Trudon: Perfumes from the World’s Oldest House, Carrying 380 Years of Flame

“This company is not something anyone can truly ‘own.’ It is an ancient presence that moves through history, and I am merely the bearer of its flame. One day I will let it go, and someone else will take over. It is like looking after an old castle or manor house.”
— Julien Pruvost, Creative Director of Trudon

Essential Information

Established: 1643
Founder: Claude Trudon
Headquarters: 78 rue de Seine, 6th arrondissement, Paris
Factory: Mortagne-au-Perche, Normandy
Official website: https://trudon.com
A note on the name: Originally known as Cire Trudon, the brand dropped “Cire” (“wax”) from its name when it launched its perfume line in 2017 and is now styled simply Trudon. It has been awarded the Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant (Living Heritage Company) designation by the French government.

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

Claude Trudon, Candlemaker: The Beginning in 1643

In 1643, just as the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King, was beginning, a merchant opened a shop on rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. His name was Claude Trudon. Originally an épicier, or grocer, he also made and sold candles. He supplied church candles to Parisian parishes, including nearby Saint-Roch, as well as candles for lighting ordinary homes.

Claude made his candles himself, refining his own methods using beeswax. Carefully collected from the hive, the wax was washed repeatedly in clean water and bleached in sunlight to remove impurities and achieve a perfect whiteness. The resulting candles were of exceptional quality for the period: they produced neither soot nor smoke and burned for a long time with a steady flame.

The Road to Versailles: The Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Claude’s son, Jacques Trudon, took over the family business and entered the Palace of Versailles in 1687 as apothecary and distiller to Queen Maria Theresa. The reputation of the Trudon family’s candles spread throughout France, and they increasingly supplied Paris’s cathedrals and principal churches.

In 1700, Louis XIV ennobled the Trudon family, and Charles Trudon received the title Count Trudon des Ormes.

In 1702, Michel Brice Péan de Saint Gilles founded a wax manufactory in Antony, south of Paris. In 1719, it became the only manufactory in France to receive the title Manufacture Royale de Cire, or Royal Wax Manufactory. Trudon is the only candle manufactory in history to have received this distinction.

In 1737, the Trudon heir Jérôme Trudon acquired the Royal Wax Manufactory. Drawing on the family business’s expertise, he expanded it considerably and further developed the art of making perfectly white beeswax candles. By 1747, the factory employed at least 100 craftspeople.

Its quality was such that in 1762 the scientist Duhamel du Monceau praised the Trudon family’s skill in the French encyclopedic work The Art of Wax Manufacturing, presenting it as an unrivaled model. Creative director Pruvost describes its significance:

“Trudon’s techniques were cited as the sole reference for the craft in Diderot and d’Alembert’s French Encyclopédie. Even a ‘small’ craft such as candlemaking was raised to its highest level by the spirit of the Enlightenment.”

Versailles consumed enormous quantities of candles at the time. According to Pruvost, a single candle from the Trudon manufactory cost “the equivalent of a day’s wages for a highly skilled craftsman.” From the reign of Louis XIV to the end of Louis XVI’s reign, candle consumption at Versailles grew exponentially, and servants were assigned solely to maintaining the chandeliers. At the time, the word bougie referred only to pure beeswax candles; those containing animal fat were called chandelles.

From the French Revolution to the Age of Napoleon

The Trudon manufactory continued supplying candles to Versailles until the final days of the Ancien Régime. Not even the upheaval of the French Revolution brought its existence to an end.

When Napoleon Bonaparte came to power, Trudon became a candle supplier to the imperial court. An especially memorable episode dates to 1811. When Napoleon’s son, later Napoleon II and known as L’Aiglon, was born, the emperor’s only gift to his child was a Trudon candle. This Imperial Pillar Candle was decorated with three gold coins bearing Napoleon’s profile. The symbolic candle remains in Trudon’s product range today.

In 1837, Honoré de Balzac mentioned Trudon in his novel César Birotteau.

“Three men were lighting the room. ‘We shall need a hundred and twenty candles,’ said Braschon. ‘Two hundred francs for Trudon,’ murmured Madame César.”

This passage shows how deeply the Trudon name had entered the shared language of Parisian society.

Modern-Day Obscurity and the Triumph of 1889

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the spread of gas and electric lighting sharply reduced demand for candles. Nevertheless, the Trudon manufactory remained active. At the 1889 Paris Exposition, the Carrière brothers, successors to the founding family, received a gold medal for the innovative quality of their candles.

In the twentieth century, the house faded from public view and became an anonymous manufacturer of church candles and decorative candles for retailers. Yet its essential work of keeping church candles burning never ceased.

1989: Acquisition by the Blondeau Family and a New Chapter

In 1989, businessman Olivier Blondeau acquired CIR, Trudon’s parent company. At the time, CIR was an unassuming business making candles for churches, hotels, restaurants, and general stores. Over a transition lasting roughly eight years, the Blondeau family honed its expertise through OEM, or private-label, work for cosmetics manufacturers, sold the religious-candle business, and consolidated production at Mortagne-au-Perche in Normandy.

Pruvost recalls that period:

“When CIR’s current owners acquired the company in 1989, it was making candles for churches, hotels, restaurants, and small general stores. They knew it had a remarkable history, but in the mid-1990s there was still very little demand for scented candles. So they began with a private-label business, manufacturing candles for other brands.”

2006: Ramdane Touhami’s Revival

The decisive turning point came in 2006, when Trudon candles were used in the filming of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. It was like a return across the centuries.

Seizing the moment, Blondeau entrusted the brand’s revival to the French-Moroccan creator Ramdane Touhami, born in Montauban in 1974. Touhami had started his first business at 24 and become a distinctive figure in fashion and retail: founding the Paris concept store L’Épicerie, art-directing And.A in Tokyo, and reinventing menswear at Liberty in London.

Touhami began with an exhaustive study of the archives. He uncovered the history of a house founded in 1643 with the title of candlemaker to the king, and organized its revival around three principles.

Restore the brand name Cire Trudon, derived from its founder
Create 20 scented candles carrying historical stories, replacing beeswax with an improved vegetable-wax formula
Rebuild the Paris boutique with a “historically accurate” design

The results were striking. In 2007, the candles were sold only in France; by 2009, they were available in 59 countries. They reached at least 600 stores, including Selfridges in London, Barneys and Bergdorf Goodman in New York, and Le Bon Marché in Paris. International recognition followed, with Britain’s Wallpaper naming them “Best candle of 2011” and The Daily Telegraph selecting them as “Perfect candles.”

Touhami himself recalls the skepticism around him:

“When I took on Cire Trudon, everyone said, ‘It will never work. The market is already full of candles.’ But if you think like that, you can never do anything. Every market is saturated. Beautiful things sell: that is what I believe.”

In 2011, Touhami sold his stake and subsequently turned to reviving Officine Universelle Buly (in Japanese) with his wife, Victoire de Taillac-Touhami.

The Julien Pruvost Era: Becoming a Perfume House

After Touhami’s departure, Julien Pruvost took the helm. He joined as general manager in 2010 and became creative director in 2019, later also serving as CEO. With a Franco-American background and experience studying in Japan, he brings a multicultural perspective.

Pruvost’s mother collected Japanese art, and he describes her influence:

“My mother was passionate about Japanese crafts. Sensing the presence of the human hand in a hanging scroll painted with nothing but ink and a brush. Japanese ceramics that appear simple yet are extremely refined. I feel a deep affinity with kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with gold and celebrating the scars rather than hiding them. At Trudon, we have been able to preserve that sense of handwork, even on the scale of mass production.”

Under Pruvost, the house reached a major turning point in 2017 with the launch of its Trudon perfume line. Dropping “Cire” from the brand name underlined its evolution from a candle house into a broader fragrance house.

“Candles alone are not enough. I am very pleased that we have been able to enter fine fragrance, and that we can be confident it will become a pillar of growth.”

The Brand’s Commitments

A Commitment to Manufacturing: The Normandy Workshop

Trudon candles are still made at the factory in Mortagne-au-Perche, Normandy. Established there in 1901, the workshop stands in the heart of the Perche Regional Nature Park.

At least 80% of the work on every candle is done by hand. Each large five-wick candle even bears the signature of its maker and the date it was made. Production has seven stages: blending the fragrance; securing the wicks by hand or machine; mixing and pouring the wax and fragrance; straightening and centering the wicks by hand; trimming the wicks; applying the gold-foil label by hand; and final packaging. The wax and fragrance are mixed immediately before pouring to preserve the scent’s freshness as much as possible.

Glass Vessels: Tuscan Craftsmanship

Trudon’s signature ribbed glass candle vessels are manufactured by Aton Luce in Montelupo, Tuscany, Italy. The process is called “centrifuge glass”: the glass is spun in a mold that remains open at the top, so no two pieces have exactly the same shape.

“Every glass vessel is different. I believe those subtle differences are precisely its charm and part of its value.”

Materials and the Environment

Trudon once used beeswax but has now switched entirely to vegetable wax for environmental reasons. The wicks are 100% cotton, and the company is actively researching and developing alternatives to petroleum-derived paraffin.

In 2018, it launched a program to protect the native European dark bee in partnership with the Orne dark-bee conservation organization in Normandy and the Perche Regional Nature Park. Twelve hives were installed at Courboyer Manor, and 4% of sales of the Cire candle is donated directly to local conservation organizations.

The Philosophy of Fragrance Creation

Trudon’s scents are created in collaboration with internationally acclaimed perfumers. Pruvost explains the process:

“I am not a perfumer, nor do I intend to become one. We rely on the creativity and sensitivity of the perfumers we work with. Their task is to translate a particular vision of Trudon into scent. We try to give them a framework broad enough for them to express themselves freely and confidently.”

Particularly distinctive is the briefing method used for the perfume line. Each perfumer was taken to a historic Parisian landmark, where a sophrologist, a therapist specializing in the management of consciousness, read out the brief while leading a guided meditation. The approach engaged all five senses. For the first perfume, Bruma, the setting was the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, the Museum of Hunting and Nature, in Paris’s 3rd arrondissement.

The Fragrance Lineup

Trudon’s perfume collection is built around three broad themes: royalty (Royauté), religion (Religion), and revolution (Révolution). All the fragrances are genderless, aiming to evoke a character rather than a gender.

The Original Collection: Launched in 2017

In 2017, Trudon debuted with five perfumes created by three renowned perfumers: Antoine Lie, Lyn Harris, and Yann Vasnier.

Fragrance	Perfumer	Theme	Principal notes
Bruma	Antoine Lie	Royalty	Black pepper, lavender, galbanum / iris, violet, jasmine / labdanum, Haitian vetiver, tonka bean
Olim	Lyn Harris	Royalty	Bergamot, lavender, anise / pink pepper, clove / patchouli, benzoin, myrrh, musk
II / Deux	Lyn Harris	Religion	Green leaves, bitter orange / juniper, pine / cedarwood, incense
Révolution	Lyn Harris	Revolution	Elemi / angelica / cedar, papyrus, patchouli, incense, cistus
Mortel	Yann Vasnier	Religion	Pimento, black pepper / Somali frankincense / benzoin, cistus, myrrh

In 2018, the year after its launch, Bruma won the Fragrance Foundation’s Indie Fragrance of the Year award, an unusually high accolade for a debut collection. Lyn Harris says of Deux:

“The vivid green of this fragrance is a painting of a forest. Pine, juniper, cedars covered in moss and berries, above a damp earthen floor. II is a modern version of eau de cologne, green and peppery, with Brazilian bitter orange. It is for everyone, something that brings two people together.”

The Expanded Collection: From 2019

Fragrance	Perfumer	Principal notes
Elae	Yann Vasnier	Moroccan neroli, apple / Egyptian jasmine, ylang-ylang / Laotian benzoin, Australian sandalwood
Médie	Yann Vasnier	Mandarin, grapefruit / French cypress, sambac jasmine / frankincense, vetiver
Aphélie	Antoine Lie	Rose essence, green ivy / blackcurrant buds, moss / sandalwood, tonka bean
Mortel Noir	Yann Vasnier	A limited edition with intensified Madagascan black pepper
Vixi	Émilie Bouge	Italian petitgrain, cardamom / Balkan sage, organic Nepalese sandalwood / Virginia cedar, Indian jasmine
Absolu	Antoine Lie	Cardamom, mandarin, saffron / incense, iris, orange blossom absolute / guaiacwood, cedar, tonka bean

Perfumer Antoine Lie says of Absolu:

“This is a powerful perfume. Orange blossom, to me, is the most universal flower, one that transcends every era.”

Discussing his work for Trudon, Yann Vasnier describes each fragrance in five words or fewer: “Elae: solar, luminous, feminine. Médie: fresh, radiant. Mortel: heat.”

The Nuit Rouge Collection: From 2025

The latest collection is the more highly concentrated Nuit Rouge series. Comprising three fragrances, 45°, Midnight Omen, and Mystique, it is an aesthetic, sensuous line themed around the glamour of the night. Mystique, created by Émilie Bouge, combines leather, oud, and papyrus and is classified as an oriental spicy fragrance.

Bottle Design

The perfume bottles were created by designer Pauline Deltour. The 100 ml bottle recalls the design of the candle vessels, while its ribbed glass cap evokes the elegant silhouette of the house’s La Promeneuse diffuser. The pine-green cap provides a striking counterpoint to the transparent bottle and was reportedly inspired by a block of crystal.

Incidentally…

An appearance in Balzac: The mention in the 1837 novel César Birotteau is an episode Trudon itself enjoys recounting. The candles of the period were not yet scented, however; the major growth of scented candles came only in the 1980s and 1990s.
A favorite of Jennifer Connelly: The actress has publicly expressed her fondness for Trudon’s Abd El Kader candle.
Contributing to Sofia Coppola’s film: Trudon candles were used in the set decoration for the 2006 film Marie Antoinette. This directly sparked the brand’s revival.
Wax busts of historical figures: The house sells wax busts of Napoleon, Marie Antoinette, Louis XIV, and other figures, made possible through a partnership with France’s Réunion des Musées Nationaux.
The origins of the word bougie: The French word now used for candles in general originally referred only to pure beeswax candles. Today it is also used as an adjective, but what Trudon made were precisely these bougies: candles of the very highest quality.
Collaborations: These range from floral candles inspired by the Amalfi Coast with fashion designer Giambattista Valli, to a reworking of the popular Ernesto candle with added black rose by Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing, and a collaboration with Paris’s Maison des Trois Thés, led by tea master Yu Hui Tseng.