Six scents for the Beaucaire Terre d'Argence Tourist Office
This month, I had the pleasure of working on a scent touristic project for the Office de Tourisme de la Communauté de Communes Beaucaire Terre d'Argence (France).
I was commissioned to create six scents to evoke the area and its history, which the tourist office team intended to use for brand new sensory guided tours.
1. The Beaucaire Fair
Founded in 1217, this fair, which took place every year in July, became the largest in Europe with more than 100,000 visitors per day.
I was inspired by the products sold during the fair coming from the Americas, the Orient and of course from Europe, particularly Italy and Spain.
I created a fragrance that blends cocoa absolute, essential oils of bergamot, litsea cubeba, cinnamon bark, black pepper, nutmeg and Himalayan spikenard, and cane sugar and ambergris accords.
Short descriptive text of the olfactory creation:
This joyful olfactory din transports us to one of those summer days filled with frenzy and the joy of discovery: here citrus fruits from Italy, there spices from the Orient, and over there sweets from the Americas. That's Heaven on Earth!
2. The Drac of Beaucaire
The inspiration for this creation was based on this water dragon, its habitat in the depths of the Rhône river, its animal smell and its greenish hair like seaweeds as well as on the legend of the kidnapping of a washerwoman for 7 years to nurse the youngs of the Drac.
I created a scent featuring seaweed absolute, essential oils of paperbark tree, cade juniper, nagarmotha and Himalayan spikenard, and accords of laundry drying in the sun, river water and costus.
Short descriptive text of the olfactory creation:
The initial freshness of laundry drying in the sun along the Rhône river suggests a darker and more disturbing smell from the depths, of mud and of a ferocious animal prowling in search of its next washerwoman...
3. The Middle Ages in Beaucaire
This creation is an evocation of the town of Beaucaire (which comes from the word Belcaïre which means beautiful stone, beautiful rock) in the 13th century.
It features the smell of the siege (the fired La Redoute building), of frankincense (evocative of battle protection and of a Saint Louis raised by a very pious mother), of highly prized scents in the Orient brought back by the Crusades, and of vegetable-tannin-treated leather, for which the town of Beaucaire was highly renowned.
The result is a blend of essential oils of birch, olibanum, galbanum, pyrogenic styrax, myrrh and manuka, of labdanum resinoid and of ambergris, musk and oud accords.
Short descriptive text of the olfactory creation:
First enveloped in a scent of sanctity that uplifts us, a feeling of alarm gradually besieges this inner peace with a burning sensation: La Redoute is burning!, and a strong animalic smell from the leather tanning process that brings us back down on Earth.
4. Bullfighting traditions
The creation of the animalic smell of bull and of the salt meadows in which they are raised in French Camargue, features mastic absolute and essential oils of sea fennel, white oud and manuka.
Short descriptive text of the olfactory creation:
A first sensation of immensity, of wide open spaces and aridity imposed by this salt which destroys almost any vegetation which ventures there, but which hardly frightens its emblematic inhabitants evoked here by a leathery and animal facet in the distance.
5. Next to the water
The intention was to recreate a smell that highlights the presence of water, post-flood silt and plants along the Rhône river.
This fragrance is made up of essential oils of black sage, juniper berry, katafray, hinoki wood and helichrysum faradifani leaves, and of river water, silt and costus accords.
Short descriptive text of the olfactory creation:
This scent takes us on a stroll along the Rhône river. Humidity, freshness, the fertile silt carried by the river, essential to men and trees.
6. The Provençal market
The scent evokes the Terre d'Argence area and contains beeswax and thyme absolutes, essential oils of rosemary, basil and fennel, and accords of peach, strawberry, cherry and honey.
Short descriptive text of the olfactory creation:
Let's stroll among the stalls of this market, where the smell of sun-ripened fruit makes your mouth water, the discreet roundness of honey pokes its nose out, and the freshness of aromatic plants typical of the area, adds on to this olfactory delight.
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Book your ticket and discover Beaucaire in a fun way during the sensory guided tours "Quand Beaucaire faisait sa Foire !" on April 16, 2025, July 9, 2025 and August 13, 2025 at 10:30 a.m.