If you ask children what they want to be when they grow up, they will typically answer with a profession they have seen, either in daily life or on television: veterinarian, pilot, ice skater, or actress. How many times, however, have you heard a child say, "I want to be a perfumer"?

This is no doubt the kind of answer that inspires chuckles and guffaws from parents and adults who wonder how their child ever came up with "such a crazy notion."

However, for the visually or hearing impaired who attend the "Provence dans Tous les Sens (Provence in Every Sense)" summer programs in Provence, France, the idea of becoming a perfumer is not laughed at but rather approached with encouragement.

"Our main aim is to let children discover the world of scent," says Patricia Montesinos, who heads the program created by L'Occitane, an internationally known Provencal company that creates soaps, perfumes and other beauty products using only pure essential oils (many of which come from the Provence region). "Our second aim is to make sighted people aware of the difficulties blind and deaf people have in our society, and more, the difficulty [that occurs] in communicating between each other."

L'Occitane, which has stores around the globe and this past fall opened one of its latest in Tokyo's Aoyama district, was founded in 1976 by Olivier Baussan, a Provence native. Baussan, then a 23-year-old literature student, wanted to create beauty products using the natural herbs, trees and fruit of the Provence region. Since its early days the company has remained headquartered in Manosque, a small region of Provence stretching from La Montagne de Lure to the foothills of the Luberon chain.

Baussan helped to popularize Shea Butter, a cream with exceptional moisturizing capabilities that is harvested from the nuts of a tree found in Africa. He traveled to Burkina Faso in Africa in search of the sacred tree and set up a commercial agreement with the women of the region to harvest the nut.

L'Occitane became one of the first beauty companies to set up such a resource trade program -- a concept that the Body Shop's Anita Roddick, Bausson's contemporary, also used to market her highly successful chain. Although both companies have tapped into the rich natural resources of other countries for some of their lines, L'Occitane's focus remains on providing its customers with products that use only 100 percent essential oils.

While the Provencal company remains loyal to its dedicated customers who buy its products for their purity, it has also made a tremendous effort to reach the visually impaired community through its use of Braille packaging on all of its products and through encouraging its young proteges to become "perfume noses."

"I think the sense of smell is not developed enough at school," Montesinos says. "We have music courses, taste and cooking courses, handicraft courses -- but never smelling [courses].

"A lot of people don't know that we keep smells in our brain -- memory -- and that we never forget a smell."

The program, which is entering its third year this March, begins its first course of 2000 on how to become a makeup artist. The three-day course is offered for deaf children and covers everything from the raw materials used to create makeup to a visit to Roussillon and "Les Ochres," whose colors serve as the inspiration for the L'Occitane makeup range.

The teacher of this course, the first makeup program offered of its kind, is Chiara Fantig. Fantig, a Paris-based makeup artist, serves as L'Occitane's fashion consultant, as well as creating makeup for top fashion magazines.

The teacher for the three-day perfumer course in April is expert perfumer Lucien Ferrero, L'Occitane's perfume supplier and the man responsible for some of the world's most recognized scents.

For this course the children will visit gardens to smell and feel various plants and herbs, make potpourri, learn about the creation of perfume and finally make their own perfume to take home.

The program has been so immensely popular, says Montesinos, that "we were lost under the demand. My telephone was ringing every five minutes," she says of the response they received after advertising their program in a specialized magazine.

The program also received some unexpected endorsement from author Peter Mayle, who devoted an entire chapter in his book "Encore Provence" to L'Occitane's workshop.

So far only one student, David Maury, has gone on to study the art of "being a nose" seriously.

Maury, who was a student in the very first program in 1998, was admitted into an esteemed perfumery school at Versailles with the help of a recommendation by Ferrero.

Says Montesinos, "He used to walk along the streets and enter perfumeries [in Provence] and enjoy smelling the perfumes.

"He knows most of them and collects all the samples at home."

Although Maury was successfully admitted into the perfume school, Montesinos says they "found out that the courses are not designed for blind people, and there is no structure for them. We found out that the problem in teaching was deeper than we thought."

While the road to creating successful perfume programs for the visually impaired may not be as smooth as hoped, L'Occitane has certainly paved the way for continued improvement in future. Who knows? If the company follows its nose for success which made it so prosperous, it may also find itself heading a professional perfume school as well.