Honore Payan

Honoré Payan is one of the oldest surviving French perfume houses, established in 1854 by pharmacist Honoré Payan in the historic centre of Grasse — the world's perfume capital — on the Place de la Poissonnerie. The house passed through several family partnerships over the following decades before being revived under the Honoré Payan name in the early twentieth century and later acquired by the Mureau family in 1954, who relocated operations to Le Bar-sur-Loup. A merger with Jehanne Rigaud Parfums in 2002 ensured the continuity of the house's craftsmanship and its irreplaceable archive. Among the Payan legacy is the Patchouli Original, reputedly the first commercial patchouli perfume, created in the 1850s and still produced today. The house works in the tradition of Grassois haute parfumerie — natural ingredients, unhurried maceration, luminous floral accords — making it a living document of the classical French approach to scent-making, in the same town that taught the world what perfume could be.