Maison Incens: Fragrance Stories Born from a Father’s Imaginary Civilization

“Maison Incens is the olfactory translation of the manuscript left by the most important person in my life: my father.”

— Philippe Constantin, founder of Maison Incens

Key Facts
The Founder and the Origins of the House
The House’s Commitments
The Perfume Collections
By the Way…
1. Imaginary Words Living within the Perfume Names
2. “His Father’s Book” or “His Grandfather’s Book”?

Key Facts

Founded: 2013
Founder: Philippe CONSTANTIN
Based in: Grasse, France
Official website: https://www.maison-incens.com

The Founder and the Origins of the House

Born in Cameroon, Raised in Casablanca

Philippe Constantin was born in Cameroon to a French father and a Moroccan mother. He spent his childhood in Casablanca, Morocco, living there for at least 17 years. As he would later recall when discussing his creations, desert spices, the scent of dried roses, steam rising from tea brewed in stone cups, and ambergris discovered by chance on the beach were sensory memories rooted in everyday life in Casablanca.

His French father left behind a manuscript depicting an imaginary civilization called ARTGANIS. With paintings and stories recorded on leather canvases, the manuscript portrayed a fantastical world in which scent lay at the heart of the social order. Philippe would eventually inherit that story, but he had not intended from the outset to enter the world of fragrance.

From Economics to Fragrance: A Life-Changing Encounter

Moving to France at 18, Philippe intended to study economics and international law. He reportedly hoped to work for an international organization to help people in need. An encounter with a perfumer, however, changed his course.

Meeting Jean-Claude Gigodot transformed Philippe’s life and career. That day marked the birth of his passion for perfume. A perfumer from Grasse, Gigodot embodied the deep traditions of the French perfume industry. From then on, Philippe ventured ever further into the world of perfumery.

The Decision to Translate His Father’s Manuscript into Scent

Several years after meeting the perfumer, Philippe made a decision. In 2013, he founded Maison Incens to honor the manuscript his father had left to his son, a collection of stories and paintings depicting the Artganis civilization, and to give it tangible form through perfume.

The brand takes its name from Maison Incens, the ruling family of the Artganis empire in the manuscript’s story. The family is said to govern the entire empire through scent, inhabiting a world in which fragrance is both a means of communication and a sign of social rank. The official website describes Philippe’s perfumes as the “olfactory signature” of his father’s story.

The Artganis Civilization’s View of the Universe

The background to the Artganis civilization revealed on the official website is essential to understanding the house’s imaginative world. The Artganians are said to travel through the universe, discovering the most beautiful scents in each world they visit and bringing them home. His father’s story focuses on the “earth cycle,” which directly shapes the structure of the collections.

First Opus: Perfumes made from essences native to Artganis. Each perfume plays a particular role in Artganian society.
Second Opus: The period when the Artganians settled in Morocco and were captivated by its rich olfactory world.
Third Opus: Scents associated with the divinatory arts they observed in various places on Earth.
Fourth Opus: An exploration of nothing but the “hearts” of Earth’s legendary raw materials.

This structure goes beyond a marketing narrative, consistently informing the collections’ naming conventions and the story behind each perfume.

The House’s Commitments

A Philosophy of Fragrance: A Singular Approach That Speaks to Emotion

Maison Incens’s approach to perfumery is guided by the idea of “redefining the concept of luxury by creating products governed by emotion.” Each creation is conceived as an “invitation to an olfactory, sensory, and emotional journey,” reflecting a consistent refusal to follow passing trends.

The perfume names follow a distinctive method, too. Material names such as “Musc” and “Oud” are placed first and combined with individual suffixes that appear to belong to the imaginary Artganian language, such as “Kalirii,” “Deneii,” and “Aoudii,” with their doubled “ii” endings. The resulting names bring real perfumery materials into contact with a fictional language. This repeated “ii” lends coherence to the house as a whole while encapsulating the imagined civilization within its names.

Working with Perfumers: Rooted in the Traditions of Grasse

Almost all Maison Incens perfumes have been composed by Grasse-born perfumer Jean-Claude Gigodot. Born in 1947 in Grasse, often called the world’s perfume capital, Gigodot studied perfumery at De Laire in Paris before building his career at Givaudan in Switzerland, according to the official biography published by a collaborating brand. His connections include Jean-Claude Ellena and Lucien Ferrero, perfumers who hold prominent places in modern perfume history. In the 1990s, he established his own fragrance company, Sentaromatique, and accumulated a substantial body of work for prestigious houses including Caron, L’Artisan Parfumeur, and Sisley.

Some creations are also composed by Jean-Claude’s son, Éric Gigodot. Born in Grasse in 1976, Éric grew up watching his father at work and honed his skills at companies including Mane and Firmenich. These two generations of Grasse perfumers support Maison Incens’s creative work.

Bottles and Packaging: One-of-a-Kind Luxury within Minimalism

The fundamental packaging concept is “minimal, simple, clean fonts.” The bottles are clear glass, with black or gold caps. By dispensing with excessive decoration, the design confidently places the fragrance itself in the foreground.

The top-tier collection, Les Incensées, is a different proposition altogether. These special bottles are entirely covered in real stone and laser engraved, giving each one a distinctive, one-of-a-kind finish. With no two identical, the design embodies “extreme luxury.” The gray boxes shared across all the products bring a calm sense of unity to the house’s visual identity.

The Perfume Collections

Maison Incens presents its collections in series called “Opus,” meaning a work, structured around the periods of Artganis civilization described in the father’s manuscript.

The Black Opus Collection

The house’s first collection, or First Opus, comprises perfumes created from essences native to Artganis. Each creation is dedicated to a particular member of the Artganian family, expressing that individual’s personality or role through scent.

One of its signature creations, Musc Kalirii, is positioned as the “scent of power” and dedicated to Queen Kalirii. Released in 2014, it is a sensual musk fragrance layering bergamot, orange blossom, jasmine, and rose. Cuir Erindil, released the same year, is known as the “scent of duality,” with a complex composition that sets citrus against leather and animalic notes, sensual musks suggestive of an animal presence.

Fig Eleii, meanwhile, is the “scent of harmony,” built around bright green fig and tuberose, while Fig Aoudii is the “scent of seduction.” The two express the same fig material through contrasting approaches.

The Moroccan Tales Collection

The Second Opus. This collection tells stories from the period when the Artganians settled in Morocco and fell under the spell of its olfactory richness. A 2017 article reproduced on the official website describes its launch at Esxence that year.

At the collection’s heart is inspiration drawn from a tragic legend about two real Moroccan lakes, Tislit and Isli. According to the legend, the tears of two cursed lovers became these lakes, a story expressed through two creations, Santal Tislit and Chypre Isli. Neroli Animalis also belongs to this collection, a distinctive composition in which green neroli and animalic notes intersect.

The Divinatory Waters Collection

The Third Opus takes as its theme the “divinatory waters,” or Les Eaux Divinatoires, that the Artganians observed in various places on Earth.

Encens Kapnos (2020) is a creation by Éric Gigodot. Kapnos means “smoke” in Greek, and its motif is kapnomancy, the divinatory practice of reading the future by observing the shapes of smoke and ashes. Its complex composition layers red fruits, green herbs, and smoky frankincense. Encens Pyro translates “fire” itself into scent and is described as having a pronounced smoky impression.

Les Incensées / Black Opus Extraits

The Fourth Opus is the house’s highest-tier line, presented as highly concentrated extraits de parfum. Its concept is to explore only the “hearts” of oud, musk, and rose, housed in special stone-covered bottles. Coeur de Oud, composed by Jean-Claude Gigodot, opens with rich top notes of cedarwood and myrrh before continuing to an animalic base of leather, jasmine, sandalwood, and patchouli.

A Japan-Exclusive Collaboration: Rose Biyori

For the house’s arrival in Japan in November 2024, Maison Incens and NOSE SHOP collaborated on the Japan-exclusive perfume Rose Biyori. The concept was developed by internationally active Japanese perfumer Tomoo Inaba, with the fragrance composed by the house’s Grasse-based perfumer Éric Gigodot.

Its theme is an olfactory translation of the rose garden at the former villa of the Marquis Maeda in Kamakura, now the Kamakura Museum of Literature, and of Hatsune, a rare piece of agarwood said to have been delivered to the Maeda family in 1624. Bringing a French imaginary civilization into contact with Japanese historical memory, it became the house’s first exclusive creation.

By the Way…

Imaginary Words Living within the Perfume Names

The repeated “ii” endings in Maison Incens perfume names, such as Kalirii, Deneii, and Aoudii, appear to come from the fictional language of the Artganis civilization. In fact, however, the house has not disclosed the details of its naming conventions. According to a reviewer who investigated the subject, some names seem to incorporate words from real languages, including Arabic, African languages, and Berber (Tamazight). The mystery surrounding the words’ origins may itself be part of the house’s distinctive magnetism.

“His Father’s Book” or “His Grandfather’s Book”?

An introductory video released in 2025 by a German fragrance channel on YouTube describes the book as having been written by “Philippe’s grandfather.” The official website and the formal Japanese press release, however, consistently refer to “his father’s manuscript,” leaving no ambiguity about the official account. That such details can become confused perhaps shows just how deeply the founder’s personal story is embedded in the house’s identity.

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