Olivier Baussan: 'I want the story of Provence to be told in L'Occitane'

MANILA, Philippines - As a fitting ending to our Provence beauty journey, we have the privilege and pleasure to meet Olivier Baussan, the man who started it all, up close and somewhat personal. Traversing narrow trails hemmed in by dense vegetation with an expert lady driver, who knows the curves of the roads like the back of her hand, behind the wheel, we finally reach Forcalquier, where Olivier Baussan keeps his date with our group of Asian journalists, mostly women, from the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Korea. In an all-black outfit, our host awaits with open arms and a smile as bright as the sun of Provence on a scorching Saturday morning. Excerpts from the two-hour chit-chat:

ASIAN JOURNALISTS: Bonjour, Monsieur Olivier!

OLIVIER BAUSSAN: It’s a lucky weather welcoming you today. It’s been raining in Provence. We’re here in a traditional provincial house that used to be a farmhouse belonging to some friends of mine. Many farmhouses in this area have been converted to living quarters. This house has been tastefully renovated, everything is a nice piece of work. The owners rummaged through flea markets to get the same style as the house was when it was built decades ago. It’s parallel to what I’m doing with the packaging of L’Occitane — there’s harmony of colors, but always, I give the impression that L’Occitane is from Provence. I want the story of Provence to be told in my new packaging for L’Occitane. I want to put poetry into the packaging.

Twenty-six years ago, I was a literature student, very attached to the world around me, to tradition, to farming, and I was looking for a way through poetry to get closer to this tradition. In 1976, the world was becoming more industrial, it was coming out of the first oil crisis that hit Europe. Everybody realized petrol (gas) was running out and they were thinking of life without petrol, how to live in a different world. As a student, I started thinking about ecology, but the concept was different then.

One day, I was passing by an old farmhouse and I found this machine (that now stands at the entrance of the L’Occitane factory in Manosque). I bought it for nothing as the farmer who gave it to me was only too happy to dispose of it and make room in his house.

(A whiff of history: In 1976, Olivier Baussan, then 23, started making shampoos with essential oils in his home in Haute-Provence with just an old steam distiller and a van. He was passing by an old Marseille soap factory when he stopped to make friends with the owner who later decided to give Olivier the equipment and know-how.)

How has life been on the farm? How does a day go for you?

Very quiet. All you hear here are the goats or the sheep, but then babies make the same sound. A dog keeps the herd together. You can eat goat cheese every day.

During weekdays, I do not just eat, I eat good food — I look for the perfect goat cheese, locally grown food. I share wild asparagus, good meat, dried sausages with my friends as we sit around a table in the garden.

What drives your passion?

I have an old fishing boat, a wooden one, that I share with the fishermen who live here. I maintain this boat. I enjoy the slow pace of life here and doing it the difficult way.

In this fast-paced world, what advice can you give people to find peace?

In all honesty, it’s very difficult to find peace. When I go to Paris, I spend as little time as I can because I want to come down here in Provence. In the same way that I want to give a breath of fresh air to L’Occitane products.

How did L’Occitane start in Provence?

Quoting lines from a French poem, Olivier Baussan signs an autograph. Translated in English, it means: “In my country, the tender proofs of spring are preferred to remote objectives or goals.”

I was not a doctor so I started looking into old recipes for essential oils. In Asia, pharmacists use traditional plants like ginseng more than the French do; they have such respect for plants and tradition. My search for tradition and know-how led me to listen to the elders. This tradition/know-how is dying because people are so used to petrol-based products. This brought me to meet up with the traditional people, the elders who knew how to use the plants. What’s important about L’Occitane is to be simple and modest, to listen to people who have the know-how, and pass it on. Like the Immortelle, which is very good against bruises but has been forgotten. Or the angelica plant, which is used by the elders for hydration. It sucks up water and grows very high, which makes its hydration properties very obvious. A young farmer said his grandma used the angelica plant for hydration. And so, I said to myself why not plant it and encourage young farmers to grow it but using very old traditions?

Did you study chemistry? Why the name L’Occitane?

No, I didn’t study chemistry. But my childhood memories are associated with the angelica. Angelica was as beautiful as an angel. For the French, it conjures the image of soft angel grass. I remember as a child, I could eat the roots of the angelica.

In the Middle Ages, there were different cultures and languages. There was an openness and a lot of poetry in the 16th century. Based on all these cultural backgrounds, I built the idea of the ideal woman — the woman of Occitania.

Could you tell us the story of the shea butter — how L’Occitane discovered it?

In the early 1980s, I had my first trip to Burkina Faso, off the coast of West Africa, and found the women there harvesting nuts from shea butter. The beautiful thing about it is this disadvantaged women are allowed to keep the money from the sale of these nuts. They don’t have to give the money to their husbands, they can spend it on themselves and their children, which in a way helps these women to have their own source of income and become autonomous. These women use the shea butter for cooking. They work hard pounding these nuts under the hot sun, but despite that, you can see that they have young-looking arms because they use shea butter every day. L’Occitane got into a partnership with these women, which allowed them to sell their priceless shea butter (also called women’s gold) at a price higher than the local market price. From 11 women picking shea butter nuts, there are now 14,000 empowered women in Burkina Faso.

At this stage in your life, what else do you dream of?

My dreams are no longer for myself but for my grandchildren. I want them to have an interesting life, to be happy, and not necessarily to be in business. If one day, one of my grandchildren tells me he wants to be a farmer, that will please me very much.

Merci beaucoup,  Olivier!