From tanning...

From the 12th century, fabric making and the processing of leather were the main specialties of the town. Leather processing was favoured by the abundance in the region of Pistacia lentiscus and myrtle, which were used as tan and gave leather its characteristic green colour. From the mid-13th century, the guilds of drapers and tanners were subject to new regulations. The tanners who had gathered around the water points were then located on the Place aux Aires.

... to perfume making

Deriving from the tanning trade of the 16th century, perfume making experienced a rapid development in the 17th century, but it is not until the 18th century that it underwent a fundamental change. In 1724, glove and perfume makers left the guild of tanners. Their statutes were officially registered in 1729. Around 1750, the method of cold enfleurage appeared, which allowed perfumers to extract fragrant compounds from the most delicate flowers: orange flower, jasmine, tuberose. The industry provided great prosperity to the region.

In the 19th century, Grasse specialized in the production of raw materials for perfume making and applied to this activity the principles of the industrial revolution. New machines and new extraction techniques were invented, particularly solvent extraction for which the Grasse industrialist Léon Chiris acquired the first patents in 1894. The 1850s also heralded expansion into international markets and the development of aromatic crops in the Grasse region.
With the industrial revolution, industrial organic synthesis provided perfumers with synthetic products, original reproduction of natural ingredients already used in perfume making. The Grasse perfume industry then experienced major development therefore contributing to the expansion of related trades: glassmaking, tinmaking, corkmaking, boilermaking, printing, transport...