LOTHANTIQUE

LOTHANTIQUE STORY

In 1920, Joséphine and Nestor Mouranchon, brother and sister, created "Mouranchon frères" company specializing in essential oil distillation. They rapidly became one of the suppliers of the great perfume makers at the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1927, to develop their activity, they opened a branch in Paris. This new venture unfortunately ended during the second world war when Nestor passed away.

During the early 50', tourism on the Cote d'Azur (French Riviera) regularly increased and the demand for scented products grew substantially. Joséphine decided to create in her sunny Provence estate a variety of fragrant specialities using lavender essential oil, a symbol of this region and its bounderless landscapes which inspired so many famous painters such as Cézanne, Van Gogh or Matisse.

It should be remembered that the lavender essence formula still used in Lothantique ranges has been developed by "Uncle Nestor" in 1936 and was never modified until now.

In 1987, Denis Vogade and his sister Dominique after having both graduated from their superior studies, took over the family company with the strong intention to enhance its activities in France and abroad since they felt that demand for fragrant body and home products would be highly increasing in Europe and in other developed countries.

Sold under "Lothantique" brand, a first range of lavender and other famous scents was created and met an immediate success.

The name "Lothantique", which could be a nickname of genuine or "authentic" in French language actually derives from a famous book written by the renowned Provence writer and film maker called Marcel Pagnol (20th century) who mentioned with humor in one of his chapters a local fancy flower called "lothantique" which does not exist and consequently grows only in books !

Denis Vogade is deeply involved in inventing numerous fragrances by using almost 100 years of family experience in scented products and is very closely cooperating with the perfume specialists (the "noses") working in Grasse, the cradle city of all perfume industry located not far from Lothantique premises (Grasse is the city where the famous novel "Perfume" written by Patrick Suskind takes place).

The company head office is situated in the southern part of the Alps chain in the middle of Provence hills where one can easily smell so many fragrant plants and flowers and discover in July the purple and wavy shapes of the lavender fields.

Lothantique staff is composed by more than 90% of female employees, many of them being long time collaborators.

Denis Vogade, the CEO, owns the company capital together with his sister Dominique in charge of product development and scent research and Beatrix, a Doctor in pharmacy with a degree in toxicology who is in charge of formulating all products and who checks the overall quality of what is produced by the Lothantique.   

Denis Vogade (53), a graduate in business and economy from Aix en Provence university, has been leading the company over 30 years allowing the brand to be sold in more than 60 countries all over the world.

Lothantique philosophy mainly consists in creating products bearing a long Provence tradition of perfumes while using all possibilities of modern technology and nature protection. Quality, environment proximity and meticulous selectivity for ingredients can define the top priorities of the company.

Lothantique founders are proud of their local roots and family inheritance. Most of product ranges bear their ancestors' names as a tribute to their talent (Joséphine, Nestor, Lili, Antoine and others).

Similarly, Lothantique has taken over in 2001 a neighbour company (Amélie et Mélanie) bearing the two names of its founder's daughters who now belong to the Lothantique tradition. In such spirit, Lothantique is now using one brand image photo gathering several generations of family ancestors for its communication. Lothantique is definitely "genuine".

Many new products prepared owing to state of the art techniques are created to render the nostalgic memories of scents associated with family gardens and grand mother's cupboards. Lothantique product ranges encompass body and bath lines as well as room fragrances.

For its future, Lothantique is determined to capitalize on its own history and know how to develop new creations likely to express the exhilarating power of perfumed dreams.

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