Interview with the Creators of the New Jovoy Perfumes

by: Serguey Borisov

The best part of a Jovoy Paris interview? Well, I caught all of them at once. They all gathered at the Jovoy booth—personable boss François Henin, Ann-Sophie Behagheland Amelie Bourgeois—to present the new extraits of Jovoy Paris in red boxes to me. We were eating tasteful chocolates from Kazakhstan, smelling new perfumes, laughing a lot and definitely spending much more time than we planned on the interview devoted to Sombre Dessins, Jus Interdit and Sans Un Mot.

Serguey Borisov:
You are launching three Extraits de Parfum. What made you think of Extraits de Parfum after so many Eaux de Parfum in the Jovoy collection?

François Henin:
I've always believed that the purest way to express the perfumes is to create an extrait. I'm not telling you any secret, extrait by essence is just the most concentrated form of smell. There's a bad reason why I wanted to explore the extrait and it is because I had a problem with the production of one Eau de Parfum so I had to get rid of it. It was a very bad experience.

At the beginning people were thinking that Jovoy is the producer of heavy concentrated and lasting fragrances, so why we should make extraits of it? ThePrivate Label or Psychedelique were as strong, huge and heavy as perfumes! Then I just launched L'Art de la Guerre and the fragrance was so contrary to what we were doing then, it's the freshest masculine fougère perfume compared to any other perfume of Jovoy. And also to explore the technical challenge of working on extraits was also interesting for me.

I had these three ideas and could not imagine them in other way but extraits, because for me extrait is meant to be like a second dress. It's strong, so peaceful! I am a retailer so I have to promise to my clients who come to buy any brand in my store and what's the most important is to be faithful to the promise. When you sell the extrait, you sell the promise of longevity. So I'm happy to work with these two ladies, who made the perfection of these extraits possible.

Serguey Borisov:
What are the legends of these perfumes?

Ann-Sophie Behaghel:
Sans Un Mot means “Without a Word.” The story happened in some airport, where François Henin and export brand-manager Clement Haumaitre were waiting in the lobby for the departure. Long stopover. Boredom. All the stopovers are the same. People were reading, sleeping, surfing on their computers, chatting, doing whatever kills time. Some tap on their cell phones, seeking some network, others are haggard. Some dare to close one eye or check a newspaper with soulless information. Time goes by.

At the time a woman was passing by, and all people were stunned by her perfume in a moment. People even stopped talking and looked at each other with “what was that?” eyes. It was like angel's passing moment. But it was her perfume (not her words nor her fashionable outfit) that made all passengers speechless. François didn't know the perfume's name, but he brought the idea to me. The idea was to make a perfume that wins attention and charms people without a word.

Serguey Borisov:
So did François recognize any notes of the perfume?

Anne-Sophie Behaghel:
Not much. He described the perfume as the floral powdery perfume, very classical, feminine and elegant, with white musks. The perfume of a Parisian woman passing by that would stop any talk. A very emblematic perfume for Paris, but not a vintage old-fashioned classic, it's a modern classic. So that's the brief. Perfume should mesmerize people and should bring the moment of an angel passing by. So I decided to make a great powdery and musky rose perfume.

Serguey Borisov:
Did you keep in mind other rose perfumes as an example?

Anne-Sophie Behaghel:
Yes, I was thinking of Guerlain L'Heure Bleue, and Nina Ricci L'Air du Temps(because it's very musky), and I was thinking of Jean Charles Brosseau Ombre Roseand Kenzo Flower. I have in mind every great powdery perfume with musks, roses and violets of the last century, actually. And I wanted to make the perfume to be not an old-fashioned, but contemporary, so I used Cassis and Mandarine, both are very modern. And the rose accord is made to be modern. And I think that Sans Un Mot is definitely Le parfum de la homage de féminité. "The scent of homage to femininity."

François Henin:
It's not like a Guerlinade, I have a lot of respect for all of the beautiful perfumes that made us who we are today. But we are far away from the classic powders, and Guerlinade and tonka beans, and all of those vintage styles.

Serguey Borisov:
OK, now we have two other perfumes.

François Henin:
One is named Jus Interdit, “The Forbidden Juice,” which is in a different world.
It's typical for the Middle East, they call it Mukhallat, which is a Mix. When you ask French perfumers about it, they tell you “No! You should never mix perfumes! They were designed to be worn alone! If you mix them, you just spoil them. It is worse than The Sin if you mix two perfumes together!” But if you are not going to the world, the world will come to you.

So imagine the situation. We are sitting at the lobby of a beautiful five-star hotel, it could be anywhere, and your nose is experiencing something quite unique. And you see a gorgeous Russian blonde girl is passing by wafting her perfume. (Well, it's definitely a cliché, but it helps to understand the scenery.) And then comes a very Latin young lady, a brunette of passion, and she also passes by leaving a perfumed trail. Then goes another girl, an Arabian princess, and she wears pure oud oil on her skin, just a little bit on her wrists.

Then we open our eyes trying to get these impressions together ... Jus Interdit is about mixing perfumes. In the Middle East they use some liters of perfume a year (compared to European 50 ml a year!), because they use it as much as they want, and they are never shy about mixing their perfumes together. So we ask Amelie to put her spectrograph and her nose into the imagined scene, to capture the magnificent aroma we imagined. 

Serguey Borisov:
Now I have to ask Amelie Bourgeois her opinion about mixing different perfumes together to get Jus Interdit?

Amelie Bourgeois:
It's a woody fragrance with great and warm amber base, and some hint of oud. It was not a real mixing, I did not use other perfumes to mix with ambers and ouds.

François Henin:
The third perfume, Sombre Dessins is a fantasy again. When I was younger, I used to work at a distillation factory in Vietnam. I am not a nose but I think I had the best experience in my life when I was in India to experience the Mysore sandalwood distillation. It smells so great for the first minute, but after that you don't smell anything! It left me a unique memory of oversaturated creamy, buttery, milky, almost deafening notes. And such a soft, but strong and penetrating fragrance that lasts for days on skin and even for a weeks on the clothes! I mean, we're French, we change our clothes from time to time! (laughs) Traditionally it was not a fragrance, it was just a perfume fixative to make perfume last longer. Clothes and skin seemed soaked in this sandalwood oil. I just forgot that there was any distillation because my nose got used to it so quick. When I left the factory and just took out my clothes from my bag—bang! They still smelled of sandalwood!

The other reason comes from my retailer side. So many clients came to me asking “Where's your sandalwood? Could I smell your sandalwood?” and sometimes people are so unhappy that I don't have this soli-wood. You have sandalwood as one of the base notes of your perfume, and generally they sell you Cedarwood instead of sandalwood, and again mixed with Vetiver and Patchouli and others. What is missing isthe  milky creamy lactonic part of pure sandalwood! So I decided to make the best we can do—yes, with some rose and spices to make a perfume volume. So this is kind of big fantasy to build the sandalwood perfume. 

Serguey Borisov:
What does the name "Sombres Dessins" mean?

François Henin:
Well, Sombres Dessins is an expression that means almost "Dark Intentions." But we missed the case, omitting one letter “e,” so now it means "Dark Designs." The person I had in my mind for the fragrance is not a Machiavelli, he's not a calculator making sophisticated strategies; instead, he's a natural born predator, he's a lion of the savannah, if you see him, it's too late. He has all the natural skills of a seducer. You don't know why but you have to talk with this person, he's not the most handsome guy, he's not the best-dressed guy, he's not the best—but he attracts people. That's how I feel about sandalwood, because naturally it's so saturated and such an easy smell, it captures you.

Serguey Borisov:
Yes, the sandalwood woody-lactonic part is so terrific—but closer to heart and base notes. But in the heart it reminds me of L'Artisan Parfumeur Bois Farinewith its powdery woody feeling … And also there was some cold spicy, almost green note in the perfume start. 

Anne-Sophie Behaghel:
Yes, it's the effect of Sandalwood, Cedarwood and an ionones accord that stands for woody powdery notes. As for the green spicy accord in the start, it could be either Pink Pepper, or Elemi oil that I used to lift the heavy sandalwood oil molecules …

At this moment we had to part, because my three companion were leaving for the presentation of the new perfumes at Il Profumo in via Brera, the store where you could buy them in Milan.

Jovoy Paris Sans Un Mot 
Top notes: Pink Pepper, Italian Tangerine;
Heart notes: Modern Rose, Ylang-ylang, Cassis, Vanilla, Violet, Iris;
Base notes: Powdery Musk, White musk, Soft woods.

Jus Interdit
Top notes: Italian Bergamot, Solar Flower;
Heart notes: Patchouli, Cypriol, African stone;
Base notes: Oud wood, Virginia Cedarwood, Atlas Cedarwood, Iris, Benzoin Siam, Black wood amber.

Sombres Dessins
Top notes: Italian Bergamot, Pink Pepper
Heart notes: Modern Rose, Osmanthus, Patchouli, Saffron note;
Base notes: Sandalwood, Labdanum, Frankincense, Rum.