Owner of the Domaine de Manon which works with the Dior fashion house, [horticulturist Carole Biancalana] nonetheless told her seasonal workers they must wear a mask owing to the risk of catching the coronavirus. After two months of confinement, the gathering of rose petals began over a week ago and continues depending on the weather, under extra sanitary precautions. "Normally, everyone grabs a smock, we help each other out and go down the rows facing each other, we chat and it’s nice," Biancalana says. This year, each worker has a separate row and a personalised burlap bag to contain the risk of contamination, and only one person drives to a collection site where the pink petals tumble into extraction vats.

— Read more in Masks blossom among roses at French perfume capital at Premium Beauty News.

The pair started planting jasmine grandiflorum - a key ingredient in top French perfumes like J’adore L’Or or Chanel number 5 - in their farm in June. It is back-breaking work as every tiny flower has to be harvested by hand over a three-month period.

But if all goes to plan, within four to five years, they will be the second biggest producers of the prized white flower in France.

— Read more at Flower power returns to Grasse amid influx of young growers to 'world's perfume capital' at The Telegraph.

Perfume-making techniques used in Grasse, a southerly French commune where iris, jasmine and other fragrant plants have long flourished, won U.N. recognition on Wednesday, boosting a bid by local industry champions to lure back more specialist growers.

The United Nation’s cultural agency said it had added the skills linked to cultivating flowers and blending fragrances in Grasse to its list of protected treasures.

— Read more at French fragrance masters of Grasse get Unesco heritage boost at Reuters.

At the time, perfume blogs and a few books were lifting the veil off a closely guarded industry. I had fallen in love not only with perfume, but also with the deft and curious descriptions of fragrance at the hands of gifted perfume critics, namely Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez who together wrote the vastly entertaining “Perfumes: The A-Z Guide.” I felt as though I had discovered two new strains of art — not to mention the most underrated of the five senses.

More recently, I decided to take a deeper look into the fragrance industry and knew there was no better place to do this than Grasse, France, a medieval town in southern Provence known as the perfume capital of the world.

— A perfumista goes to Grasse. Read more at A Perfume Devotee in the Land of French Fragrance at The New York Times.