About us

For the first time in 1884, in his book “À rebours”, French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans referred to the place where perfumes are made as a “perfume organ”. The arrangement of perfumery ingredient bottles around the perfumer's workspace is indeed reminiscent of the way stop knobs are disposed around the music organ console. “Organ” comes from the Greek “οργανον” (organon) and from the Latin “organum” for “tool” or “instrument”. We say we are perfume organ "facteurs" (facteurs d'orgue à parfums) because musical organ builders are called "facteurs" in french; as in Quebec, the very famous Casavant Frères.

By the end of 2023, Contrebande will offer more than 300 perfume ingredients for you to build your own perfume organ, as well as all the perfume essentials, complete perfume formulas, video instructions, software tools to help with composing formulas and blending perfumes, essays about the history, aesthetics and the future of perfumes. And many, many surprises.

Come follow us on Instagram and we'll keep you posted : @contrebande.co.