Making fragrances can still be a family affair — especially in France.

The métier was historically passed from father to son throughout generations, much like in the wine industry. Perfumers generally lived in or around Grasse, the epicenter of modern perfumery. The town near the French Riviera remains the industry’s geographic core, although family dynamics have changed over time.

Here are three powerful examples of how today’s fragrance dynasties with elegant and familial roots.

THE ELLENA FAMILY 

Jean-Claude Ellena and his daughter Céline Ellena began working together at Hermès — when he was its in-house perfumer — on the brand’s home fragrances, from 2010 to 2015. 

At the time, she was a freelancer perfumer, but fragrance was not always in her future. “I wanted to be a novelist,” Ellena says. 

Yet when that ambition teetered, she pivoted toward psychology and linguistics, studying the sense of smell, including how people feel when they smell something. “How people look with their nose,” is Ellena’s description. 

She feared telling her father about wanting to become a perfumer. “So, I tried many other things,” Ellena says. But finally, she shared her wish.

Jean-Claude Ellena at first believed this to be a disastrous choice. “The métier of perfumer is very tough,” he says. “It is highly subject to criticism – very harsh criticism.”

This, he explains, is because it’s a profession based on intuition, rather than reason. “As a father, I did not want my daughter to suffer such harsh criticism as I had,” he says, adding, “but my daughter is very strong-willed … at times a little stubborn. So, I said: ‘Well, if she wants — yes, go ahead.’”

Céline Ellena had long perceived a parallel between writing and fragrance-making. “When I mix all the raw materials, all the ingredients together, something happened. This something was a story, but the words were fragrance,” she says. 

The two are close. Growing up, Céline Ellena always heard her father speaking about fragrance. “She understood my way of thinking, of seeing, and she [instinctively] took what seemed interesting to her,” he says. “I don’t think I’m a good professor of perfumery. I’m a philosopher of perfumery.”

His principle is: “The chosen legacies are the best.”

When Jean-Claude Ellena retired from Hermès in 2016, he joined his daughter in her lab that eschews technology, based in Spéracèdes, near Grasse. 

“She’s the boss,” Jean-Claude Ellena says. His daughter agrees, continuing with a laugh: “You can’t tell him what he has to do. That’s not possible. There are no rules.”

Sometimes, they partner on perfumes, but also solo. “We don’t work the same way,” she says, of fragrance formulation. “Jean-Claude’s way of working is like a French garden.” Hers is more like an English garden.

“The process is, we love each other,” Jean-Claude Ellena says. His daughter adds there’s also a lot of respect.

THE CRESP FAMILY

Another father-daughter fragrance duo is Olivier and Anaïs Cresp. He was born in Cannes and grew up in Grasse, hailing from generations in the industry. His father was a natural ingredients broker, as was his grandfather. 

“It always was something that was part of our family,” Anaïs Cresp says, explaining they would be guinea pigs for fragrances he worked on. Her brother Sébastien Cresp became a perfumer, and her aunt Françoise Caron is one, as well.

“I never thought I would become a perfumer,” Anaïs Cresp says. “I was very intrigued by everything that’s about concept, construction and creative process.”

So she studied architecture. “After my graduation, my dad proposed we start a brand,” she says. First, Anaïs Cresp needed to perfect her spoken English, so went to London — but never left.

Time passed, and when Olivier Cresp visited her there, she showed him her favorite haunts for the likes of coffee and baked goods. That sparked the idea for a perfume brand about pleasure and addiction.

“We have quite a lot of [small pleasures of life] already in the family,” he says. “We love to drink alcohol, like red wine and Champagne. We don’t go for strong alcohol. We love to drink some tea or coffee — mainly more coffee. I love the smell of cigars and have lots of chocolate in my drawers, the car, the flat, the house, everywhere.”

Their brand’s name became Akro, a play on the French word “accro,” which translates into “addicted.” They launched it in 2018.

“I learned that his style was figurative,” Anaïs Cresp says. “So for him to reproduce a coffee was easy.”

She serves as Akro’s creative director and general manager. Her father oversees PR, as well as fragrance-making. Their skills complement each other: He susses out the market by scent and perception, while she from a more visual standpoint.

The two “adore each other,” Anaïs Cresp says. “We are very aligned.” 

Olivier Cresp agrees, saying: “We are very close.”

THE MICHAU DE NICOLAÏ FAMILY

The perfume industry’s rich history is also being passed down through the Michau de Nicolaï family. Patricia Michau de Nicolaï is part of the Guerlain family’s sixth generation. Two of her four children, Axel and Edwige Michau de Nicolaï, are of the seventh.

“Maybe our children will be the eighth,” says Edwige Michau de Nicolaï.

“They’re born into it,” says Axel Michau de Nicolaï. “We have our own factory, which is south of Paris. But also this is where we have the family house, so all the kids go to the factory on holidays.”

Patricia de Nicolaï and her late husband Jean-Louis began the brand Nicolaï in 1989. “It was not so easy to launch a new fragrance brand from scratch,” she says.

Axel, the second-born child, always knew he wanted to join the family business, and did in 2014.

“Our parents always talked about work at home,” he says. “I discovered nothing when I joined the company, because I grew up with it.”

Axel Michau de Nicolaï started his education in chemistry and after switched to business school and worked seven years in big groups. “My father said: ‘If you want to join the company, we have to develop the business,” he explains.

Edwige Michau de Nicolaï reminisces about the olfactive richness of their lives growing up, with a house full of classical music and art, which developed all their senses, including for scent. “Every day it was different,” she says. “Mom was wearing something new, testing something new.”

It was also suggested to Edwige Michau de Nicolaï that she work elsewhere first. Her experience included stints at Goldman Sachs, BCG and L’Oréal, then three years at Groupe Clarins. She cofounded the start-up Barooders.com, which became Europe’s largest secondhand bike and sporting gear marketplace.

Early on, Patricia Michau de Nicolaï was aware that Axel and Edwige worked well together, and now they run the business, as chief executive officer and brand director, respectively. The benevolence instilled by their parents in a very tight-knit family remains an important facet of their DNA and in turn that of Nicolaï’s culture.

“Deep care for employees, the product and ourselves is the key,” Edwige Michau de Nicolaï says.

The story of scent often changes over time. A fragrance named Petit Ange was created by Patricia de Michau de Nicolaï for her daughter when she was born in 1993. That is being reformulated and relaunched in June. 

“Now, my son wears it,” Edwige Michau de Nicolaï says. “Every night after the bath, he wears the perfume she made for me.”

Patricia has eight grandchildren today. Her fingers are crossed that there might be a perfumer in their midst. “We will see,” she says.