cultivation and the laboratory, between Grasse and Paris, supports Pellegrin’s fragrances.

A Career in Perfumery

A Perfumer Father and a Grandmother Who Picked Jasmine

His father, Georges Pellegrin, was a perfumer who worked for many years at Robertet. His maternal grandmother, Pompilia Furia, picked jasmine in the hills of Grasse. For Pellegrin, centifolia rose and grandiflorum jasmine were familiar flowers before they were names of fragrance materials.

Following his father’s work, the family also lived in Argentina and Brazil between 1978 and 1983. Their fragrance-connected life extended beyond their hometown.

That does not mean Pellegrin thought only of becoming a perfumer from childhood. He recalls a period of wanting to be a footballer. His earliest scent memory is Azzaro Pour Homme, worn by his father in the bathroom: a clean smell of fougère fragrance mingling with shaving soap.

Pellegrin would later create men’s fragrances for Azzaro himself, but in childhood it was probably first a scent that evoked his father’s presence.

Learning on the Job Rather Than at School

After obtaining the baccalaureate, Pellegrin joined Robertet in 1989. Over the six years until 1995, he learned about handling and processing raw materials, quality control, chromatographic analysis, and working alongside perfumers.

Pellegrin recalls that period of education as follows.

“I did all my studying in Grasse. At Robertet, I learned the perfumer’s trade. There is no better education than learning on the job. Direct contact with specialists let me learn their little secrets, which I would not otherwise have known.”

From the interview published by Everfumed

Rather than entering through glamorous finished products, he learned the work through the materials and processes that precede them. For Pellegrin, who would later take responsibility for developing natural materials, this experience became an important foundation.

In 1995, he moved to Mane. His first assignments were fragrances for shampoos, shower gels, soaps, and similar products. How does scent behave in products other than perfume? Through perfuming everyday products, he acquired technical skills and received guidance from Michele Saramito and others.

His first fine-fragrance success was Eruption Man (1997) for Mäurer & Wirtz. In later interviews, he continued to express gratitude to the company’s perfumer Gerrit van Logchem for giving him that opportunity.

An Encounter with Diptyque Leads to Two Roles

At Mane, Pellegrin also worked on projects for Hermès and L’Occitane. In 2005 came Diptyque’s Do Son. This tuberose fragrance became emblematic of a relationship with the brand that would continue.

In 2008, he moved to Firmenich. From 2013, he combined creating perfumes at the Paris creation center with advancing innovation and development in natural raw materials in Grasse.

Not only creating fragrances from the existing palette, but also expanding that palette itself: these are Pellegrin’s two roles.

Following the 2023 merger, the company’s name is dsm-firmenich. Pellegrin is described there as a Principal Perfumer and also as a leader of natural-material innovation.

The Prix François Coty, Awarded by Fellow Perfumers

In 2017, the trade magazine Cosmétique Mag named Pellegrin Perfumer of the Year. That same year, Mentha Religiosa (2016) for Roos & Roos, formerly Dear Rose, received the independent-fragrance award from the Fragrance Foundation France.

In December 2021, he received the 14th Prix François Coty. Six perfumers who had previously won the award took part in the selection: Jean Guichard, Alberto Morillas, Maurice Roucel, Emilie Coppermann, Sophie Labbé, and Dominique Ropion.

At the Hôtel Lutetia in Paris, he received the Lalique trophy from the previous winner, Shyamala Maisondieu. The award recognized not just one well-known successful perfume, but a body of work built up over time and acknowledged by fellow perfumers.

Creative Philosophy: Not Pitting Natural Materials against Science

Flowers Carry the Stories of Their Growers Too

Pellegrin values natural materials for more than the complexity of their scents. He considers the land where they originate and the work of those who grow them as well.

“Natural materials have brought richness and luxury to perfumers’ creations. Beyond their purely olfactory qualities, they bring stories to perfume and strengthen its poetic dimension.”

From the interview published by Everfumed

Visiting growers in Grasse and around the world and encountering their skills is part of his work. For Pellegrin, raised in a family with a flower-picking grandmother, fragrance materials were always something that arrived through human hands.

At the same time, he does not treat naturals and synthetics as enemies.

“Natural materials form the basis of my creations, but I also use synthetic molecules to highlight and enrich them and give them new nuances. Synthetic molecules open windows onto new olfactory territories.”

From the same interview

Natural patchouli and a woody material produced through biotechnology: how can each be combined to approach the desired scent? Pellegrin focuses less on dividing materials into two groups and ranking them than on their function within a formula.

Discovering New Expressions of Materials

His work with natural materials also involves research into extraction methods. One is Firgood, a technology that uses the moisture within plants to extract aromatic components without adding an extraction solvent. It adds delicate plant expressions, different from conventional extracts, to the palette.

FIRAD Rose, which recovers and concentrates aromatic components remaining in water after rose distillation, is another material that illustrates this work. Pellegrin used this material, which makes use of distillation water, in Diptyque’s Eau Rose Eau de Parfum (2022).

Compared with the 2012 eau de toilette, the eau de parfum makes the rose richer and strengthens its lychee-like fruitiness. Rather than merely changing the concentration, it depicts another aspect of the same flower through a new material.

Taking Time to Be Simple

The opening quotation was given in response to a question about Mentha Religiosa. Mint, dark incense, patchouli, and vanilla: the mint, which can also suggest oral-care products, leads into a powdery, ambery trail.

Even when individual materials are easy to understand, combining them is not simple. Pellegrin’s simplicity means not skipping work but taking time to clarify the fragrance’s contours.

Among the perfumes he admires, he praises Féminité du Bois for its short, precise formula, instantly recognizable identity, and freedom from gender boundaries. He seems drawn to fragrances that need no complicated explanation yet are far from easy to create.

Major Creations and Their Backgrounds

Do Son: Depicting Another Person’s Childhood through Tuberose

Do Son does not originate in Pellegrin’s own memories of Grasse. Its origin is the childhood that Diptyque co-founder Yves Coueslant spent in Vietnam.

The air of the seaside town of Do Son and the tuberose favored by Coueslant’s mother: in seeking to turn those memories into perfume, Coueslant offered these words.

“This perfume was my attempt to recreate the atmosphere and memories of my childhood in Vietnam through the distinctive scent of tuberose.”

Yves Coueslant, from an article in The Moodie Davitt Report

Pellegrin gave shape to a fragrance suggesting not only tuberose’s density but also the breeze and air around it. The 2005 eau de toilette and 2013 eau de parfum depict this memory in different concentrations.

Volutes: Femininity and Masculinity within Smoke

Coueslant’s travel memories also run through Volutes (2012): a sea voyage from Marseille to Saigon, and women smoking aboard the ship. The task was to depict their smoke and graceful gestures as fragrance.

A South China Morning Post profile says the work took about eight years from conception to completion. Shadows suggesting honey and dried fruit were layered over tobacco, with iris playing another important role.

“I wanted to use iris to suggest femininity and elegance. It is a rich feminine note that creates a powdery leather effect. And, paradoxically, a little masculinity too.”

From an interview published by Nose Paris

Rather than deciding that tobacco is masculine and flowers feminine, he looks for opposing expressions within the same material. This perspective recurs in Pellegrin’s work.

Womanity: Adding Saltiness to the Sweetness of Fig

Thierry Mugler’s Womanity (2010) was announced as a collaborative creation by a Mane team. Pellegrin was also involved in its development.

At its center is a combination of sweet fig and saltiness suggesting caviar, supported by woody facets recalling the fig tree and its leaves. Rather than simply reproducing food aromas, it turns the contrast of sweet and salty into a wearable scent.

Although released after Pellegrin’s move to Firmenich, the fragrance has its background in work with Mane’s development team. It also brings together a fragrance company’s technology and collaboration among several creators.

Scandal: Five Years of Persistent Creation

Jean Paul Gaultier’s Scandal (2017) was co-created with Daphné Bugey and Christophe Raynaud.

It is a radiant fragrance centered on honey, gardenia, patchouli, and blood orange, but the road to completion was long.

“I remember Scandal well. The project lasted five years and required great perseverance and stamina. We began developing it at BPI and continued after moving to Puig, which had acquired the brand.”

From the interview published by Everfumed

Creation continued as the brand’s business arrangements changed from BPI to Puig. Pellegrin may favor short formulas and clear scents, but this episode shows that the work needed to arrive at them is not necessarily short.

Wanted: Two Expressions Linked by Cardamom

Azzaro’s Wanted (2016) takes masculine attraction as its theme. Pellegrin answered a Spanish trade magazine’s questions as follows.

“The Wanted project is based on masculine attraction and the magnetic appeal of a certain kind of man. The ideas of desire and sensuality lie at the deepest heart of this perfume.”

From an interview published by Revista VPC

The key was Guatemalan cardamom. Pellegrin explains that he perceived a feminine expression in this material and was interested in bringing it out in a men’s fragrance. This was not a claim that cardamom in general is an ingredient for women.

The quality used was distilled with both pods and seeds. It offered citrus-like brightness and fresh spiciness. The fragrance’s structure was designed like an hourglass: a generous top, a taut heart, and a substantial base.

Fame: Bringing New Materials into an Accessible Perfume

Paco Rabanne’s Fame (2022), from the brand now called Rabanne, was co-created with Dora Baghriche, Marie Salamagne, and Morillas.

The scent of mangoes and their leaves growing in Sicily was studied using NaturePrint, a technology for analyzing and reproducing aromas. The resulting scent data led to a mango accord combining materials of natural origin.

A Firgood extract of Grasse jasmine is also used. An innovation born where materials are developed becomes a perfume reaching many people’s skin. It is an example of Pellegrin’s two roles meeting within one creation.

Passing Grasse’s Work to the Next Generation

Success as a perfumer alone will not sustain Grasse’s perfume culture. The work of those who cultivate and pick flowers and process them into materials also needs to be passed on.

Pellegrin was involved in efforts leading to UNESCO’s 2018 inscription of the perfume-related knowledge and skills of the Grasse region as intangible cultural heritage. That same year, he and his wife Sandrine also helped establish the Grasse campus of the higher-education institution École Supérieure de Parfumerie.

He was also involved in Firmenich’s creative site Villa Botanica. With approximately four hectares of gardens and research and creative spaces in the hills of Grasse, it connects fragrance-material growers, researchers, perfumers, and clients.

In 2023, he was also involved in Grasse, de la fleur au parfum, published by Gallimard. In October of that year, he gave a talk in Paris with Lionel Paillès, who wrote the text. This was an effort to present flower cultivation, material processing, and perfume creation as one continuous line of work.

“The perfumer’s role is to be generous, to exchange, to share, and to pass on passion.”

Fabrice Pellegrin, from an interview published by Everfumed

Pellegrin’s view of work remains the same whether creating perfume or nurturing people. He passes the skills and enthusiasm he received on the job to someone else in turn.

Incidentally…

Besides Féminité du Bois, Pellegrin names Lancôme’s Miracle, Issey Miyake’s L’Eau d’Issey, Davidoff’s Cool Water, and Dior’s Fahrenheit among his favorite perfumes. He seems drawn to a clear identity and beauty of structure.

One perfumer he admires is Jacques Cavallier Belletrud. They have worked together, and Pellegrin describes Cavallier as someone who opened up the different worlds of men’s and women’s fragrances.

He enjoys music ranging from gentle melodies to electro, and cooking and meeting people are also sources of ideas. Even while traveling between Paris and Grasse for work, the flowers and morning air of his hometown remain close.

In a 2022 interview, he said that his sons Florian and Romain were both hoping to become perfumers. The family story that begins with a grandmother picking flowers may continue into another generation.

Perfume Creations

The main creations are arranged chronologically, including different concentrations, reinterpretations, and limited editions. “—” means no co-perfumer is listed; it does not establish sole authorship.

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