Nolyne Cerda, journalist, author of the Parlons B podcast did us the honor of choosing Mademoiselle Saint Germain for her 26th episode of Parlons B. We naturally took her to the King's vegetable garden, essential partner of Mademoiselle Saint Germain. Here is a written collection of the Podcast Parlons B that you can also listen to here.
Nolyne"For this new episode, I'm taking you to the King's vegetable garden in Versailles. This timeless and historic place hosts the ENSP, the National School of Landscape. Why ? What relationship with beauty? Quite simply because Charles Cracco, pharmacist, is the founder of the French brand Mademoiselle St Germain. In 2016, he had the crazy idea of linking up with the King's vegetable garden to transform its ingredients into natural products whose formulas are inspired by the old collections of the time. These two entities participate in particular in reintroducing extinct species without fertilizers or pesticides while reviving recipes of yesteryear brought up to date. With Charles and Antoine Jacobson (agricultural engineer, food historian and current manager of the School's site) we talked about history, kings, queens, agriculture and botany. I was also lucky enough to be able to go there. You can find a short video on the Instagram account @parlonsBpodcast
Hello Charles, Hello Antoine,
I am delighted to be with you at the King's vegetable garden so that we can talk about your Charles brand. Can you quickly introduce what Mademoiselle Saint Germain is?
Charles
Mademoiselle Saint Germain, these are the French cosmetics of the vegetable garden. Mademoiselle Saint Germain is the first brand of cosmetic products to use only French ingredients in their composition, that is to say that today working with made in France is good, but knowing how to where the ingredients of cosmetic products come from is even better and it is in this process of better consumption and local consumption that I created Mademoiselle Saint Germain.
The idea was born in 2016! I think Antoine I contacted you in 2016?
Antoine
Yes with a confidentiality clause… We said to ourselves what is this thing that is happening to us.
Nolyne
Yes, that's what you're going to explain next, but you weren't used to talking to cosmetic brands.
Charles
It's true that when I contacted Antoine I said "Listen I can't tell you anything but receive me".
Antoine
That was it.
Nolyne
But you didn't know each other originally?
CharlesNot at all ! While it's true that many people think that I have a very long arm in terms of political relations because having a partnership contract with the King's vegetable garden it really is something unique. In reality, it's just a little bit of sass and a whole lot of madness. Or probably the opposite, which actually prompted me to send a letter to the King's Vegetable Garden. Antoine was the recipient because I had seen his numerous interviews…
AntoineIt was very intriguing. We get a letter that doesn't say why and says "we want to meet you and you're not allowed to talk about it" laughs
After a few very short moments of hesitation, we said, we still want to know what it is about.
NolyneYou were curious.
Charles
In fact I did that why... we never discussed it Antoine so let's take the opportunity to talk about it... A lot of people told me
"Charles you must not be the first to have had this idea. In any case, if this idea were possible, it would already be realized. And that's why I wanted to protect myself because I thought that the Vegetable Garden of the King had already considered this hypothesis before me. So I took precautions.
Antoine
We on the cosmetics side, I would say that this is still not what interests me or what interests us here. There are two things that convinced us and continue to convince us :
Firstly that it's not so much "cosmetics" but rather "it's caring". It's the idea of products that extend the interest we have here in taking care of our environment and therefore somewhere in taking care of ourselves.
You want to know more ? Find the handwritten transcription of the podcast of Mademoiselle Saint Germain by parle B, just here.