Alice Lavenat: Interview with Young Perfume Creator 2014

by: Suzy Nightingale

The grandchild of a wine making family, Alice Lavenat grew up surrounded by the smell of grape juice and cognac spirits. With these olfactory memories having made themselves part of her childhood, perhaps there can be no great surprise when Alice says these are what triggered her passion for the world of fragrance and propelled her into the ultimate desire of becoming a perfumer. Following a degree in chemistry, Alice studied for two years at ISIPCA, alternating her studies by training at the Jean Niel Company; still a perfumer at this home to her initial training, Alice took part in a challenge to create a new fragrance by the Société Francaises des Parfumeurs. The theme was deceptively simple: "Create a perfume with a line of natural blackcurrant bud absolute in your formula ..."

For this competition Alice threw herself into creating something really special, no easy feat when working with that particular note, for many of the greatest perfumers—with years of experience under their belts—often curse blackcurrant as an ingredient that can flip from fabulously fruity to smelling akin to cat pee with over-judicious application in a formula. Undaunted, Alice imagined "a fruity floral woody amber accord, highlighting the various facets of this rich absolue." In the top notes she included the essence of grapefruit, rhubarb and sparkling pink pepper to harmonize with the blackcurrant bud and fuse the green facets of the note. A floral accord of white peony blended with orange blossom and Turkish rose absolute was used for the heart notes, to bring forth the fruity part of the blackcurrant note.The base was created specifically to highlight the leathery character that blackcurrant bud can exude given the right conditions, using earthy Haitian vetiver enriched with Labdanum and the woody notes of aged Cognac barrels.

For this creation, Alice was awarded the prestigious prize of Young Perfume Creator of 2014 by Sylvie Jourdet, director of the Société Francaises des Parfumeurs.

I feel incredibly honored that Alice sent me this perfume to try for myself, especially since the fragrance is not even yet for sale under a brand, though as you will learn if you read on, all of this may be about to change ...

Une Ligne de Bourgeon de Cassis by Alice Lavenat:

The first spray reveals a sparkling burst of bubbles on the skin, a crystal flute of rose Champagne overflowing with joyfulness—you can practically hear the pop of the cork and a fountain of fizz as it's released. This quickly gives way to incredibly juicy fruits, the rhubarb enhancing the greenness and a delicate grapefruit just tart enough to set the mouth watering. There is a sense of brown sugar sprinkled on the fruits within a few minutes, we seem to be taken on a journey through late summer to autumnal mists rolling in, a background spiciness dancing with the uplifting orange blossom, embracing the intoxicatingly beautiful peony and twirling into the dark heart of the Turkish rose.

All the while, blackcurrant is apparent from top to heart so far. You can glimpse it as though in the far corner of the ballroom, mingling with the crowds and making its presence known yet never overpowering the company it keeps. Deeper now as it dries down further still, the blackcurrant seems to take charge—it ripens on the skin, the initial tartness long gone, it becomes a stickily delicious preserve to slather on a thick piece of freshly buttered bread, the blackcurrant of a blood red wine so thick it feels you could stand a spoon in it. Damp earthiness grounds the whole formula, preventing the sweetness from becoming sickly and adding a mysterious murkiness that swirls at the edges of hedonism without quite giving in. Blackcurrant is one of my favorite notes in perfumery, but can so often be overdone or used in a peculiarly obvious (and usually too sweet) way that becomes cloying, a dark velvet choker worn far too tightly that has you clawing at your neck to take it off.

Here, Alice has used the blackcurrant bud with a deep understanding and respect—I love the way it changes throughout the various stages of the fragrance, and so, delighted and intrigued, I was thrilled when Alice agreed to answer some questions so I could find out more about this talented young perfumer.

Suzy Nightingale: Alice, please tell me a childhood memory of smelling something beautiful ...

Alice Lavenat: "I grew up in the countryside, olfactory memories of my childhood are certainly not lacking. Both my grandparents were winemakers, so I grew up surrounded by the fruity smell of grape juice, those warm of cognac spirits and oak barrels. These scents remains for me as my first olfactory emotions, and they continue to inspire me to this day."

Suzy: What was your inspiration to become a perfumer?

Alice: "I always wanted to do a creative job. My passion for scents and perfumes inspired me to look for work in this world. When I was 15, the high school teachers began to question us on our future. I then started looking for all the professions around the world of perfume and I came across documentation about ISIPCA's trainings and an explanation of what a perfumer does. At that moment, I knew I wanted to go to ISIPCA to learn the craft of perfumery and one day be able to create all these fragrances that made me dream. After a degree in chemistry, I studied for two years at ISIPCA, alternating with training at the Jean Niel Company, taught by Gerard Anthony. I am today still perfumer at Jean Niel."

Suzy: Are there similarities between the art of perfumery and the art of making wine?

Alice: "There are definitely some similarities that can be found between perfume and wine, especially in terms of language and notes used to describe them. And there is, I think, a few more similarities between cognac spirit and perfume because the cognac is a blend of "eau-de-vie" with different characteristics, some more fruity or some more woody, in order to obtain a specific quality of cognac. As the perfume is a mixture of several oils, absolute and raw material to create a specific fragrance. But in wine or cognac the 'designer palette' is narrower than for a perfumer when he creates a perfume."

Suzy: You must have been thrilled to receive the award Young Perfume Creator, how does it feel? Is it exciting and inspiring or slightly scary, perhaps?

Alice: "I was very honored to receive this award of Young perfumer creator. I chose my profession and I do it with a lot of passion, so it was a real honor and great pride that my fragrance is the one selected by the members of the jury. This gave me even more enthusiasm, creative fervor and the desire to continue more than ever in this work that I love!"

Suzy: The project you won the award for was based around the theme of blackcurrant bud—what was the most difficult part of working with this note?

Alice: "Working with Blackcurrant bud absolute was not easy because of its many facets, some very sharp and metallic. Also as it is an absolute, this raw material has an impact more in the base notes of the perfume. So I worked my fragrance in order to push it up, give volume and reveal the blackcurrant notes from the top. All these challenges are also what made it so interesting and very exiting to work with."

Suzy: What are you most proud of in the award-winning fragrance? Is there a stage you particularly like?

Alice: "I'm pretty happy with the base accord of my creation, it obviously smells like blackcurrant buds absolute but I like the sensuality provided by the musk and the amber. Also obviously I am very glad to have been able to use the accord of blackcurrant bud with my woody accord of cognac oak barrels, it's such a clear memory of my childhood."

Suzy: When you finish a perfume, how do you know when to stop working on it? Or do you always feel it could be improved?

Alice: "When I work a perfume, I usually have an olfactory idea of where I want to go. I know that my perfume is finished when all of my raw materials seem harmonize, also when the power suits me and when I have a good balance between my top, heart and base elements. Often the decisive final stage is when the fragrance is validated to the customer to whom it was intended. For my creation around blackcurrant bud, I searched for the agreement between the elements and to highlight the blackcurrant absolute but I finally decided that my fragrance was ready when the power of top looked good enough.

"However, for my own pleasure, I continue to work this perfume, I already formulated an 'eau fraîche' version with an overdose of citrus note in top and I also worked this fragrance for other application, currently I'm working on a candle version."

Suzy: What form has your training taken? Do you have to go back and smell vintage perfumes and compare them to modern fragrances? Is there a vintage perfume you particularly admire?

Alice: "At the very beginning of my training, I started by weighing the fragrance formula of the other perfumers. This is a very good way to learn and memorize the raw materials. It also allowed me to see and learn the structures and the accord in the perfumes. In the mean time, I started working on simple and very basics accords like rose or jasmine and then I learn the classic structure such as fougère, chypre .... And I soon had the opportunity to work on a fragrance project for a customer. In my perfumery culture, I had to know and study the Classics vintage perfumes. In vintage perfume for men, I think my favorite is the Eau Sauvage de Dior but I think it's not professionally objective because it was the perfume of my Dad. In vintage perfume for women, I had the opportunity through a conference Osmothèque (International Conservatory of Perfumes in Versailles) to smell Crêpe de Chine de Millot, and I loved this perfume. It is vintage but not too old despite the aldehydic notes. The bottom is very soft, velvety, I think it could still be worn today."

Suzy: Which modern perfumers do you most admire, and why? Which would you most like to work with if you could?

Alice: "I had the chance to be trained by Gerard Anthony, who is a great perfumer. He loves perfume and knows very well how to pass on his knowledge. So I'm very lucky!"

Suzy: If you could choose an era of perfumery and travel there in a time machine, which would you choose and where would you travel?

Alice: "I think I'd like to return to the era when every fragrance was created to be unique and the perfumer took the time to create it. When each perfume launch was an event that people could appreciate because there was not every day like today."

Suzy: What are your personal favorite perfumes to wear?

Alice: "Usually I wear perfumes that I'm working on, for testing them and seeing how I live with them. But the perfume I wear most often, and have done for several years, is the Prada Infusion d'Iris. I love the Iris flower and I like the way how this flower is worked in the Prada Infusion. Very fresh and sparkling in top but then very sensual with the musks.

"I don't like perfumes that are too opulent, that steal the olfactory space of the people around the person wearing it. I prefer skin perfumes that reveal their sensuality when people approach you and leaves behind a delicate trail. I think that's why I so enjoy wearing the Prada Infusion d'Iris."

Suzy: Is it possible to enjoy perfumes and not think about them professionally anymore? Or do perfumers always smell other fragrance creations and think about them clinically?

Alice: "Even before working in the perfume and still now, I smell all the time, what I eat, what I drink, I spend hours in the supermarket shelves of shower gel and shampoo and in perfumery to smell new products.

"And when I smell a fragrance whether cosmetic or fine fragrances, it is very difficult for me to not have perfumer reflex and telling me there must be a particular raw material, or this accord is very original, very interesting ..."

Suzy: Do you think your generation of perfumers are stifled by IFRA and other regulations on perfume ingredients? Do you feel it's unfair you can't use certain ingredients or quantities that previous generations could? Or does this challenge you to find new ways of working with ingredients?

Alice: "I think it may be easier for young perfumer generation to work with the limitations of the IFRA. We were trained to work from the beginning, with the limitations imposed by IFRA for certain raw materials, so it is perhaps less frustrating. The new standards, which take effect regularly, ban or restrict some raw materials we use and sometimes just by habit. I see it more as a challenge, sometimes it forces me to find another way of working, by using other raw materials that I just discovered or that I discovered again."

Suzy: Do you have a favorite note or combination of notes to work with? Would you say you have a signature style?

Alice: "All the projects I work on are often very different—I do not think I have a specific signature on my fragrances, but I like working on projects with woody fragrances, especially the Vetiver that I find very rich and full of character."

Suzy: What is the most exciting thing happening in perfumery right now?

Alice : "The fact that customers are more and more interested in perfume of niche brands. These brands put forward the finest raw materials, the quality and the creativity before marketing and consumer tests.

"I hope that this will push the big brands to take a little more risk in the new launches to be more creative and to not always offer the same olfactive universe."

Suzy: If you hadn't gone in to perfumery, what career path might you have chosen instead?

Alice: "If I had not become a perfumer, I think I would have to have chosen a creative job around flowers, probably a florist or a garden designer."

Suzy: What is your next project, or can you tell us about something you are working on now?

Alice: "Well, I have worked for some years with Marie-Lise Bischoff's brand, Nejma. I'm working on the next fragrance collection, but unfortunately I can not say more because projects are rather confidential before their launches, as you can imagine!"

from left to right: Sylvie Jourdet presidente French Society of Perfumers, Patrick De Vilmorin, Alice Lavenat, Maurice Roucel Chief Perfumer (Symrise) & President of the jurys.

It's definitely a first for me to have the honor of trying a fragrance not created for a brand, not even for sale as yet, but simply to see for myself how the mind of a young perfumer can take shape when given a creative challenge. Having smelled Alice's award winning perfume, I am left in no doubt that a very bright future awaits her, one steeped years ago in the oak barrel memories of her childhood, an olfactory connection that beckoned her towards the path of perfumery and is somehow always there, urging her onwards to new adventures on her fragrant journey.