The Essence of Provence
The Story of L'Occitane
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The extraordinary rags-to-riches tale of Olivier Baussan and the roadside soap stand that became L’Occitane, one of the world’s most successful purveyors of natural fragrances. Founded in 1976 by Olivier Baussan, the now world-renowned fragrance company L’Occitane, “a woman of Provence” in Old French, was inspired by the essences of lavender and honeysuckle, rosemary, sage, and thyme indigenous to his childhood home in the south of France. In fact, it had been since the mid-1950s that Provence had been working its magic on the Baussan family, who left their urban life for a farm in Ganagobie when their son Olivier was only six months old.
Blessed with a wonderfully acute sense of smell, Olivier eventually grew up to realize that he’d been born to distill and disseminate the many and varied perfumes of the region. His epiphany came when, at twenty-two, he found an abandoned still on the side of the road and bought it for a song. Using the countryside’s natural ingredients, he began manufacturing shampoos, colognes, bath essences, and soaps. Starting with five employees—including Olivier’s wife and mother-in-law—his fledgling company grew into a major business. Today, with hundreds of stores and thousands of employees worldwide, L’Occitane ranks as one of the world’s most successful businesses—encapsulating a bit of paradise.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this slim tribute to the founder of the company that sells products with fragrances distilled from aromatic plants such as rosemary, lavender, honeysuckle, sage and thyme, Magnan (The Murdered House) tells the story of Olivier Baussan, who turned his passion for Provence and its sweet-smelling herbs into a highly successful business, l'Occitane. While he was a young member of the "back to the land" movement, Baussan found an old still, began distilling herbal essences, and in the 1970s started a business that grew into the world-renowned company that sells a wide variety of herbal soaps, shampoos, colognes and bath products. The quintessential entrepreneur, he took his business to Africa, where he used the jatropha bush in the Cape Verde Islands to make soap and the karita tree in Burkina Faso to make creams and lotions. In 1992, Baussan sold the business, though he retained the title of managing director, and Magnan leaves the story of the company there in order to follow its founder into new ventures a proposal to l'Occitane that Braille be included on its labels and a project for a school where blind children can learn a vocation in the perfume industry. The story, much of it told in Baussan's own words, is charming, even inspiring, but so adulatory that one comes away with the impression of having read a long advertisement for l'Occitane. Photos not seen by PW.
