Perfume production carried on through the Second World War, in reduced form, because it mattered economically and emotionally — it earned valuable export income for occupied France in particular, and it offered ordinary people a small, affordable sense of normality during a genuinely bleak stretch of years.

An Export Worth Protecting

French perfume houses, based in a country under occupation, continued operating partly because perfume was a significant export earner that authorities had reasons to keep flowing rather than shut down entirely. Formulas were sometimes adapted to whatever ingredients remained available, but production itself rarely stopped completely.

A Small, Deliberate Act of Normality

For many women in particular, wearing perfume through the war years was a quiet act of maintaining dignity and morale when almost everything else was rationed, damaged or uncertain — a few drops of something familiar mattered more than its size suggests. That resilience is a recurring theme in perfume history, which we explore properly in our history of perfume guide, one part of the wider complete guide to perfume.