Students at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery must spend nine months in this pretty Provençal town, just inland from Nice on the French Riviera, learning how to become "a nose".

The school is run by the Grasse guild of perfumers and accepts all students regardless of age and experience on condition that they understand English, the language in which lessons are given.

"After nine months, our students will have become student-perfumers capable of recognising 500 basic fragrances, which is the minimum needed to begin to start blending," said Han-Paul Bodifée, president of the guild and head of the institute.

"A recognised 'nose' must be able to recognise up to 4,000 odours, and they will still need another five years of personal apprenticeship," he explained.

Alain Ferro, the school's educational director, added: "At the school, we teach the techniques of perfumery, the natural raw materials which are more difficult to master than the synthetic odours which are being increasingly used in perfumes because they are cheaper."

He stresses that the teaching concentrates on the learning of the traditional skills of the trade rather, and not the use of chemicals.

Before being admitted, students must pass a half-day test of their sense of smell, their motivation to learn the tade, and their desire to create and innovate.

Some six teachers and a half-dozen perfumers who have all developed a well-known perfume provide the lectures. The institute counts on the willingness of Grasse-based perfumers to help with training the students.

"We cannot use just one perfumer because each of them has a very personal approach and does not use the same vocabulary to describe a perfume," Bodifée said.

The 972 hours of teaching cost EUR 9,000 and are directed by master-perfumer Jean-Francois Latty, who created two major perfumes for the Yves Saint-Laurent fashion house, called Jazz and YSL. Latty was himself brought up in Grasse, and he has now returned there from an international career in Paris, New York and Tokyo.

The first session began in February and grouped seven students - four women and three men of four nationalities, aged between 21 and 39. The youngest was a French woman with no experience and the oldest an Indian chemist who had worked for 19 years in the family perfume business.

©AFP

For more information:
The Grasse Institute of Perfumerie
Villa Margherite
48,avenue Riou Blanquet
BP 21017
06131 GRASSE Cedex

Tel: 04 92 42 34 90
Fax: 04 92 42 34 95