Perfume, 7th August 2015

I should know better by now. I arrived at Molinard at a silly time, 13:00, slap in the middle of the lunch-two-hours in France. Despite Molinard advertising its opening hours as 09:30-18:30, I was sent away and told to come back at 15:00 or 16:00, because 'it will be more relaxed'.

With a few hours to kill in the 90 degree heat, I decided to head to the shady streets of the old town and explore a bit further. Quite by accident, I found a unique spot, next to the Hotel du Ville, where deck chairs had been laid out in a little garden under some plane trees and where wires strung from the nearby buildings sprayed scented, cooling water onto the deckchair occupants below. A sign announced this was Sieste Parfumée and entry was free. I sat here gratefully for a while, enjoying the spray and the breeze coming up the valley from the sea. Such a simple idea but a really good one.

I made Perfume!

Arriving back at Molinard just after 15:00, I was whisked through to the cool atmosphere of the perfume making area - dark wood tables with lots of matching bottles of scent, black and white tiled floors and hushed tones, with none of the earlier procrastination in evidence. I had a brief explanation of the stages of a perfume - the top note is 25% and is the first impression of a scent, the heart is also 25% and is the scent you receive second, the base is 50% and the bit that stays with you all day.  

Then it was down to business. First, I had to select from one of 3 bases, by sniffing from a labelled contraption and noting down my choice. 

The bases.

Then I had to repeat the process to select up to 3 'notes' from a selection of 6. 

The notes.

After that, it was time to decant my selections into a bottle in more or less the correct proportions - because I was on the cheap option, this wasn't about finesse.

The option I went for, called Le Bar (no wonder it appealed to me!), is the quick and easy version of perfume making and took less than half an hour. Other workshops involve selecting from 50 - 100 scents and can take hours - there were people sitting quietly at tables with a pipette and a wide array of scents in front of them. My version was much more wham bam. Given that the slight whiff of the wrong scent can give me a thumping headache, I was happy with my choice. 

And the result? On the first spritz I was nonplussed, then the heart and base notes kicked in and it smelled better. 15 minutes later, I really like it. I've created my very own custom, light, fresh summer scent. It was a really fun experience, good value and not too heavy duty on time or effort.

Some More Pictures from Grasse:

Look who I met in the garden where I'm staying. For those that know Petree, this tortoise is about 6-8 times his size.

My main food supplier in Grasse - a shop run by lovely old Frenchman who suffered my abysmal French with good humour.

Tomorrow I'm off to the coast and I'm very excited because my accommodation is a boat, moored in a marina between Cannes and Antibes. I'm looking forward to being by the sea and hopefully getting away from these pesky mozzies, but I'm wondering if I'll like it as much on the crowded coast as I have this past week inland...