Dive into the heart of the Maison Payen 1730 family saga
A city
Marseille, 1730. At the port, it’s bustling. The air rustles with the snapping of ropes, the lowering of sails and the cries of sailors unloading their heavy bundles of wonders from around the world.
A moving and radiant city, incredible balance between land and sea, Marseille sees boats coming from the four corners of the globe every day. Colors, flavors and scents flood the streets with creativity.
A door open to the horizon, at the crossroads of cultures, Marseille, strong and proud of its land, feeds on these influences, inspiring new ideas and new desires.
A family
From the balcony of his oil business, Jean-Baptiste Court sees the port and its boats. It is in this setting where the five senses flourish that he has the idea that will change everything: apply to vegetable oils – and in particular to ordinary olive oil – a unique process to refine their material while preserving the natural active properties of the plants from which they come.
Combining the genius of the inventor, the imagination of the assembler, and the know-how of the refiner, he developed White Olive Oil: non-greasy, finer, softer, and fragrance-free. He thus sublimates its exceptional active ingredients for the skin. The house's first Rare Oil was born.
To preserve this know-how, Jean-Baptiste Court joined forces in 1770 with his nephew, Jean-Baptiste Payen, who himself entrusted it to his heirs, giving birth to a real dynasty: the Court-Payen.
A reputation
This is how, from the 18th to the 20th century, Maison Payen became the largest factory of Rare Oils for natural skin care and soaps.
This notoriety ended up arousing the interest of Charles X who, seduced by the dazzling whiteness of his soap, made Maison Payen a Royal Manufacture and its owner a craftsman to the King.
At the same time, the Soieries Lyonnaises recognized that Maison Payen's White Olive Oil Soap had purifying properties for silks from India and China, definitively contributing to its image of softness and excellence.
Perfumers and apothecaries around the world are snapping up the house’s Rare Oils, a guarantee of exceptional skin care.
A know-how
Today, combining its inherited knowledge with the most recent innovations, Maison Payen has developed a contemporary range of treatments based on Rare Vegetable Oils, enriched with active molecules extracted from their unsaponifiable part.
Exploring the world in search of exceptional ingredients, she transmits their unique benefits at the heart of treatments with delicate textures and refined fragrances, in perfect affinity with the skin.
White Olive Oil from the Mediterranean basin, Nigella Oil from Egypt, Baobab Oil from South Africa, Camellia Oil from Cyprus… Maison Payen Rare Oils come from all over the world.
True invitations to travel, to sensoriality and refinement, often used in the oldest rituals from all four corners of the world, rare oils are carefully assembled for the finesse and lightness of their essence and for their remarkable concentration in natural molecules active for the skin.
