Kerzon: A Fragrance House for Every Part of Daily Life

“Scents are among our earliest memories. When we decided to start a family project, fragrance seemed ideal because it is rooted in childhood and emotion.”

— Pierre-Alexis Delaplace, co-founder of Kerzon​

Basic Information

Founded: 2014

Founders: Etienne Delaplace and Pierre-Alexis Delaplace​

Official website: https://www.kerzon.paris

The Founders and the Brand’s Origins

A Story of Five Brothers

Kerzon’s story begins with two of five brothers who grew up in Paris. Etienne and Pierre-Alexis Delaplace had followed very different career paths.​

Pierre-Alexis studied design at the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, then worked as a freelance graphic designer and art director for a wide range of lifestyle, food, and fashion brands. Etienne, meanwhile, began by qualifying as an accountant, studied management and information-systems consulting at business school, and later built a career in commerce. “We were both heading in very different directions,” Etienne recalled in an interview.

Before starting Kerzon, Etienne had also established and sold a business with another brother. His entrepreneurial ambition remained undiminished, eventually leading to a conversation in 2013.​

Kerzon, the Summer House

As children, the brothers spent their summer holidays at the same house. In Brittany, France, there is a tradition of naming holiday homes along the Atlantic and Channel coasts “Ker” something. Ker means the home or place belonging to someone in Breton. Just as houses called KerMargaret and KerJannic line the coast, their family’s summer home was called Kerzon.

“Kerzon was born from the memory of a house where we spent many summers as children. Its scent was so special and unique that we had always wanted to give it a tangible form one day.”

— Etienne Delaplace, BaronMag interview (2016)​

That house was also closely connected to memories of their grandmother’s scented sachets. Her handmade lavender bags were tucked into wardrobes throughout the home. “All of Kerzon’s inspiration began with those sachets our grandmother made,” the brothers have said. The wish to bring those remembered scents “to today’s generation, just as we once experienced them ourselves” became the brand’s starting point.​

The Brand Is Born: Paris, Late 2013

In late 2013, Etienne and Pierre-Alexis began developing the project in earnest. They felt that “fragrance carries emotion and pleasure, and it is also a field in which Pierre-Alexis’s skills in prints and visuals can shine.” The first product they envisioned was a pochette parfumée, a perfumed sachet that could be seen as a modern version of their grandmother’s lavender bags.

Looking beyond a one-note lavender scent toward something more poetic, lively, and contemporary, the brothers decided to approach fragrance makers in Grasse, the center of the perfume industry in southern France. Charabot, a house with two hundred years of history, responded to their call for proposals. One of Grasse’s oldest perfume houses, it holds the French government’s Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant designation, recognizing a Living Heritage Company.

The brief the two brothers gave Charabot was simple:

“It must be poetic, upbeat and smell good”

— Pierre-Alexis Delaplace​

Setting Out at Maison&Objet

In January 2014, Kerzon exhibited for the first time at Maison&Objet, the international interiors and design trade fair in Paris. Those five days became the brand’s baptism.​

“It was our baptism. Suddenly, our world opened up, and over five days thousands of people touched our products, smelled them, and placed orders. We have continued exhibiting twice a year ever since.”

— Pierre-Alexis Delaplace​

The fair also introduced them to like-minded lifestyle brands such as Papier Tigre, Maison Plisson, and Mathilde Cabanas. Through collaborations, shared travels, and the experience of building their brands together, the Kerzon family began to grow.​

In 2017, the house opened its flagship store at 68 rue de Turenne in Paris’s Marais district. With a three-pronged distribution strategy encompassing online sales, wholesale, and its own store, its products now reach seventeen countries across five continents.​

The Brand’s Commitments

A Philosophy of Fragrance

Kerzon aims to create fragrances that are “as authentic as memories.” Its starting point is the idea that every part of daily life has a scent: a walk in the woods, tending a garden, a coffee break, passing a bakery, the banks of the Seine, a bouquet of mimosa, or a toast shared with friends.

“Our daily lives are full of evocative scents. They are our greatest source of inspiration. We strive to create authentic fragrances that feel as real as memories.”

— Kerzon, official website​

Rather than restricting fragrance to the body or the home, Kerzon follows a philosophy of bringing scent into every part of life. Laundry soap, dishwashing liquid, body wash, room mist, candles, hand cream, and lip balm all belong to the same fragrant world. The brand’s fundamental message is that “once you find a scent you love, you can freely bring it into every part of your life.”​

“We see ourselves as perfumers. Some customers fall in love with a particular scent and want to collect the entire range, from body wash and laundry soap to mist.”

— Etienne Delaplace, in Culture V. magazine​

Ingredients and Production

Products are made in France or nearby European countries; the lip balm is made in northern Italy. Most fragrances are composed at a Grasse house certified as a Living Heritage Company. The soaps are made in Provence at low temperatures using coconut and olive oils.

The ingredients are of natural origin and comply with organic-cosmetics standards. Mineral oils, sulfates, and endocrine disruptors are entirely excluded. All products are vegan, with the sole exception of the lip balm, which contains beeswax.

Packaging and Visual Identity

Pierre-Alexis oversees the visuals. Drawing on the design sensibility he developed at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, the bright, graphic labels have become Kerzon’s signature. The paper and cardboard packaging comes from sustainably managed forests and carries the Imprim’Vert low-environmental-impact printing certification. Bottles are made either from plastic produced entirely from recycled household waste or from recyclable glass.

The brand also takes the environmental impact of glass bottles seriously. Based on its assessment that “the carbon footprint of glass across production, transport, and recycling is three times that of recycled plastic,” it chooses recycled-plastic bottles wherever the product permits.​

Social Commitments

The pochette parfumée, Kerzon’s iconic first product, is hand-filled at an ESAT in Paris’s thirteenth arrondissement, a facility that supports employment for adults with disabilities. The brand values this partnership with a local social-inclusion organization as another part of the Kerzon family.​

The Kerzon Pact

The Kerzon Pact, which underpins all the brand’s activities, comprises eleven production commitments. One is the refill service called La Boucle, meaning the loop. Introduced in 2017, it allows customers to bring empty bottles to the Paris store and have them refilled. It is one example of the brand’s efforts to minimize waste and make sustainable consumption part of everyday life.

Fragrance for Skin, Clothes, and the Home

Kerzon began with scented sachets, then carried their fragrances into candles, soaps, lotions, and laundry detergents. Place des Vosges is available not only as an eau de toilette and eau de parfum, but also as laundry soap, liquid soap, candles, and fragranced cards. Scents inspired by Parisian places and plants move between what we wear on our skin, what we use to wash our clothes, and what we place in our rooms.

That expansion requires a formula suited to each use. Etienne explains that developing a laundry detergent means finding a combination that smells good not only in the bottle but also on freshly washed fabric, where the scent needs to last. The fragrance proposed by the perfumer is combined with the detergent formula through repeated trials and tests. Laundry soaps such as Super Frais, Maille Câline, and Gym Tonique extend this work into everyday care.

The collaboration with Amélie Bourgeois and Anne-Sophie Behaghel of the perfume studio Flair also spans eaux de parfum, dishwashing liquids, and scents inspired by summer memories. Etienne values both the choice of naturally derived ingredients and the pleasure of using a carefully developed fragrance and texture. Washing clothes or dishes becomes another occasion to choose a favorite scent, just as one would when wearing perfume.

Flâneries: A Scented Walk through Paris

Flâneries means wandering for pleasure. The brothers, who grew up in Paris, took places such as the Jardin du Luxembourg, Place des Vosges, and Île Saint-Louis as subjects for fragrance. Pausing beside flowering shrubs and looking up at architectural details, the collection seeks to convey time spent in the city through the atmosphere created by its plants and buildings.

Jardin du Luxembourg evokes a morning in the park, with little sailing boats on the pond. Honey accompanies lilac and linden blossom, recalling the beehives in the gardens. Île Saint-Louis, meanwhile, translates the contrast between the cool flowing Seine and the sun-warmed stone of its mansions into a fragrance with vetiver and patchouli.

In Place des Vosges, the scene centers on roses in the garden, geraniums on terraces, and red-brick buildings. La Tour Eiffel connects amber with the tower’s original red color, while spices and lightly powdery vanilla evoke the opening to the wider world represented by the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889. The deep green of the Flâneries candles comes from the city’s park benches, Wallace fountains, and other familiar green street furniture.

Herbier: A Fragrant Garden at Home

Herbier, meaning a herbarium, imagines a garden surrounding the Kerzon house. At its heart is the pleasure of pausing among plants and sharing a meal at a table in the shade. Dew-covered leaves, sunlit flowers, and the grassy scents of fields and orchards create the atmosphere around that gathering.

Feuilles de Figuier, or fig leaves, moves from the freshness of fennel and eucalyptus, like a walk at dawn, to the milky sweetness of fig and the woody character of Virginia cedar and myrrh. Feuilles d’Eucalyptus, or eucalyptus leaves, suggests the breeze through a window opened toward the garden. Lavender accompanies its mentholated eucalyptus, leaving the aromatic scent of rosemary and thyme.

Fleur d’Oranger, or orange blossom, and Fleur de Romarin, or rosemary blossom, also belong to this botanical garden. The fragrances extend beyond candles and diffusers into dishwashing liquids and hand soaps. The image of a table surrounded by greenery thus continues into the everyday gestures of washing dishes and hands after a meal.

Eau Marine and Family Memories

Kerzon has also offered Eau Marine, a range of eaux de parfum incorporating seawater and seaweed extract. Its five fragrances were Kerose, Kermosa, Keriver, Kerelem, and Kermusk. Their names combine the brand name with the materials each fragrance explores.

The five take different flowers, woods, and musk as their subjects. Kerose places Bulgarian rose alcoholate and absolute at its heart, with Calabrian bergamot and petitgrain above Haitian vetiver and cedar. Kermosa combines bitter orange, lemon, and mandarin leaf with Egyptian geranium and mimosa, followed by sandalwood and heliotrope. Despite their different fragrant subjects, they shared sea salt, listed as Maris Sal, and Laminaria digitata seaweed extract in their compositions.

Kermusk also connects with a founder’s personal memories. When asked which scents recalled holidays, Pierre-Alexis named Le Soleil for its association with summer and Kermusk because it reminded him of the perfume his grandmother wore.

Nature’s Treasures, Interpreted by Three Perfumers

Les trésors de la nature, or nature’s treasures, was conceived as a trilogy of eaux de parfum exploring different expressions of plants. Working with petals, bark, sun-warmed fruit, and aromatic herbs, three women perfumers based in Paris and Grasse each imagined a different landscape. The three fragrances are Place des Vosges, Petit Grain, and Passiflore.

For Place des Vosges, Laure Jacquet drew inspiration from white marble sculptures in Parisian gardens. She translated their enduring forms and images of love into a bouquet centered on rose and peony. Fruity impressions of blackcurrant bud, mango, and lychee brighten the flowers. Within this trilogy, the familiar Parisian square is also explored through a perfumer’s landscape of plants and art.

Anne-Sophie Behaghel imagined Petit Grain as a fragrance to share with the family, combining the brightness of fresh, botanical orange blossom with a softness that envelops the skin. White musk cushions neroli, orange blossom, and the sparkling impression of blood orange, leading into an aromatic trail that includes chamomile and cardamom. Citrus freshness and a gentle feel give form to the idea of a fragrance for the family.

Amélie Bourgeois’s Passiflore began with an imaginary garden filled with rhubarb, passionflower, ivy, and yellow mimosa. Rather than recreating a real garden, she imagined abundant plant growth, combining the fruitiness of passion fruit with tart rhubarb and leafy green notes.

The glass bottles have marbled caps colored to match each fragrance. The engraved logo joins two letters “k” like an infinity symbol beneath a protective roof. The image of a home where family and friends gather remains present in a bottle that can be carried with you. The bottles are refillable.

By the Way…

• The Man Called Péa: Pierre-Alexis goes by the nickname Péa. In an interview, he joked that his parents had named him Pierre-Alexis to make his life difficult.​
• The Brand’s Mascot: A dog called Alf appears on Kerzon’s Pact page, announcing the prohibition of animal testing with a “Woof!” The official website also features a line introducing the Pact page through Pierre-Alexis’s dog, Alf. In his 2016 BaronMag interview, Pierre-Alexis said that walking Alf, then a fifteen-month-old flat-coated retriever, was when he could think most creatively. Alf has therefore been a companion to Kerzon since its early days.
• “Family Dinners Always Become Briefings”: Etienne says that “at Kerzon, family meals very often turn into briefings for new collections.” True to its description as a family project, the brand offers a glimpse of work and life naturally intersecting.​