The heart and soul of L’Occitane
October 12, 2005 | 12:00am
The story of L’Occitane is not just about a French company making beauty and personal care products. It is also about compassion and respect.
L’Occitane has a special bond with women in Africa. It also has a link with blind persons. Yes, it is a big company with a big heart.
It was with a lot of passion that Olivier Baussan started L’Occitane in l976. Baussan bought an old-fashioned steam distiller and started making his own rosemary oil, selling it at street markets around his native Provence. Later, he started making soaps as well, using an old soap factory practically given to him by an old man who was tired of making soaps. He used lavender flowers to make this and other personal care products. "You always look for the scents in your memory," he says, recalling how he would walk through lavender fields as a child. Baussan simply wanted to preserve the vanishing traditions of his hometown.
Baussan had this love for old, precious things. He spent his teenage summers in Corsica working with a fisherman. They became so close, the fisherman later gave his boat to Baussan. To this day, Baussan still cherishes the boat, he even had it restored.
The son of a journalist and an artist, Baussan studied poetry and literature in Aix-en-Provence. As a young man, he was a member of the "back to the land" movement and espoused the peace and love ethos of the Seventies.
It was in the Seventies when Baussan visited a village cooperative in Burkina Faso, Africa. He would become forever attached to the place and its people. Here he discovered shea butter, a wonder ingredient transported from Africa to Egypt by caravans for use of Cleopatra. For centuries, African women had been using shea butter not only to cook meals but also to massage newborn babies, treat damaged skin and even treat ailments like eczema and psoriasis. Later experiments proved shea butter to be a powerful ingredient that nourishes skin and smoothes wrinkles because it leads to renewal of skin cells. The anti-aging effect of shea butter has been found to be twice more effective than other ingredients.
Shea butter was called "women’s gold" not only because it did wonders for healing damaged skin and beautifying women, but also because it enabled poor women in Africa to earn a living. In Africa, the shea tree was also called "karite", meaning life. The shea fruit nuts were traditionally harvested by women who would collect the fallen fruits, walk miles, carry the fruits, remove pulp from the seeds, dry the seeds, pound them to remove the husk, roast the kernels and come up with a mixture that is boiled over wood fire. Then, a mass of shea butter is produced and the women remove the oils as the butter rises.
Baussan forged an alliance with the African women’s cooperatives from whom L’Occitane buys shea butter directly. This miracle product that now beautifies women all over the world, feeds rural communities, sends children to school and provides sustenance to families in Africa.
"It is a wonderful feeling to be able to build a link between people who plant and harvest, and the people who buy the product," says Baussan. "A lot of human work goes into the making of our products, and we value this. I call this respect."
Respect for the disabled and handicapped is another trademark of L’Occitane. Baussan wanted his store employes to learn the sign language so that they could communicate with deaf customers. He also wanted them to study braille so that visually-impaired customers could be at home at L’Occitane. These were not that easy, so what he did was print most of L’Occitane’s packaging with braille by perforations on paper. It took time to perfect it, but he did it.
L’Occitane’s compassion for the blind goes beyond printing labels. In l998, the company created a summer school for blind and deaf children. The school alerts the human senses to the scents, tastes and traditions of Provence."The nose is as complex as the eye or the ear, and is equally equipped for the acquisition of knowledge," Baussan explains.
Last year, L’Occitane created limited edition Apple Puree candles and set aside 20 percent of sales from these to benefit the American Foundation for the Blind, the organization to which Hellen Keller devoted her life. Each candle came with a free braille bracelet. Proceeds helped the AFB eliminate inequities faced by l0 million visually-impaired Americans.
Respect for man, animals and the environment. This is the core of L’Occitane’s commitment. "We maintain fair trade practices with the African women’s cooperatives; we never use child labor; we never test our products on animals; all our products are made from natural ingredients; our bags are made with paper from seaweed from the venice lagoon, thus demonstrating our support in the fight against pollution associated with algae," stresses Baussan. "And most of all , we support traditional methods of production, and we give priority to the farmers of Provence. "
There is a piece of Provence in every L’Occitane product. "Since my childhood, I have been instilled with the greatest respect for nature and tradition, from Provence to Corsica to Africa. This respect for nature has allowed me to come into contact with those who harvest the flowers and fruits that go into our products – people with a profound sense and attachment to their native soil.
This is the heart and soul of L’Occitane. The very essence that makes its products smelling so good.
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