Where home fragrance meets art, the history of Maison Berger

We love helping you create the perfect ambiance in your home and Lampe Berger is one of our favourite ways to do that. And we're not alone! In over 120 years, after countless artist collaborations and thousands of scents, Lampe Berger expanded to include reed diffusers, car diffusers and candles, rebranding as Maison Berger. They now sell over 5 million litres of fragrance and 800,000 lamps worldwide every year. 

Developed in 1898 by pharmacy technician Maurice Berger to help purify the air in hospitals and morgues, a decade later, department stores in Paris were carrying the crystal Berger lamps as a household accessory to remove unpleasant odours. By the 1930s fragrance was added to the purifying fuel, and collaborations with Lalique and Baccarat made the lamps themselves collectible objets d'art. 

This catalogue image shows some of the original crystal jars, and some early ceramic pieces.

By the 1940s and 50s, Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel and Colette & Jean Cocteau had their own lamps, cementing Lampe Berger as an indespensible home fragrance accessory and a style icon. More recent collaborations with Jonathan Adler and Phillippe Starck show the modern, playful side of Maison Berger proof of the enduring legacy of the brand, truly where art meets home fragrance. 

The Philppe Starck lampe for Maison Berger released in 2022, was inspired by the tubes and burners in a chemist's laboratory -Maison Berger UK

We often recommend Maison Berger as a housewarming gift, or for the person who has everything because it is a functional piece of art. It was cigar shops that were the early adoptors of Lampe Berger in North America - because they remove the smell of cigar smoke from the air. Like the French did in the 1920s, customers soon realized that they could use their lamp to remove cooking odours, to refesh musty basements, to cleanse the air of airborne allergens and their popularity grew! Thanks to a wide range of fragrances, and an unscented option there truly is something for everyone in the world of Maison Berger.

The Essential Gift Set, with a small bottle of Neutral and Ocean Breeze fuels -Ziggy's at home

Want to try it for yourself? You'll need your Maison Berger lamp - which comes with a wick, burner, stopper and protector - the scented or unscented fuel of your choice and matches or a lighter. Follow the instructions below. We recommend filling your lamp halfway full of fuel, so that you don't accidentally oversaturate your burner!

So you have your lamp, and your fragrance but something isn't working! The wick does eventually need to be replaced, usually once a year or after one hundred uses. If you find you lamp is not working, we recommend removing your wick and letting it dry out for 48 hours, ensure your lamp is half full or less and then try again. If it still doesn't work, replacements are available in the shop or online! Et voila, you're back to clean, fresh air.