And having been raised in the south of France where perfumery is one of the big industries, there’s a cultural know-how that the locals possess. It also doesn’t hurt to have the land, which the Guichard family does. “After 15 years of work, I said, ‘What if I go back to the basics? What if, on top of creating fragrances, what if I grow some ingredients?’” The farm-to-fragrance pipeline is unique for a perfumer, and Guichard is the only master perfumer to grow his own ingredients. Most fragrance brands work in tandem with other farmers and plantations for their resources, for good reason: it’s just not very economical to garden. “You don’t make any money when you grow flowers. It’s very time-consuming, so you really need to have a dedication for it.”

— Perfumer Aurélien Guichard, quoted in Meet Matiere Premiere, the French Farm-to-Fragrance Brand That’s Finally Arrived Stateside at Vogue via Yahoo.