A Story in Scent: Euphorium Brooklyn, As Told by Stephen Dirkes

by: Stephen Dirkes

(Editor's note: I've been in conversation with Stephen Dirkes for the better part of a year, after first hearing about Euphorium Brooklyn fragrances from some of you in our forum and reaching out to him to learn more. It's hard to believe this house has been in existence for only a year, given the seven amazing releases we have seen so far: Wald, Usar, Cilice, Suédois, Pétales, 100 Tweeds and Chocolatl. Once you enter the convoluted fictional microcosm that is Euphorium Brooklyn, it's hard to shake its scents, images and stories from your mind. Its charming characters, their adventures and experiments, as well as their triumphs and sorrows, offer us the opportunity to completely lose ourselves and experience art and perfume at another level. The founder and perfumer behind Euphorium Brooklyn, artist and musician Stephen Dirkes, is no less fascinating in real life. I originally planned to publish an interview with Stephen, but after studying his responses to my questions, I decided no one can tell us his story or explain the raison d'être of Euphorium Brooklyn better than Stephen himself. Here are his words and his images [and in the videos, his music!]. If you like what you see here, the fragrances are available for purchase at Twisted Lily, including samples and a Discovery Set, and with international shipping available to most countries.—Jodi Battershell)

I began my many years of creative expression as a classical musician. I studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music, University of Toronto, University of Michigan, Simon Frazer University and STSI Banudung, Indonesia. My early interest in composing for theatre and dance led me to score film and TV. I moved to Asia to set up recording studios for scoring and producing electronic music. Revolution in Indonesia sent me off to Europe and I developed my interest in film, new media and animation in Prague.

Image: Tal Shpantzer

Upon relocating to New York City, I worked on film sets and media production houses while continuing to compose music for other people and ultimately founded a production company to direct and produce experimental and fashion films. I've been fortunate to screen my films at international film festivals, exhibit in art galleries and win awards for my efforts. Commercial successes enabled me to explore more elaborate personal projects. One such project was a stop motion film project entitledEuphorium Bile Works. The film was set in 1860s Brooklyn and explored the outlandish lives of the three men that founded a secret society, drug factory, and perfume house as manifestations of their shared philosophy of "Transcendental Sensualism." While taking months and months building miniature sets of the factory these men built, with a small team of friends, artists and, animators, I began exploring the materials and history of perfumery as the focus of endeavor for these men. Perfumery materials, their history of trade and olfactive properties became a wonderful way for me to weave the characters, history and story together. One member of the art department team, Adam Maiolo, was a perfumista and we started to have sniffing sessions at the end of our work day. I was hooked right away. I began to build a perfumer's organ and referenced the process of palate training I took as a coffee cupper [taster] in college. I began to create the perfumes I was writing about and became completely obsessed with perfumery.

Image: Tal Shpantzer

Euphorium Brooklyn perfume house, its perfumers, and the perfumes are a manifestation of this journey and inform the collection and stories behind the collection today.

I have always been interested in creative expression and have been trying to develop and expand my creative skill set to be facile at taking total creative responsibility for my art making. Yes, perhaps an ego-maniacal/OCD/Wagnerian "Total Art" conceit it may be… I wanted to bring a product to market that was a singular creative expression. I delight in the perfumery, extensive research, storytelling, filmmaking, photography, music that goes into Euphorium Brooklyn.

I've read that "Indie-Niche" perfume houses aren't supposed to advertise and reviewers get suspicious when confronted with elaborate background stories (lol). Well, in that "the point" of Euphorium Brooklyn is creating a rich, layered immersive art experience, that reductive conceit isn't going to work for me. I do feel completely aligned with the notion that "Indie/Niche" perfume houses are the direct creative expression of an individual artist. I just want to take that notion much further. Euphorium Brooklyn isn't the "Faux-Indie" perfume house that takes a one-line marketing statement, hires a corporate perfumer, a marketing team and purchases the creativity lacking in their boardroom. (lol) The perfumes are about the story and the story is about perfume and the layers of cross-reference resonate and amplify, not take away from what's in the bottle.

I decided to study perfumery myself because the journey of study was so interesting, exciting and rewarding in and of itself. Beyond the joy of the process, I had complex, layered considerations to express in scent that didn't really follow a "Scent Pyramid" approach utilized in traditional perfumery studies. There are also many concerns for a commercial perfumer to enable them to function within a larger corporate structure with technical requirements that I would never draw upon. I had palate training as both a coffee cupper and a sommelier and I referenced those experiences to develop my nose and utilize the hundreds of materials at a perfumer's disposal. I've had extensive traditional classical music education and apply some mental constructs from music composition regarding harmony, variation, and duration-based structures to my work as a perfumer. My transition from composer to filmmaker was a very rewarding and also self-taught, hands-on journey. I think this transition emboldened me to embark on a study of perfumery and it has been a tremendously enjoyable journey.

Research, research, research! Each fragrance we have launched represents a small mountain of research, history, and ephemera. In broad strokes, Euphorium Brooklyn is a repository for my many and varied interests, such as: perfumery materials, multi-media art, global trade, cultural influence, exotica, pseudosciences, 19th-century thought, science, and aesthetics, transcendentalism, and sensuality. My perfumes are about perfume and perfumers. Each fragrance begins with an exploration of each of the three perfumers of Euphorium Brooklyn [Etienne Chevreuil (Cilice, Pétales), Christian Rosenkreuz (Wald, 100 Tweeds) and Rudolph Komodo (Usar, Chocolatl), plus a collaborative effort of all three together (Suédois)—jb] and what would drive them to create a scent: their background, history, possible cultural influence, personality and resources. This exploration leads me to a scent palette to start from. Extensive testing of combinations and accords further refines the concept of the fragrance.

With each fragrance I present extensive notes about perfumery materials and their histories and origins because my perfumes are as much about Benzoin or Vetiver and where they come from as much as they might be about conveying an emotion, mood or location. I connect these materials to my perfumers' creations in directly in terms of what these perfumers could have experienced or would have been interested in, from their time period and personal background. Usar, for example is a study of Vetiver and the specific little village in West Java, Indonesia it is harvested and distilled from. This is important to the perfumer, Rudolph Komodo, as it represents his longing for this country and its culture as a homesick Indonesian living as an expatriate. All of the materials used in the fragrance, express the perfumer's history, intension, and aesthetic while also introducing additional layers of of meaning and nuance that are embraced in the story of the perfume itself.

I find a traditional aspect of perfumery to hide/disregard aspects of the materials used in the craft in favor of the "fantasy" of note listings and lifestyle/aspirational marketing, really missing some of what is most intriguing to me about perfume. I realize that I am at odds with many perfumistas in that I own hundreds of raw perfumery materials and only a few perfumes.

I wanted to make connections between certain aspects of 19th-century thought and perfumery. Particularly, transcendental and fanciful aspects of Victorian thought as expressed in mesmerism, transcendentalism, occultism, theosophy, phrenology and several other "psuedosciences." I really enjoy the cross-purpose/comedic aspects of the deadly serious Victorian intellectual, pursuing the most ridiculous, "wrong-headed" theories with an incredible amount of seriousness, diligence and toil. As much as I present the pretentious, academic and historical underpinnings of Euphorium Brooklyn, I try to have that clearly fly-in-the-face of my perfumers' basic "Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll" hedonism behind the scenes. All of this comes together in the "Komodo Process" which is both an expression of all of the intellectual aspirations and academic underpinnings of the perfumers. Alchemy, chemistry, philosophy, transcendentalism, biology, and spiritualism find specific, mechanical expression in this manufacturing process. My "Komodo Process" also references ridiculous claims, inferences and enticements of  perfume advertising from centuries-old snake oil and tonics to contemporary ad copy. In 2016, details of the "Komodo Process" will  be revealed!

I've also had a long time interest in the incredibly complex mechanical devices of the Industrial Revolution.

Image: Tal Shpantzer

Each of the three Euphorium Brooklyn founders bring their unique background, skill set and agenda to the fragrances of Euphorium Brooklyn. Not that each of them are connected to a fragrance category or particular style of perfume, but more that their backgrounds, personalities and drives motivate them to create certain things. There are certain scents that only Etienne Chevreuil would use and they would reference his French background, interest in the storytelling/ mnemonic aspects of fragrance and belief in sensually as a conduit for spiritual experience. Conversely, German perfumer Christian Rosenkreuz's interest in medicine and technology informs his scents in wholly different ways. In general, I wanted to establish an overall Euphorium Brooklyn aesthetic for the perfume house and felt that rich, heavy fragrances with a dark presence of earthy, rooty and smoky notes captured the 19th-century industrial setting of the story. I launched the first three fragrances (Cilice, Wald and Usar) in a heavy oil-based formulation to further connect the fragrances to the thick, resinous oils my perfumers would have been working with.

As much as any writer, director, or storyteller informs their work with personal experience, I'm informed and motivated by my life, the places I've lived, and people I have experienced. Having had my share of intense life experience (lol) living and working in Canada, Korea, Japan, Italy, Indonesia, Czech Republic, Germany, Brazil, and now New York City, I find I have a wealth of inspiration for my storytelling and suspect that it in part explains the international/cross-cultural aspects of Euphorium Brooklyn.

My filmmaking and specifically my work in stop motion animation directly informs Euphorium Brooklyn. Perhaps the most direct connection between stop motion animation and fragrance is in that it was a stop motion film project that created the characters and world of Euphorium Brooklyn that the perfumes are an expression of. More conceptually, I'm attracted to stop motion as an incredibly laborious effort to create and capture "real" tactile objects and environments. The verisimilitude of digital effects and the "close enough" aspect of those techniques kind of kill me as an unsatisfying and weak substitute. Much like "artisan bread makers" came to be as a self-conscious remedy for decades of an American "Wonderbread" aesthetic, my "handmade/small batch" approach to perfumery is very much an appreciation of old time/timeless and idiosyncratic/bespoke creative expression. After years of taking months and months creating little worlds in which days and days are required to make the most simple of gestures come to life, becoming a perfumer seemed less daunting at the outset than it might have without my background in stop motion. Perhaps the efficacy of determined, relentless baby-steps emboldened my efforts.

Image: Tal Shpantzer

2015 was the most amazing of years. I wanted to release the collection of fragrances quite quickly to establish this world and contextualize the work as soon as I could. By presenting as much of a complete collection as quickly as I could, I wanted to facilitate for people the chance to "binge-sniff" and get a real sense of the house and the story these scents spring from. That meant for a lot of work to bring seven fragrances to market. As much as Euphorium Brooklyn is my personal vision and effort, I have had the most tremendous support and assistance of my partner, Tal Shpantzer and her photography, social media posting, and feedback. Twisted Lily has been a fantastic supporter and my sole/exclusive retail partner. The greater community of online perfumistas, reviewers and friends have kept us going the most. For lack of outside investors and funding, we are overjoyed by the growth of Euphorium Brooklyn as it really has progressed, bottle by bottle, post by post, review by review, fan by fan. Any success is wholly dependent on the tremendous support and interest by the wonderfully welcoming community of perfume-lovers that have promoted us so actively on a word-of-mouth basis.

In 2016 I will be re-launching our first three fragrances (Cilice, Wald and Usar) in perfumer's alcohol formulations with some tweaks here and there. I will also make a small 8 ml decant and several "discovery set" options available for the curious to explore our collection and confirm personal "bottle-worthy" choices with a modest investment.

Our first exciting announcement for 2016 will be the launch of a special set of three perfumes in 8 ml decants. The "VOLUPTUARY SET" will include our re-launch of Cilice with our recent releases, Chocolatl and Pétales Eau de Parfum. Selected for their uniquely romantic, sensual and decadent aspects, we will host a Valentine's Day launch event in New York for this romantic trio of chocolate, flowers and leather. Please follow us on Facebook for details of the event and continued updates, offers, events, news and new launches throughout the year.
 

Pitti Fragranze 2015: interview with François Henin about Jeroboam collection

by: Serguey Borisov

François Henin, the successful leader of the rare perfumes embassy known asJovoy Paris, officially presented his Jeroboam range of scents at the Pitti Fragranze 2015 exhibition. The collection of five fragrances looks to be the answer to all those looking for maximum longevity in a fragrance and will be added to the Fragrantica database in the coming weeks.

François Henin:

About 2 years ago, perfumer Vanina Muracciole and I worked on a Jovoy perfume together (L’Art de la Guerre), and now we've begun a new project titled Jeroboam. It was born originally from the question “Am I anosmic to musks?” I'll explain: When one works in a perfume store with hundreds of perfumes being sprayed all the time - and Jovoy is not just a line but a shop with hundreds of different fragrances - and generally all the perfumes have a musky base, I smell musk all day but find that it just never really registers for me. Am I habituating to it? Or maybe I am just anosmic?

So I asked Vanina to make me a musky base accord to see how my nose might respond. Three weeks later she came back with a bottle named "Original". I applied it a few times and became addicted to it right away. So this became the starting point for the entire collection.

I changed the name to "Origino" as I decided to use Esperanto for all Jeroboam perfume names. Esperanto is a purposely constructed language designed to transcend culture and politics and promote peace. I believe that the Jeroboam collection is a more universal concept than Jovoy perfumes and one which I think will become a future classic, more often employing natural raw materials.

And this great cocktail of musks for me was just a long lasting base, mind you, not yet a fully-realized perfume.

Sergey Borisov:
But did you like it?

François Henin:
Yes, I liked it from the first sniff. And I received a lot of compliments with everybody asking me what it was. The problem was I still didn’t know in which of my fragrance lines it would fit best. So from this base I started a game with Vanina contemplating an advertising slogan in order to develop a fragrance identity. Kind of ike “Nespresso. What else?”

I thought “OK, it's definitely not a Jovoy perfume, but probably we could start a new perfume project from the musk base." So I told Vanina that it`s a great perfume, and it needs a bottle and label to be sold; and I remember as I told her that great perfumes don’t need big bottles. That`s when I realized it`s a good joke to name a brand Jeroboam (one of the bigger volume wine bottles), as Jeroboam is a 3 liter bottle size and our Jeroboam perfumes are only 30 ml bottles. So we believe that our perfumes are great enough to never been launched in 3 liter size bottles. And actually maybe there`s no need for big bottles now, in general. Then we found the cute, small bottles; I loved them.

We were almost ready for the launch, but one perfume is not enough for the market nowadays. We could repeat the limited edition story as we did with our Lys Epona by Jovoy, and it was a great art project for vintage perfumes lovers. But Jeroboam was a different thing, very contemporary. So I told Vanina “Look at this as a base, a DNA for something bigger than just one shot of perfume. Let`s use the base to create a whole range of new perfumes as a collection!”

And then we started to invent other perfumes with names that one could recognize as trademarks of the fragrance industry. For example, we called the second perfume Insulo – and in Esperanto the word means “The Island”. In our perfumery world, this scent is a representation of Madagascar. 

Sergey Borisov:
Well, as an island, it could be Greenland also. 

François Henin:
Indeed, but when one refers to "vanilla" and "island" in perfumery, it`s definitely Madagascar, right? And so The Island is a kind of secret name for the perfume weapon of mass seduction. Vanina created a very gourmand, seductive and mouth-watering vanilla perfume out of this base. For me vanilla is always about seduction, and we are all in danger when somebody wears a nice vanilla. If you add some musks, raw geranium, patchouli, you will get into amber territory. Amberfor me is more sensual, it has some rawness where vanilla can be a bit drier.

Then Hauto appeared – the name means “Skin” in Esperanto. This perfume is another level of the seduction game, making reference to the tuberose. In the 1930's, women of a certain profession could show off pretty much everything they had to offer, but they also had their own secret: where to apply pure tuberose oil – in the valleys and the mountains, just a drop on the arms and shoulders!

At this point, François shows points of perfume application on his body. While he found enough points to point to, like elbows and shoulders, somehow there`s a deficit of mountains on his body map : )

The question people always ask me is “How and where I should wear a perfume?” I always answer, “Apply it to the places you want to be explored,” as wise women of the past have taught us. A little bit of tuberose Hauto goes here and there, wherever one wants to be explored.

So, the next one is Oriento, which is a big classic oriental of the perfume industry –rose and oud in a bottle. Of course, we twisted it with our musk base and it gives the perfume a new signature and new volume, very long-lasting as you will see.

And the last perfume we named Miksado…

Sergey Borisov:
It`s about mixing?

François Henin:
Exactly. It`s the tribute to the art of mixing perfumes together, an approach the Middle Eastern perfumers mastered. In France, mixing perfumes would be a sacrilege; don`t even try to mix 2 perfumes together! For peoples of the Middle East it could be a sacrilege to wear any single aroma by itself; they have to mix various essences, it's the way to use perfumes. Miksado is based upon the very same original musk base; it is a happy mukhallat, a happy mixing of perfumes. It is a floral, fruity, oriental perfume and I find it very feminine; but I wonder if even you could wear this sweet, musky perfume, Sergey.

Our Jeroboam collection has only five perfumes for today, in 30 ml bottles; each has a 25% concentration of oils in alcohol.

Sergey Borisov:
What about thre design of the bottles? The packaging and font seems to have some Art Deco vibe.

François Henin:
The bottles are not specific. The cap was made especially for the project, yes, the pump is just a pump, and the bottle is made by an Italian manufacturer; we painted it from inside. There was a small war - what color should we use for it, blue or black - and we chose black. But the juice itself has no colorants.

As for the design, we never looked to make it Art Deco. It`s a new concept, I called it “Perfume Extracts for Urban Nomads”, because you can put a 30 ml bottle in your bag or in your pockets, and there`s no worries to take it to flight. It`s really convenient compared to the very heavy, crystal 100 ml Jovoy bottles which are too big for a lady's bag.

Sergey Borisov:
So you are oriented onto Middle East market?

François Henin:
We are not market-oriented here. As far as I know they are used to 100 ml bottles and even bigger, to use perfumes lavishly. So maybe 30 ml bottles will be too small for them.

I just know that Vanina has a talent and we made a collection that I believe will be a success. And I like the idea to play the game from A to Z, and to honor the Jeroboam 30 ml bottles with our slogan “Great perfumes don’t need big bottles”.

After the presentation in Florence's Pitti Fragranze, the Jeroboam collection was first shown at the Jovoy Paris boutique on September 27th, 2015 - now everyone can try the perfumes on their own!

Origino
Notes: Bergamot, Pink pepper, Juniper, Nutmeg, Sandalwood, Musk Accord.

Insulo
Notes: Vanilla, Jasmine, Caramel, Musk Accord.

Hauto
Notes: Bergamot, Pineapple, Tuberose, Rose, Spices, Musk accord.

Oriento
Notes: Lemon, Saffron, Styrax, Rose, Ylang-ylang, Apple, Sandalwood, Patchouli, Musk Accord

Miksado
Notes: Bergamot, Labdanum, Saffron, Cedarwood, Geranium, Guaiac wood, Patchouli, Vanilla, Musk Accord.

Images from Jeroboam's Facebook page.

Interview with Benoît Verdier of Ex Nihilo

Before trying Ex Nihilo fragrances I checked all available information about the brand—thank God, their website is exhaustively informative. Usually we are ready to find out that our vision of some brand and its perfumes, based on some image,  differs from reality, but this time—for the first time in my personal history—the first impression was totally true. by: Evgeniya Chudakova

The brand's image, its positionning, bottles design, stores interiors etc.—all that easily forms an entire image. And the fragrances also fit this range. After trying them I can finally say what I see behind the golden lettering of Ex Nihilo and in the deep cobalt blue of its signature color. All of the brand's fragrances are modern, but not glossy; accurately and precisely done (almost each of them)—forming an even aromatic tissue, without any weak spot. They are amazingly intelligent and free of any tawdriness. Such scents I could easily recommend to Stanford postgrads or a European Centre for Nuclear Research employee for their unintrusive, but exquisite character. 

About all that I talked to one of Ex Nihilo brand founders, Benoît Verdier

Evgeniya: Hello Benoît, nice to see you here. So, tell me, how have you and your friends created such an impressive brand, with a clear image, very intelligent positioning and quality modern scents?

Benoît: Our brand is a new one—we launched it just a year ago and we are trying to do our best in creating the entire image of the brand that corresponds to the character of fragrances. The idea was to make something quite new with the real experience based on fragrances ... I'm not a perfumer—I was working in advertising, but I've decided to leave my job as I always wanted to do something for myself. With my two partners and friends we've started working on a new brand. Olivier Royère is Swedish, Sylvie Loday is American, I'm French—we are an international team. The word "niche" doesn't mean anything to us. We wanted to create a cool mess of everything we love. I love innovations, I find my inspiration in terms of IT-technologies, in terms of  philosophy. Sylvie was working for Givaudan several years ago and she made a connection between Givaudan and us. We wanted to be super-contemporary, sophisticated ... you know, not like Café Poushkine or something like this, but like the Pyramide du Louvre [smiling]. Ex Nihilo is about French avant-garde, scent personalization and collaboration with artists.

Olivier, Sylvie and Benoît  - founders of the brand

Evgeniya: Yes, surfing your website I saw many different projects ...

Benoît: We want to make something dynamic, to do a lot of things also related to contemporary art; we have a special collaboration with hotels; we work with Christophe Pillet, our designer; we work with the noses, young perfumers; also we are planning to do a collaboration with a guy—a glass-blower, who works with Brad Pitt, with Calvin Klein ... to make a limited number of artistic bottles.

Evgeniya: Like Agonist?

Benoît: Yes, more or less like Agonist ... we want it to be from one to five pieces—a real piece of art. Then Quentin Bisch, who made Fleur Narcotique, he was doing theatre studies before ... So, I want to bring this kind of people to the luxury universe, to mix the things they do. I like the people with crazy stories. That's why besides perfumes we deal with a lot with architects, with designers, with photographers, etc. That could bring the new kind of freshness. But with the juice we wanted to do something timeless, something persistent. The juice is the most important thing anyway.

And we have our web-site that's idea is to bring some new content—like, for example in the 80s rockstars and designers were on top, now we have cooks as superstars, maybe the next ones will be perfumers. And what is very frustrating for them now that they are just working-working-working especially for L'Oréal or LVMH where the briefs don't give them the opportunity to use the best materials  and that restricts their creativity. What about us—I write my briefs, I give our noses the mood-boards and they give me an olfactive interpretation of it. And on our website we put this content with videos, interviews, photos of the boutiques etc. We have nine or ten perfumers who work with us constantly and I want to promote their work, to show the backstage side of doing fragrance, to show how do they work, etc..

Fragrances made for Peugeot

We love collaborations, now, for example, we have something special with Peugeot: they have a concept car division and they asked us to do a special fragrance with the special packaging for two super-cars in Paris... there are 20 or 25 such cars in the world for Presidents or some VIPs and this was the fragrance for these cars. We love the idea of special editions—for Moscow I thing about something special maybe for GUM, maybe for TSUM as I know that Françis Kurkdjian made Ciel de GUM that is beautiful but very classic. I think to do maybe something more trendy.

Evgeniya: You have a very young image, I should say. This modern and dynamic twist that I used to imagine belonging to young and modern scientific society. And the first idea that came to me when I saw you was, "wow, he really knows what he wants."

Benoît: Yes, of course. We wanted to be super impactful. You know, I really likeByredo, because Ben, he's not a perfumer, he was basketball player—of course he was like a changer, the but perfume industry is rather conservative. And we wanted also to respect the savoir faire while creating something new.

In fact we've started with eight fragrances, number nine—Venenum Kiss is up to appear shortly [it's already was presented by now] and to create the whole family of fragrances to have something floral, something woody, something fresh etc., to give people the choice. In future we are going to work with fougère notes, will create something like a chypre. And when you've chosen yours, you have a possibility to personalize it. If you come to Paris, you'll have a chance to live the entire experience offered by Ex Nihilo brand—with the machine that individualizes any scent you choose. We have a store in Paris, we have a store in London, next one will be in New York. In each store we have this display to try the fragrances and the system for personalization of the scents. It's very difficult to bring the whole system to foreign countries, that's why in many corners people can find just fragrances, not the full experience. But in the main stores we have the hall with perfumes and an upper store to bring people in for a personal interview to discuss for one or two hours—there is no time limit—about the fragrance. Now we have such machines in Paris and in London.

Evgeniya: By the way, about your stores: this amazing blue color that you use in the boutique design reminds me some of Malevich's suprematist works with its' clarity and depth at the same time.

Benoît: And this blue colour also comes from YSL—in the mid-60s Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Berger visited Morocco and fell in love with the blue house of Majorelle, that they later bought—and this cobalt blue seemed us to be perfect to express the idea of something fresh and far from something barocco like Marie Antoinette style, etc.

Villa Majorelle, Morocco

Kasimir Malevich,  Suprematism (with Blue Triangle and Blac Rectangle)

Evgeniya: And you were talking before about the customization of the scents. Can you tell me more about it?

Benoît:  It may seem rather simple, but in reality it appeared to be very difficult as when you want to play on intensity most of the people say "let's just add less alcohol" and do like something super-concentrated. But in fact the perfume is more like an art, not only technique, so it was very difficult for the nose to express some new landscape of the perfume with raw materials. That's why we can propose only three variants of changing perfume. Because your brain is saturated by so many options—you don't know exactly what you want finally. So we have to give you this advice according to your mood, according to your background in fragrances—we could propose a scent to be maybe more fresh, more creative etc. And for the machines we use in our laboratories, here you have water, here you have alcohol and here we have raw materials. And we have a little computer inside that weights materials and mixes them. Normally it's all refrigerated ... we have a fridge here. But the machine is just a result of the long talk together about what customers want. The consultant tries to find with you what is your inspiration, what is your mood, to make you discover the fragrance we can propose you and then we make it for you and you see all the process of making perfume. In London in Harrods we have a smaller machine with the same functions. Everything works on wi-fi ... we have a database in the iPad and we discuss together, we smell the raw materials like absolute of iris, absolute of rose—by the way, it's also a good chance to smell expensive raw materials, iris for example, that costs €60 000 per kilo. During this discussion the sales person marks your preferences in the database and all that then goes to the computer in the machine. And after smelling the raw materials we make them smell our perfume collection where we have already some options to choose like Hesperidees for those who want something fresh, also we have same options based on vanilla bourbon, on sandalwood that give more enveloping and comforting touch. So the process looks like this: we talk together and also we do a blind test—it's interesting to make people smell something without knowing a name or components. Like for example a man never wears rose because it supposed to be gay or feminine, but when you don't tell that it's rose—he could love it. After discussing and creating the scent you try it on your skin and after you validate it, we make it for you.

Store interior and scent personalization machine

Evgeniya: And for personalized scent do customers pay for some amount of perfume or they pay for the formula?

Benoît: Normally we offer 100 ml bottle, then you have your personal number that refers to your formula. When you are out of your perfume we can refill it for you with the same scent. In terms of intellectual property the paradox is that you can copyright a name, but you can't copyright a formula. It's a first step to complete bespoke that usually cost about 30 or 40 000 euros. It's a semi-bespoke that means that you start from a base and then we can optimize a scent for you.

Evgeniya: It's like a construction.

Benoît: Yes, like a construction. And in the terms of price—as several raw materials are very expensive, like iris or rose de mai, you'd pay 20 or 30 euros more if you use it. As rose, for example, it's hard to get it as it comes from Grasse and big houses like Guerlain or Chanel buy it ... we have to go by night to steal the rose [laughing]. So, let's try our scents.

Evgeniya: I've approached Ex Nihilo scents just once in GUM and there I tried this high-end spraying system you use—it works very well. What is that?

Benoît: It's a technical system that helps not to saturate your brain. So, this is what you saw here. It's a dry technology—small cartridges with fragrance where we spray air to smell it;  we change them each three months. Here we don't use alcohol because it overloads your senses. We wanted to do something non-intrusive, something soft. It smells only while you push the button. It's a vertical spray, closed from four sides and that's why it doesn't mix with others. Because usually when you spray in the air it's impossible to understand how it smells in a few minutes.

Spray system

Evgeniya: What I find useful in it is that it gives you the general idea of the scent from the very beginning. You don't receive just opening notes first, but the core of the fragrance. It gives the opportunity to understand at once the character of the scent.

Benoît: Yes, it's definitely the core of the perfume. The next step of course is to try it on the skin. In my dream—I want to make something to simulate the sillage, but the sillage is the mix between the scent, skin, temperature etc ... for now it's impossible to make.

Evgeniya: Oh, yeah. So, the fragrances... The first scent I tried was Oud Vendôme. It interested me, though I don't really like oud.

Benoît: Because it's not real oud [laughing].

Evgeniya: The Galbanum touch in it is very nice here. It gives some kind of tart surgical transparency to oud, but at the same time, melting to ginger, musk and later, incense, it creates even a sweet powdery touch.

Benoît: In terms of olfaction we call it Western Oud—it means that it's not a classic oud—super strong and animalic. The idea was to create an accord of "oud," based on sandalwood and patchouli, something very woody, of course with the touch of oud, but the idea of Ex Nihilo is not to compete with these guys from Qatar, from the Middle East. It was evident that we'd make something from oud. Maybe for tactical reason I'm gonna do something super-concentrated in a shiny black box to sell in Harrods, but it's not the brand's purpose. By the way, Musc Infini is rather similar to Oud Vendôme in the terms of family but without this woody side.

Evgeniya: Musc Infini is really a kind of old fried for me—something we know very well, something comforting and safe. But as for my favorite, I really like your Jasmine— Jasmine Fauve. It's strange and wonderful dirty lily of the valley at the beginning and then greeny-earthy-creamy and at the same time rainy-wet white flowers with an amazing leather-suede base!

Benoît: We wanted to make clean and dirty jasmine at the same time, with an animalic touch. ou know this one is a very short formula. The first impression is something light floral and on skin it gets more and more animalic

Evgeniya: I think it's the most carnal thing of the Ex Nihilo collection.

Benoît: Exactly, but we are very shy ... the first option made by Aurélien Guichardwas much more animalc. I loved that version, but I'm not the only one to decide and we made it more  civilized.

Evgeniya: You see, maybe you have reason, because being more polite it matches better the whole image of the brand. As I really admire how you work with so many perfumers and still have the fragrances that have the same stature, the same twist. By the way, all the scents, except Cologne 352 andFleur Narcotique, seem to me very well balanced and having rather clear structure. Cologne 352 and Fleur Narcotique appeared to be quite unbalanced and messy for me. But to be true, after several hours I smelled the blotted with Fleur Narcotique and it was rather interesting then.

Benoît: Fleur Narcotique is a quite exceptional thing as we work with a synthetic that simulates peony. We've decided to overdose it, to make it a bit kitsch. It's not dry, it even has something metallic. It's, for example, my girlfriend's favorite. Me personally, I prefer Vetiver Moloko ... and Cologne, that is not actually a cologne. I understand what you mean calling it "messy." Maybe it's because we wanted it to appeal to everybody, maybe we very too shy to make it more detailed and straightforward.

Raw materials concentrates for scent personalization

Evgeniya: What's with Rose Hubris? I remember it was a ery subtle and delicate one.

Benoît: The idea of the Rose Hubris was not to do something too "granny" as in France rose also has such a connotation sometimes—something very old, powdery, like a grandmother fragrance. And we thought with Olivier Pescheux to do something more contemporary, to work with Rose Centifolia, to make something that would be more sophisticated keeping this kind of freshness, without being too voluptuous, but to keep the volume of the fragrance.

Evgeniya: What I personally like about your fragrances is this kind of freshness—an airy one that is opposite to watery freshness. This airy touch pierces the structure of the scent without dissolving it. And here you keep a balance that sometimes fresh scents lack.

Benoît: One of our purposes was to create something not aggressive. Then we haveBois d'Hiver and Vetiver Moloko. For Bois d'Hiver we used sandalwood from Australia. Of course it's unisex but maybe just a bit on the male side. We wanted something dry and getting softer and softer with time.

Evgeniya: Wood here has also some cool and windy touch, as Winter Wood is supposed to be [smiling].

Benoît: And then we have Vetiver Moloko—love this very much!

Evgeniya: Milky dry vetiver ... beautiful. Have you tried ELDO Fat Electrician?Vetiver Moloko recalls it somehow—the idea is the same. Maybe yours is more delicate.

Benoît: No, I never tried this one. [pause] So, I hope that in future we'll have not only our perfume collection in Russia, but also a personalization system. By the way, next time I'm going to St.Petersburg, to see the city, to see the people there ...

Evgeniya: Something tells me that they'd love your concept there. Good luck, Benoit and thank you for the amazing conversation.

Kemi Blending Magic: Sergio Momo interview

by: Serguey Borisov

I was so sorry to have missed the possibility of making an interview with Sergio Momo about the Kemi Blending Magic collection the very first time it was presented, at Esxence 2015. The collection, consisting of four Eau de Parfums (Hayat, Kemi, Layla, Luna), two Parfums (Jabir, `ilm) and two Attars (Elixir, Tempest), as always, stood out with its rich design and Arabic connotations. As the owner of the Xerjoff brand was so busy with his many clients (business is business, it is always more important than talking to reporters),  I could not find the right time and decided to move the interview into the virtual space of the Internet.  We arranged the short email interview that follows.

Sergey Borisov: You have a great collection of brands under your umbrella: Xerjoff, Casamorati 1888, Join The Club, Shooting Stars, Oud Stars, etc. Some of them—Sospiro, Oud Stars, Mukhallats—fall into Oriental-style collections. And now you have presented the new Oriental collection, Kemi, at Esxence. What's the great reason for it? Why you did not include the new perfumes in one of the existing Oriental collections?

Sergio Momo: Kemi  is a different kind of approach. At a certain point of time we realized that we have accumulated experience that may allow us to come up with a new brand, backed by innovative blending techniques, and on top of that we had an important historic concept promoting the understanding of blends we worked on—it was alchemy.

Unlike Oud Stars from Xerjoff, this collection is not focused on oud-based perfumes; it is based instead on different blending concepts and olfactive directions, where compositions and combinations of ingredients are not necessarily similar to ones traditionally used with oud. Oud Stars is a collection entirely based on oud, its variety and quality, while not all of Kemi perfumes have oud in them! However, if oud is present, its proportion differs significantly from Oud Stars.

In Kemi we did not build upon an oud base, we created a collection of oriental perfumes with some oud inside. So, again, we are talking about two absolutely different approaches. Sospiro, in its turn, is a recreation of the classic system of producing perfumes, but with some oud inside. It is an experiment in creating western-style perfumes, sometimes adding oud to the different blends.

Sergey Borisov: The new collection appears in three forms of fragrances: Eau de Parfum, Parfum and Attar, and also every perfume in its own different volume only. What's the reason for this?

Sergio Momo: Well, I think that some blends have a better expression (in the creator’s vision) when they are parfumes, others when they are EDP, and so on. It depends on the desirable result, and it differs from blend to blend. And this is not a decision to be made afterwards, but it is made before the work starts and based on the initial idea of the creator. Traditionally, parfums are released in 20-30 ml; we decided to go to 50, which is already something new … At the moment, this is the way we have decided to split the Kemi collection.

Sergey Borisov: How is the historical connection between alchemy and perfumery expressed in the fragrances of the Kemi collection?

Sergio Momo: Our alchemy is expressed, in a certain way, in the distillation and blending process. I think that alchemy can be translated in that way. The philosophy behind alchemy is transforming something natural and simple into something extraordinary and noble by means of various manipulations, just like a flower when it comes to perfumery! Today, thanks to technologies and experience, ways of processing raw materials are much more advanced and sophisticated than they were many years ago, and by focusing on constant research and innovation of certain distillation techniques and processes, we are trying to set up a modern version of what alchemy used to be. From our viewpoint, the key here is experimentation.

Sergey Borisov: Some other brands at Esxence claimed that their perfumes contain a sort of “alchemical salt” that makes their perfumes more integral. Are there any signature “alchemic” accords in Kemi perfumes and attars? What's the special feature that separates Kemi from any other Orientals?

Sergio Momo: I have never heard of it and I think that we need no ”alchemic salt” to aid our blends. Our special feature is first of all the quality of raw materials, and equally important is the distillation technique and expertise. I would say that the special feature distinguishing Kemi from other orientals is exactly the same as what makes Xerjoff and Sospiro stand out from the range of other brands—it is the way we understand quality and implement this understanding in our products. This attitude paired with creativity is today what makes and in the future would make our products stand out.

As I was previously explaining, our ”alchemic” approach is well expressed when reading the olfactive pyramid—take a look at Kemi Eau de Parfum. We have oud in the head notes together with a cedar. You will hardly see this anywhere else! It may be surprising also that we used no flowers in Kemi EDP. The result is the rarest perfume composed entirely from different kinds of woods that were cultivated across the globe and gurjum balsam. No citrus, no flowers—I think this is something very interesting and also very challenging if one wants to follow the olfactive pyramid. The same peculiarity may be found also in other perfumes within the collection—like Lunawith Russian Leather in the heart notes or Layla which opens with nutmeg and clove. To sum up all the above, the alchemy of this collection was brought forward by the extensive research on blending woods, spices and oud, and this alchemy results in extraordinary combinations and original accords, which can hardly be encountered in perfumery.

Sergio Momo

Sergey Borisov: Was it created by one perfumer with your creative team, or did a team of perfumers work on it?

Sergio Momo: Kemi was created by the same team of artists who used to work on our previous brands.

Sergey Borisov: It has been some time since our last interview. Have you changed your vision on luxury in perfumes?

Sergio Momo: No, our vision and our philosophy towards luxury perfumery remains the same!

Interview with Naila Hamayed, Givaudan Evaluator

by: Serguey Borisov

My visit to the Givaudan offices in Paris was not the first for me, but was definitely the visit most filled with information and impressions. We made a lot of different meetings both short and long at avenue Kleber, and here is the interview with one of the most secret of perfume professionals: the evaluator. Energetic and smiling Givaudan evaluator, Naila Hamayed, has worked in the company for 15 years and believes that her job is to be hidden under the perfumers' successes.

Sergey Borisov: On your business card your occupation is named as "Creative Fragrance Director, Fine Fragrances Evaluation." So you are the super-creative director?

Naila Hamayed: It means I have been working here for a long time—15 years. (I am called a Givaudan baby evaluator, and everyone has to grow!) There are currently five fragrance directors on the team, and we each handle one of the biggest client accounts (Puig, P&G, L’Oréal, Coty etc.) We’re Directors because we manage teams of two to three people focused on day-to-day business projects.

Sergey Borisov: So the evaluators keep an eye on big corporations, not small niche brands?

Naila Hamayed: No, every evaluator works on a variety of brands, both corporate and niche. For example, I am working for different clients like Diptyque and Yves Rocher.  When you work with a Perfumer, you try to develop and create the best fragrance for each client, regardless of who they are.

Sergey Borisov: So you five are the best communicators of the company, I think? It`s not easy to get what's inside the client's heads?

Naila Hamayed: It’s a strong team effort between the sales person, the perfumer and the evaluator (imagine a triangle with the client at its heart), but I’m more of an olfactive expert than the sales person. My first role is to work with a perfumer, whereas the sales person’s role is to work with his/her clients.

Sergey Borisov: Do you work with perfumers in couples, like the perfumer and his/her assistant?

Naila Hamayed: Depending on the project you are being briefed on, you will work with different perfumers.

Sergey Borisov: Like  Daniela Andrier is very good with her Prada perfumes?

Naila Hamayed: Yes, this is a good example.

Sergey Borisov: So if Prada would like to launch a new perfume, you will most likely bring the project to her?

Naila Hamayed: Exactly.  Some perfumers, like Daniela, perfectly understand the DNA of certain brands.   What makes the most interesting and enriching part of my evaluation job is to work with many different personalities, in front of whom you always have to address your evaluation comments…and there's also a psychological part ...

Sergey Borisov: Do you use Neuro-Linguistic Programming and all that?

Naila Hamayed: [laughing] No, not at all!!!

Sergey Borisov: I mean NLP is just a technology that allows you to know the patterns that work in the head of a person you communicate with.  Like, to know visual, audial and kinaesthetic patterns—so you can talk with them in their own "languages."

Naila Hamayed: Well, I certainly use those “techniques” without being truly aware of it! I know their personalities really well. Working with some Perfumers, I could say, "Ah, that’s really awful!" because they have an easy, humorous way of communicating.  Others might be offended by this kind of familiarity. So I always need to adjust my messages when I interact with them.

Sergey Borisov: What was your education to have a job of evaluator?

Naila Hamayed: In France, there are few ways to get into the Perfumery industry. One of the most famous is ISIPCA. So, first I did my university degree in chemistry, just to be able to pass the exams to enter ISIPCA. During these two years of education, you work for a company (two months here, two months there) and this is how you really learn "the metier." For me, evaluation is not a matter of standard learning, it's a kind of coaching and being coached, like a tutor and a young talent.  This is how you really understand what evaluation means.

Sergey Borisov: What are your coaches’ names?

Naila Hamayed: I learned a lot from Camille Lethu, and Anne Bouvelle. Now, it is my turn to pass on my experience and passion to young and gifted evaluators.  

Sergey Borisov: Are there any differences between making some mass-market fragrances (15-30 euro per bottle) and some luxury (above 70 euro) perfumes?

Naila Hamayed: There is no real hierarchy between luxury products and wide appeal products. When developing a fragrance, you don't take into consideration the price it will be sold for at the end of the day. Developing a fragrance is a passion. Our passion is to create something from scratch and build it together to please the clients and ultimately, the customers.  I love to work for wide appeal brands, as it's always challenging to deal with cost constraints while providing quality.

Sergey Borisov: Because it should be mass-popular!

Naila Hamayed: It’s a pleasure to work for brands such as Yves Rocher, Diptyque and Paco Rabanne.  They are very beautiful yet different brands and we use our olfactive expertise to bring creative new scents for each one.  

Sergey Borisov: Do you always make your perfumes from the scratch or are there some bases or prepared prefab compositions? We're just out of the basement where I’ve seen the Givaudan perfumers' libraries... probably you as evaluator should know most of them?

Naila Hamayed: It’s important for us to know the collection of each perfumer. Similar to the fashion world, you have an archive of fashion collections for each fashion designer.  Perfumers have their own collections, too!  Each evaluator has to know the best olfactive idea of each collection. This means that we will revisit some of our creations and use these ideas as a starting point.  Then, together as a team, we keep working on it and we adapt it for the brand—just like a tailor-made perfume, sur mesure.

Sergey Borisov: How many perfumes should an evaluator keep in his/her mind? And how do you memorize them?

Naila Hamayed: [Laughs] I remember them due to their great signatures. If you can identify fragrances after 5-10 years, then there's something really special in the fragrance. I wouldn’t be able to give you a number … I am called a “dinosaur,” as I am one of the oldest on the team and I also have many, many, many souvenirs in my head from the past, in my memory collection.

Sergey Borisov: Everybody knows Ernest Beaux of Chanel and Jacques Guerlain and their perfumes, Chanel №5 and Shalimar. Are there some legendary evaluators in the history as these perfumers?

Naila Hamayed: I would say no. Evaluators are like little mice. They are not aiming to be in the spotlight.  If you want the spotlight on you, you might want to consider moving out of Evaluation!

Sergey Borisov: And where would you go, then? To become a perfumer?

Naila Hamayed: Good evaluators are happy to be good evaluators. They are not frustrated perfumers!

Sergey Borisov: Do you think that Evaluator is the very important position? As you interpret the wishes of clients, make perfumers work in the right direction, telling them to stop when the perfume is perfect enough ...

Naila Hamayed: YES.  Because you have to keep so many perfume projects going on at the same time, it's nearly impossible for perfumers to manage the amount of work on their own. It's important for perfumers to feel supported and secured when they create. It's like a coaching state of mind, you help them go forward, pushing the boundaries of their creativity, and also cheering them on. "Hey, you are one of the best! Ok, the meeting with the client was challenging, but we can do it!" We have to keep the team spirit high and share the good vibes. We have to show our perfumers how much we believe in them.

Sergey Borisov: Do you know when and where the very first evaluators appeared?

Naila Hamayed: I believe the position of evaluator started a few decades ago, sometime in the 70s.  I think that the industry realized the need of having additional olfactive experts, yet different from a perfumer. Evaluators help speed the process of answering briefs and handling collections. Meanwhile, the Perfumer is focused on perfecting the fragrance. Perfumers can actively work on 10-20 projects at the same time, but they need someone to help them paint the bigger picture of the creation.  For example, the accuracy towards the client’s portfolio, the competition, in which countries the fragrance will be tested, etc. It's like having a driver, or navigator, near them, who can read the map and point the Perfumer in the right direction.

Sergey Borisov: What about the other modern tendencies, the team work? Like the case with One Million Paco Rabanne—three perfumers signed the formula. Both perfumers have to work with one evaluator. How did you manage to work it out?

Naila Hamayed: That’s a good question.  In a project that involves multiple perfumers, you, as an evaluator, have to keep the direction.  In my experience, the key to success is to keep an open line of communication with the team.  When we all meet together to choose the best trials, it’s best when the team is sincere in their remarks, open and honest, and only thinking about what’s best for the client.  There’s no room for ego when we are working on projects like these—our only goal is to win the brief.

Sergey Borisov: First, how does the team appear?

Naila Hamayed: When we receive a new brief, you have five or six perfumers working on it. Each perfumer develops their own idea.  Afterwards, I collect all the ideas and prepare a blind olfactive session with the sales person. We smell everything … and then decide on which ideas should move forward and why they are great for submission. We make this decision based on whether the ideas fit the brief and the client portfolio, and any other criteria that might matter for the client. Then I return to the perfumers and de-brief them. I tell them, which ideas were chosen to move forward. The most difficult part of the evaluation job is to be the most objective in your feedback, because you would never take into account your own personal tastes. When you criticize a creation, you have to give your objective arguments, to explain why. This is when perfumers and evaluators start to build trust. When a perfumer can see your point of view and understand your arguments, he/she will trust you and believe you. Then both can continue to evolve as a team.

Sergey Borisov: Did I get you right that the team appears when sales approves more than one perfume idea?

Naila Hamayed: As you keep developing an idea with a client, at some point, the client will make a selection of the finalists. The Perfumers are under a great amount of pressure at that moment.  As they may have other projects going on at the time, they might need some help in order to maximize our chances to win.  They may even ask another perfumer, “Would you like to work on this fragrance with me?  I think you can bring something important into my perfume.”    

Sergey Borisov: So the perfumer is the initiator of the team work, not you?

Naila Hamayed: I can suggest something or somebody, according to my memory. At some point, a perfumer can use the help of a colleague, as it's not easy to work a year alone on the same project. I have to bring some fresh air. It's always interesting when someone new is joining your project, with a new eye on it, fresh air, new energy, and everything comes alive again. Then they start working together on that project.

Sergey Borisov: But how? Is it like one is making a base woody-amber accord, and the other makes the fresh top to it?

Naila Hamayed: The art of perfumery is like two chefs collaborating in the kitchen. The first chef begins with a recipe and the second one tastes each dish, offering opinions and suggesting some modifications. Together, they continue to perfect the recipe, with each and every taste. Et voila! Everyone likes it! Both the perfumer and evaluator bring their expertise, which are the building blocks to creating the best and most sophisticated perfume.

Sergey Borisov: Tell me, what if a client would tell you that they really like the woody part of one perfume, the fruity part of the other, and the fig part of the third? Would you melt them into a 1-2-3 composition?

Naila Hamayed: Yes, definitely.  Even if we may not agree with the composition, we will always make it for the client.  This is also possible due to teamwork.

Sergey Borisov: What are your personal goals for the day, for the week, and month, and year?

Naila Hamayed: I am very optimistic, and my goal is to always provide better creative fragrances to the consumers. It’s to have the best modifications everyday, to be approved by clients! I think the consumers are much more educated than we think, and they are waiting for more novel and daring fragrances. One of the biggest challenges is the consumer tests … You have to please everybody—from Europe to China, from the US to Russia. Trying to please anyone is risking to deceive everyone … My goal is to convince clients to change their methodology of testing fragrances, and to believe more in themselves and to trust our expertise because we are the experts!

Sergey Borisov: Naila, you are so energetic! How do you keep your positive vibes?

Naila Hamayed: Thank you! [laughs] Because I’m just passionate, I love my work! I’ve been working for 15 years and I never felt in the morning like "Oh no, I have to go to the office..." NO! I am always happy waking up, "Hurray! I’m going to my loving office!" Everyday is a new challenge and this is a new day! (laughs) I love to work with perfumers, that’s all!

Sergey Borisov: What about your sports or vitamins?

Naila Hamayed: My kids are my vitamins! And my husband! [laughs] Actually, Givaudan is not a company, it's a home ... I love it.

Sergey Borisov: Could you tell Fragrantica readers what will be the next perfume projects we'll see on shelves soon?

Naila Hamayed: It’s a surprise!

Sergey Borisov: How do you find the moment when you say, "Ok, now the perfume is perfect!"

Naila Hamayed: Oh, never. [laughs] Because you cannot stop refining. It can always be better. When the clients say "Go!" that's when we stop.

Sergey Borisov: It's the one and only way to stop?

Naila Hamayed: Yes. But pn a day-to-day basis, I`m one of those evaluators who would stop the team and have a rest, and let the fragrance macerate. It’s important to let the fragrance idea mature. We need to leave the fragrance sometimes, before starting to discuss it. The best fragrances will be the ones you took time to create.

Sergey Borisov: Should the slogan for the interview be "Let a thousand flowers bloom"? As you make all fragrances: cheap and expensive, luxurious and mass-market, fast and slow ...

Naila Hamayed: I love that tag-line! [laughs]