Harmony, Abstraction, and Improvisation: Dannielle Sergent of COGNOSCENTI Perfumes

Dannielle Sergent is an architect and painter who can now, as of the past few years, add an important artistic highlight to her resume: Perfumer. Dannielle began this new facet of her creative output in 2008 when the global economic shift meant a new direction for her and so many others worldwide. Opportunity struck when she decided to participate in Bay Area perfumer Yosh Han’s perfumers’ workshop. With prescience and a sense of resolve, she had an inkling she was in the right place. As she started mixing oils and molecules and smelling, instinct’s voice said, “I can do this.” And perhaps more importantly, “I will do this.”by: John Biebel

Dannielle Sergent

I was fortunate to encounter Daninelle’s perfumes at Tiger Lily Perfumery in San Francisco, CA during a recent trip to the city. Tiger Lily itself is a remarkable place, a truly artisan perfume purveyor that showcases talented perfumers of the west coast and beyond, featuring scents handmade by artists for discerning wearers. I was immediately drawn to the elegant squared bottles and ghostly green-colored packaging of COGNOSCENTI. Latin for the expression “Those in the know,” the name cleverly plays on words, color, scent and perceptions. “Scent” is imbedded in the name, and by wearing the perfumes, you become one of the people “in the know.” Dannielle explains it this way:

One of my clients is a customer in Paris. He’s very elegant, and my perfume Number 19: Warm Carrot has become his signature scent. Meanwhile, I’ve also sold this perfume to someone else who is a farmer here in California, and it is his signature scent as well. It’s fascinating that people from such different places in the world would relate to the same perfume, but in their own way. What I’ve envisioned are people who find a fragrance among my perfumes so that they could say "I’m a number 8" or "I'm a number 21." These are the "People in the know," the COGNOSCENTI. By having one of the scents as your own, you’re one of the people in in the know. These perfumes could certainly appeal to the 25-year-old hipster girl in the flowery dress, but I love that they can appeal to anyone anywhere.

It’s an idea that strikes a resonant chord, particularly when smelling the perfumes themselves. They are set apart by their straightforward naming convention: A number, and a short two-word descriptor. The numbers do not move one after the other (they can jump numerically) but are instead based on a personal order by which Danielle has decided to release them. So for instance, if the 8th perfume is one that she would like to bring to a fully completed state, it becomes No. 8. The descriptions help to give some verbal grounding for people trying them on, something akin to abstract pictures that are called out by color, date, or another feature. There is some genius in this subdued system, however, since Dannielle has not set out to bring us to particular places through her perfumes. These names remain delightfully abstract.

“I’m not going to bring you to a specific place with my perfumes,” she says. Wanting some more detail, I recall a quote from a former professor of mine who’d said that he can’t lead us through a field, but he could walk part way with us, and then point in a certain direction, indicating where we should walk ourselves.

“Yes, it’s very much like that,” she continues. “These perfumes exist in the present and in the future. You may bring some associations of the past to it, particularly with a perfume like Tomato Leather. Someone may be thinking about their grandmother’s garden when they smell it. But I want people to come to these scents on their own, and make associations of their own.”

Number 16: Tomato Leather
This perfume is a coupling of rarely combined parts: Tomato leaves and rich leather. The myriad of visual associations that appear as one smells are vast, sunny and day-dreamy. The tomato leaf accord is beautifully fresh and green, but also has a smoothness beside the tartness; a sleek and sophisticated green that melds well with the sturdier, deep golden hues of a firm leather that also offers some malleability despite its strength. The traditional incense notes of myrrh and frankincense add mystery and a smoldering, simmering sense of wonder and imagination. The mixture is surprisingly wearable and versatile, distinct but not as heavy as one would imagine a leather scent might be. It begins with sharp and sour notes, eases into benzoin smoothness, and leaves a summery footprint on the skin at day’s end.

Notes: Tomato leaf, clary sage, linden blossom, leather, black agarwood, benzoin, frankincense, myrrh, tobacco.

I spoke with Dannielle from her home in San Francisco over Skype recently. I’m glad we had the visual connection as well as audio, so that I could see some more of the bottles that make up her line of perfumes, and the lovely art works that serve to illustrate some of the scent concepts. Her paintings and mixed media works are color-laden explorations of botanical themes, playing directly on the relationship of humans with the world of plants. Faces are constructed out of leaves and petals that have been carefully pinned in space; these petals and blossoms seem to form words and music. Color is bold and lines are delicate. The images are suspended in space, not unlike the mist of perfume in a fragrant cloud.

“I have always had a sensitive nose,” says Dannielle, thinking about how her artistic palette grew to incorporate smell as well as paint and other media. “Every day, I walk to work. It’s about a 30-minute walk, and along the way, I smell the smells of San Francisco—everything from a Chinese market or restaurant, to the interesting, peculiar scent of this person or that, to the smell of earth or the dirt in a potted plant—all of it. I experience this every day, and it informs me.” Having found herself in that unique position of wanting to experiment with perfume, and having it verified after her workshop experience, Dannielle was ready to start exploring. I asked her about this process—was it parallel to painting in some ways?

“Yes, it is additive in the way that painting is additive. You can begin with something and then add to it to see where it leads you. I have many perfumes in which I’ve done a split, and move them into different directions.” She describes this process in which she brings a combination of elements to a certain degree of completion, splits it into any number of smaller containers, then works with each of those to further develop the scent into different versions, until she’s reached something that she really likes.

This working method reveals a distinct characteristic of Dannielle’s output: the marriage of the practical with the inspired. She underscores this distinction when she says “Architecture is a much more rational process; art and perfume making are intuitive.” This intuitive perfume-making began with Bergamot Sage.

Number 1: Bergamot Sage
Dannielle’s first foray into scent making, after much versioning and discovery, is the scent Bergamot Sage. This breezy and languid perfume is in the eau de cologne tradition and uses bright citrus as a fresh opener. There is a woodier base that pursues an overall greener character. What begins sharply lends itself to deeper complexity as it develops over time, and notes like fig, teak and musk appear. It’s all held together by that fascinating note of clary sage, the fruity but earthy herb that can bend a fragrance anywhere from playful to aromatic. The composition softly fades leaving a gentle wood and citrus mélange lingering on the skin, perfect for warm weather wear, evaporating in soft sun and soothing winds.

Notes: Bergamot, fig, ylang ylang, clary sage, pink grapefruit, teak, light musk, suede.

Dannielle describes her own perfume work as “sophisticated, but with a wink,” using words such as woody, herbal, aromatic, and elegant. Smelling them for myself, I would add distinct, old world, and full-bodied. Such is certainly the case with the lovely gem Civet Chypre, COGNOSCENTI’s newest perfume, released this summer. It is a vapor cloud of rich, prismatic color brought alive in an herbaceous chasm.

Number 17: Civet Chypre
Any preconceptions of what Civet Chypre could be are likely off the mark, as this perfume is an hypnotic, shifting creature. The first few sprays suggest an elusive flower; something you might have smelled in a distant past, or something you’ve yet to smell in the future. There is an immediate sensation of saltiness and herbal-sweet-resin that nearly brings on salivation from the civet accord, amber, and musk. It seems to boil over into sweetness thanks to the lovely bouquet of flowers that are sprinkled judiciously in it, but then again it raises a lion’s head. Although one detects an appropriate dirtiness thanks to the civet in Civet Chypre, it is smooth and lovely-dirty; proving yet again that our noses have a great affinity with opposites. This chypre settles easily into the skin like moisture to dryness. And yet despite how comforting that sensation is, Civet Chypre embodies a baroque volume suggesting the voluptuousness of peony blossoms hanging wet and heavy on slim stems.  This floral rests just on the threshold of being heavy, and just dips its toe there, but tantalizingly holds itself aloft. The scent is a vision of what future chypre-style perfumes can be: rich and animalic; boldly acidic but balanced like a fine red wine, and with a bouquet as hypnotic as wine, too.

Notes: Neroli, bergamot, ylang ylang, rose, civet accord, oakmoss, amber and musk.

Of Civet Chypre, Dannielle notes that the composition is very animalic and implies the hidden animal in all of us. But it has a high proportion of flowers in its composition, still retaining a fairly simple construction. Creating the civet accord required some additional parts like lavender, for instance, to bring out the full animal nature of civet; mixing it with flowers, musks and citrus made it blossom fully.

Civet played an interesting role in my next question for Dannielle. I asker her if she had any distinct perfume memories from her past.

“I have two aunts,” she recalls, “one of whom is more ‘well heeled’ than the other, and rather elegant, and I won’t say who gave me this particular perfume, but one of the aunts gave me the scent Love’s Baby Soft—you remember it?  Well, I knew this wasn’t going to work out for me as a thirteen year old, so I graduated up to a perfumed called Babe which was definitely more naughty and much more grown up,” she says with a laugh.  Babe, of course, is the Fabergé fragrance of roses, aldehydes, oakmoss and over a hundred other ingredients that was fronted by the famous 70s’ model and actress Margaux Hemingway.

“It may sound a bit cliché, but I remember something connected to Chanel No. 5. But in this case, it was a bottle of my mother’s Chanel No. 5, along with bubble gum: both in a leather purse. Those three smells together (No. 5, bubble gum, and leather) make up a distinct smell memory for me. But I also remember my mother had a very small bottle of perfume, something very special. It was actually a decant. It couldn’t have been more than about two drams, what she called her ‘Civet.' I think it was probably some civet mixed with white musk, and it was incredibly beautiful. She only wore it for very special occasions. I remember I would beg my mother to use some of it, but it was very precious to her—she couldn’t just give it all away.”

Number 19: Warm Carrot
True to its name, Warm Carrot does evoke both the warmth and the bright orange of carrot upon its first application. Shortly thereafter, it positively leaps forth with a luscious combination of amber, vanilla and herbs that defies classification under any traditional accord. It is milky, frothy, and (a word I’ve not used before to describe a perfume) nutritive. Is there something nurturing and restorative here? Even if not, it certainly seems to feed the soul through waves of harmonious sweet and savory. Carrot seed, a rather strong and sometimes pungently herbal essential oil, has been teamed with an unusual ensemble that evokes a myriad of scent references like paper, nutmeg, custard, roots, boiled milk and fresh earth. It’s a unique wearing experience as well, as the mind races to make associations with the curious whiffs that come to one’s nose; a truly fascinating aromatic perfume experience which lasts all day.

Notes: Carrot seed, ylang ylang, lavender, vetiver, labdanum, amber, benzoin, and vanilla.

We discussed the perfume Warm Carrot at length, as it was illustrative of important aspects of the perfume making process. Her first supply of carrot seed oil for Warm Carrot (the first batch she used during creation) was, to Dannielle, the classic vision of carrot seed: heady, warm, fuzzy, herbal and cumin-y; just as she had expected it to be. The second supplied oil was just like fresh carrots: green and fruity, and utterly different from the first. It required the addition of other notes to adjust it, to make it smell like the original. It was a valuable lesson in the difficulty of consistency for the artisan perfume maker.

And on the topic of artisan perfumers, Dannielle has many compelling thoughts. “There is a big difference between niche and artisan perfume companies. Niche companies are quite large and are being bought out by larger companies. But we’re now in a ‘maker’ culture, an artisan culture, and people want to know the story behind something—how was something made. Look at the extremes like the Brooklyn Pickle; is it really better? Well, hard to say. But some things are really still great, like drugstore fragrances, and they’re still really cheap. But so much of the success of artisan fragrances comes from online resources, the support of bloggers and fans and, for me, the incredibly solid support of the scent community on the west coast.”  

As with many independent perfumers, the topic of the beloved oakmoss seems to stir such interesting discussion. It’s of particular interest here as one of Dannielle’s scents features it as a central ingredient. As we talk about the regulations in the EU, her thoughts are well reasoned and obviously something that she’s considered carefully from many sides.

“I love oakmoss, in particular cedar moss, and at first I thought ‘I’m going to do an oakmoss perfume, and I don’t care—I just won’t sell it in Europe,’ and then I thought about it some more, and realized that I would like to make this available in Europe. So I looked to my suppliers and looked at the compliant oakmoss that was available… and they were comparable. I thought to myself, ‘this is interesting, this is something I can work with.’”

Number 8: Aldehydic Oakmoss
Number eight is a startling grouping, placing together two of the vital components of perfumery in a mythical dance: old world, rich and grounding oakmoss and the pan-horizon effervescence of fruity, tangy, crinkly, electric aldehydes. What at first appears to be an unusual marriage calls out a third heavyweight, a ghostly apparition that grabs the stage, a wonderful earthy, mossy note built of out amber, leather, cocoa and betel leaf. These two players and the shadow between them are like dancers circling a stage, none taking full control, but all dashing in and out of the light. The oakmoss provides a lovely warm and resinous bass, aldehydes are used with a delicate hand and in discrete proportions so that they do not fight each other for space. The earthy, mushroomy comfit composed of rich and lovely dark constituents is elusive but strong and full of wondrous character. Number 8 is perhaps the most mysterious of the COGNOSCENTI perfumes, moving both spatially and across the timeline, never resting but tantalizing with nods to the brightest and richest aspects of the scent palette. It simultaneously pays homage to classic perfumery yet strikes a loud, modern chord.

Notes: Bergamot, ylang ylang, cedarwood, amber accord, leather accord, cocoa, tonka bean, vetiver, betel leaf, aldehydes, oakmoss.

What concerns her is that the regulations could give industries the opportunity to "cheap out" on components; providing too many opportunities to save a dime here or there. Also, she says “I am concerned about losing a lot of natural elements in the current palette, because I use a lot of naturals.” Dannielle is fairly certain that due to the highly regulatory nature of the US, the EU regulations will soon be adopted in America. But she offers a thoughtful bit of hope that those same regulations could be eased as time passes, and as wearers see very little by way of adverse side effects to certain materials.

During our discussion Dannielle makes reference to a question asked to her by the editors of a book called The Fragrance Designer’s Primer: A Roundtable of 14 Fragrance Makers answer 34 Creative, Brand and Business Defining Questions (TCB-Café Publishing and Media / Taste TV, 2015) She talks about her process, which often does begin with the idea of pairing:

The process usually starts with a pair of ingredients, an odd combination that I had been thinking about which requires some harmony or two that require discord. My creative process is a bit like abstract art or improvisational jazz. I “paint” with the ingredients, following the paths of each ingredient adding to either expand or accent the select palette. Sometimes it needs a bright hue, a sparkling highlight or it needs a tonal shift with a deep dark base note. I have a few accords that I use often; similar to my favorite yellow I used to paint with. These accords help define the perfumes as part of the larger group, but I often go off script.

Going off script, just as we do in our everyday lives, using improvisation as we go; this is key to COGNOSCENTI’s allure as perfumes. They cast a wide net of scent experiences because we’re allowed to bring our own script to them—very little has been strictly defined for us. We choose the path as wearers in this experience. We become creators as we wear these scents and as they turn abstraction into something palpable and real for us.

COGNOSCENTI perfumes are available from the official COGNOSCENTI website.