HEAVEN
BORN IN THE HEART OF THE HILLS
Haute-Provence is the solar country where nature is at its purest. It is in this sublime landscape of perched villages, between the blue sky and the golden stone, that all the plants are gorged with perfumes and aromas. Here, everything is preserved. A unique flora draws its strength from it. This terroir is sculpted by the work of men: rows of lavenders rub shoulders with the sea of vines, the crowd of orchards spawn with wild berries and, cradled on the hillsides, aromatic plants bloom like nowhere else. It is these hills that gave us our name: Collines de Provence. This is where we were born: in the hollow of the hills, in the leaning fields, facing the perched village of Mane in Provence. It was forty years ago, already. Our story begins in this natural Paradise... and we never leave it, true to our roots. Our story begins in 1982, in Mane en Provence. We were born in the heart of the Luberon Natural Park in Haute-Provence. At that time, Collines de Provence was just a modest workshop... But it’s here that some great ideas come up! As always, everything is in simplicity, as often happens, everything is before our eyes. But it was still necessary to pick the right idea: Create a small series of beauty products inspired by the riches of nature around. Why not? Since Verbena, Lavender or Rose de Grasse are the local lords, it was simply a matter of paying tribute to them. This is how the first line of natural cosmetics Collines de Provence was born. That’s how natural inspiration turned into a gesture of beauty. It was a first success for a new brand that wanted to be both "Perfumer and Botanist".
OUR STORY
The big story of a pretty little success
The success of the brand Collines de Provence is growing, because everything is already there at the origin: in the alchemy between natural resource and local know-how. But this fame became more than local when Collines de Provence looked at the ancient art of perfuming your home: lavender bags, dried flowers, soaps placed on piles of laundry... between scents and sanitation, all these empirical methods of perfumery have been used for thousands of years. It was to perfect the tradition. Our history only meets the great history when we remember that the word "lavender" comes from the Latin "valentin" because the plant was also used to wash clothes; the same goes for merchants of scents, the botanists and all the perfumers who roamed the hills of Haute-Provence in search of the rarest essences since always. In Haute-Provence, history joins geography in the wind of centuries. To perfect this art of perfuming the interior, to set it up as a true contemporary art of living, Collines de Provence has created a workshop dedicated to the manufacture of perfumes for interiors and perfumed objects.
PERFUME THE AIR AND WATER
In the bathroom as in the living room, Collines Provence finds a place of choice at the very beginning of 1990. Still passionate about natural ingredients, two iconic products will sustainably feed its growing notoriety: the potpourri and the oil lamp. Made from flowers, shells and slices of dried fruit these first plant compositions subtly perfume the atmosphere of a room. The oil lamps, meanwhile, are created from foliage and flowers adjusted by hand in large glass bottles capped with cork. These traditional media that had been neglected finally found their letters of nobility.
BOUQUETS OF FLOWERS AND INFUSIONS OF PLANTS
During the 2000s, Collines de Provence continued to draw from the heart of plants treasures of well-being. For the skin, Collines de Provence has created a unique range of natural cosmetics based on herbal infusions. Our brand also continued its research on the virtues of the olive leaf, integrating them into day creams, body milks, shower gels... But it was above all the marriage between the transparency of the glass, the capillarity of the wood and the volatility of the perfume that gave birth to a truly unprecedented product: "the perfumed bouquet." It is this unique innovation that distinguishes even more Collines de Provence. Its form and scents were so often imitated that the true author is forgotten. As for its quality, it has never been equaled. As always with Collines de Provence, the first perfumes diffused by these bouquets of natural rattan stems are first and foremost great Provençal classics: Amber, Garrigue, Lavender... but when success joined inspiration, other original perfumes inspired by nature were declined in other diffusion media: Cotton Cloud, White Tea, Lily of the Hills or even Pain d'Epices were adapted to scented artisanal candles, manually cast and whose finishing and decoration were also carried out 100% by hand in our workshops. Collines de Provence thus joins the great tradition of Grasse perfumers, that of the "noses" that the whole world envies us: to formulate exceptional perfumes with all the palettes of natural raw materials from all continents that converge in chorus towards Provence: bourbon geranium, vanilla, patchouli, neroli hibiscus... In 2003, new products were created and a range of scented objects took on a new dimension. Ceramic subjects, plaster, aromatic baubles and pendants, perfume packets and other creations enriched the multiplicity of modes of diffusion.
A house of scent
Collines de Provence has become a house of scents recognized worldwide by specialists and connoisseurs alike during the 2010s: the brand was distributed in more than 35 countries and since then has outlets dedicated specifically to the brand, in Japan in particular. Comme une Maison de Couture Collines de Provence creates original creations by drawing on unique know-how, itself heir to an ancestral history. This know-how is thus a skilful blend of innovation and tradition that creates a language entirely unique to it: who would have had the idea of mixing two perfumes by taking their first letter? This is how the fragrances Basilic and Bergamot, Rose and Rhubarb, Vanilla and Vetiver were born from chance encounters between natural ingredients.
PROVENCE IN HAUTE COUTURE
Since the 2020s, Collines de Provence is still distinguished by new and original creations. Its beauty products are becoming more technical, the extraction of active ingredients and the remaining formulas still as natural as ever: eau de toilette, eau de parfum, balms and butters have reached a level of sophistication that was once reserved for the largest cosmetic laboratories. It is a demanding naturalness that today allows Collines de Provence to claim uncompromising efficiency. Collines de Provence has not forgotten the traditional gestures of seamstresses who made bags and lavender dolls, or those elegant women who used aromatic plants to perfume their cloths and boudoirs. It is in tribute to these unique know-how that the "Couture" range was born in 2021. The fragrances "Coton Blanc", "Etole de Lin" or "Soie Sauvage" have notably come to expand the collection Collines de Provence. And as an ultimate attention to detail and the irreplaceable excellence of "handmade", all these creations have an incredible degree of finish: a colored thread sewn directly onto the packaging!
