Posted by Robin
on
14 September 2005
If you’ve ever been tempted to start mixing your own scents, Anya McCoy’s story will be instructive. Anya started collecting essences, then started selling, then started blending, and eventually founded the Natural Perfumery discussion group on Yahoo. Recently, Anya has launched naturalperfumery.com, a clearinghouse for information on this expanding field. She plans to launch her own line of perfumes early next year.
How and when did you first become interested in perfume?
My first scent memories involve the lush perfumes that my mother and her friends wore. They gave me the almost-empty bottles so I could play with the bits left. I was only two or three, yet I could differentiate the varied perfumes by name. I connected them with the real world, like the roses and irises and crisp green succulent leaves of the hedges that grew in our garden. I found that picking and rubbing the flowers or leaves on my skin didn’t produce a fine perfume, so I thought there was something magical about how the scent went from the plant to the bottle — and there is! I knew I would be fascinated with perfumes for the rest of my life, and the natural world of plants and perfumes has always been intertwined in my heart and soul…
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Posted by Robin
on
5 September 2005
Strange Invisible Perfumes was founded in 2000 by Alexandra Balahoutis; the house was named for a line from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: “From the barge, a strange invisible perfume hits the sense of the adjacent wharfs”.
Alexandra spent over 4 years studying the art of botanical perfumery, and her line is made without the use of synthetic notes or fixatives. She distills many of her own essences, using organic materials whenever possible, and favors the use of hydro-distillation rather than steam distillation or chemical extraction methods.
Her new boutique-perfumery will open on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice, California in late September, and 10 of the perfumes from her Signature Collection will be coming to Barneys New York in October.
You have said that “making perfume was never a choice, but an involuntary obsession – there was simply no way I could ignore the impulse to make perfume”. Did this obsession come out of an appreciation of aromas or smells in general, or more specifically out of an appreciation of perfumes, and if the latter, what are some of the first perfumes you remember being captivated by?
I think that it sprouted from a love for aroma and a passion for ideas. I loved the way an aroma could summon a feeling of what inspired it. I wanted perfumes that smelled like my ideas, associations, and inspirations. I loved the idea of piecing aromas together into these invisible story boards. I wanted a perfume that didn’t exist…
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Posted by Robin
on
23 August 2005
Aedes de Venustas is well known to fans of niche fragrances. The West Village boutique was founded by Karl Bradl and Robert Gerstner in 1995, and I when I dream about owning my own fragrance boutique, as I do from time to time, in my mind it looks pretty much exactly like what they have created at Aedes. I asked Karl to tell me how he became involved in fragrance retail, and how he, Robert, and store manager Miguel keep up with the competition.
How did you first become interested in fragrance?
My fascination with fragrance started when my mom gave me a bottle of Rothchild for Christmas in the early 80's. I was so much into the scent …
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Posted by Robin
on
11 July 2005
Chandler Burr is the author of Emperor of Scent, the fascinating book about Luca Turin and his theory of smell. He is also the New York Times writer on scent. You can read his articles about perfume on his website, and you can also take a look at his 10 favorite fragrances.
If you have not read Emperor of Scent, you might also want to look at this interview with Chandler Burr for the website parfumessence.
You came to appreciate fragrance while working on the Emperor of Scent. Can you recall a few of the perfumes that initially captivated you?
I was fascinated and a bit disturbed at first by the degree to which I *didn’t like—couldn’t access, didn’t understand— some of the perfumes that Luca loves, specifically the classic Guerlains and Carons: l’Heure Bleue, Shalimar, Après l’Ondée, Vol de Nuit. These are the olfactory equivalents of 19th century French literature—smelling Chamade today is in almost every aesthetic sense identical to reading Stendhal today: the sentiments, reference points, emphases, and values all differ from those (or those most common) of our time, and you can find yourself lost. They require work. I’ve spent years with them, and I’ll never have an instinctive love of them. I don’t like Hugo either. Too much *stuff. But I can, now, appreciate their construction and their importance…
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Posted by Robin
on
27 June 2005
Christopher Brosius started exploring the world of fragrance while he was working at Kiehl's. In 1993, he left Kiehl's and founded Demeter, where he eventually built up a huge “fragrance library” of individual smells translated into perfume. You can hear Christopher talking about his work at Demeter on the radio show Studio 360.
In 2004, he left Demeter and started a new line, CB I Hate Perfume. He was also the nose behind Cumming: The Fragrance.
On his website, you can read a brief biography, find out why he named his new company “I Hate Perfume“, and discover why he doesn't use alcohol in his new line…
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