Bastille
A French perfume house conceived in 2019, known for genderless, 95%-natural, transparent scents.
France
About Bastille
Bastille is a French fragrance house created by Marie-Hortense Varin, built around genderless eaux de parfum made with 95% natural ingredients and an open approach to what goes into each formula.
History
Born into a family of Champagne winegrowers, Varin grew frustrated by the lack of natural alternatives to conventional perfume and, in 2019, began meeting perfumers to understand why. Their answers were discouraging: natural perfume was costly and complex, and success seemed to demand huge marketing budgets and a celebrity face. Those conversations nonetheless became the starting point for the brand. Working with IFF-LMR, the team developed around fifty prototypes, narrowed them to five finalists, and reworked each one dozens of times. In February 2022, Sophie Maisant took over as owner and CEO.
Philosophy & Signature Style
Calling itself a "perfumer of freedoms," Bastille looks for balance in its compositions: between sustainable and desirable, tradition and future, natural and synthetic, feminine and masculine. Ingredient transparency sits at the center of that approach, with ingredients disclosed rather than treated as a trade secret. Production stays in France, with fragrances made in Grasse, filled and packed in the Loire region, and components such as screen printing and cartons handled by French small businesses.
Iconic Fragrances
Bataille, composed by Nicolas Beaulieu of IFF, received the 2020 Prix de l'Innovation Responsable. Un Deux Trois Soleil, by Domitille Michalon-Bertier, layers bitter almond and heliotrope over vanilla, tonka bean, and incense.
