AUX PARADIS: Megumi Otsuka’s Journey and Products Designed to Keep Fragrance and Bottles in Use

I want to make perfumes that can be used repeatedly and recycled, both for the environment and to protect the culture of perfume.
Megumi Otsuka

Remove the spray from an empty perfume bottle and pour in the same fragrance again. At AUX PARADIS, that small action reveals how the brand came into being. Its square brown bottles are containers that protect fragrance, but also tools shaped by successive efforts to avoid throwing them away after a single use.

The brand began in 2008 with four perfumes conceived with Japan’s air, Japanese skin, and Japanese sensitivities to fragrance in mind. Questions that arose for Megumi Otsuka while selling perfume led to removable sprays, painted clear glass, refills, and eventually in-store refilling by measured quantity. Bringing fragrance into everyday life and considering what happens to its bottle belong to the same approach to making products.

Key Information
The Founder and the Origins of the Brand
The Brand’s Commitments
References

Key Information

Brand name: AUX PARADIS
Brand launched: May 2008
Founder: Megumi Otsuka
Operating company: EST International (established September 1989)
First specialist perfume shop opened: November 1996
Official website: AUX PARADIS

The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

From Selling Overseas Perfumes to the Problem of Empty Bottles

EST International, the company behind AUX PARADIS, was established in September 1989. Its involvement with fragrance began seven years later. In November 1996, it opened a specialist perfume shop selling fragrances from overseas brands. The company’s establishment, its entry into perfume retail, and the birth of its own brand took place at different times.

In the late 1990s, perfume became increasingly popular among younger people in Japan. While bringing perfumes to that market, Otsuka was concerned that empty bottles became waste that was difficult to separate for disposal. Crimped sprays, which are fixed to the neck of a bottle, are not designed for users to remove easily. What should happen to the objects left behind after a beautiful fragrance has been enjoyed? That question motivated Otsuka to consider creating original perfumes.

What was needed was a bottle whose spray could be removed so that it could be used repeatedly. Visiting trade shows overseas, Otsuka found screw-on sprays that could be unscrewed and removed. There was a concern, however, that they were prone to clogging. Otsuka continued searching for sprays that could combine a reusable structure with ease of use.

Otsuka’s aim was not simply to make products that loudly proclaimed environmental awareness. Otsuka later wrote of seeking an unobtrusive approach to being eco-friendly, without imposing it on others, and that this remained the foundation of Otsuka’s work. Incorporating a system for using bottles longer into the ordinary act of wearing perfume shaped AUX PARADIS’s product design.

Launching in 2008 with Four Fragrances and Refillable Bottles

In May 2008, AUX PARADIS launched with four fragrances: Rose, Citron, Fleur, and Savon. It sought basic fragrances attentive to Japan’s air, Japanese skin, and a delicate sensitivity to scent.

The brand identifies where its fragrance materials come from and uses fermented alcohol made from sugarcane. It uses natural materials as much as possible while also drawing on synthetic fragrance materials. In choosing how to express a scent, it did not regard the word “natural” as the whole answer. Fragrance-material sourcing and perfume composition take place in France, while manufacturing is carried out in Japan.

For its containers, the brand chose to paint clear glass brown. Brown helps prevent ultraviolet light from altering the fragrance, while clear glass was chosen with recycling after use in mind. Designing the visible color separately from the color of the glass itself is a distinctive feature of its bottles.

Spray bottles and refills for replenishing them were available from the brand’s inception. Reusing the bottle was not a service added later, but part of the intended way to use the product from the beginning.

Adapting Wine Dispensers for Measured Perfume Refills in 2021

Refilling at home from a refill bottle still left an issue unresolved: the refill bottle itself became empty after its contents had been transferred. If that bottle could also be replenished, it could be used again. In-store sales by measured quantity had been a goal since the brand’s founding.

In February 2021, selected directly operated shops began offering measured refills. The system was made possible by adapting dispensers used to sell wine by measured quantity. They preserve perfume quality while dispensing a preset quantity into a bottle at the touch of a button. A place for choosing fragrances now also offered a way to fill an empty bottle again.

In a contribution written in 2022, Otsuka also explained that empty bottles collected in shops were sent to a glass factory, with the company covering shipping costs. The company supports both a system for continuing to use bottles and one for returning unwanted bottles to the resource cycle.

Being eco-friendly takes effort and costs money, but we see it as an issue of the utmost importance that we must address.
Megumi Otsuka

The start of measured refilling was not the end of the work: improving the system and reducing plastic containers were also identified as challenges. A question about a single bottle grew into work connecting products, shops, and collection destinations. AUX PARADIS’s history is also the story of someone experienced in selling perfume reconsidering how it should be used afterward.

The Brand’s Commitments

Fleur: Combining Natural and Synthetic Fragrance Materials

Fleur, one of the original four scents, was created as a floral expressing dignified reserve. It aims to smell unobtrusive and to spread gently around the wearer. The English-language perfume database Fragrantica also introduces it as a fragrance with a restrained floral impression and citrus brightness.

The current official description lists natural fragrance materials including lemon from Sicily, bergamot from Calabria, neroli from Tunisia, and ravensara from Madagascar, together with synthetic amber and musk. The composition combines citrus, flowers, and aromatic plant materials with the lingering effects of synthetic materials. Specifying the origins of ingredients and how natural and synthetic materials are used offers a way to understand the brand’s approach to fragrance.

AUX PARADIS treats the complexity of natural fragrance materials and the scents and nuances that synthetic materials can express as distinct strengths. It also uses synthetic materials for musk and amber. An emphasis on natural ingredients and the use of technology in olfactory expression coexist within the brand.

The main fragrance materials also appear on the label, so that people holding the product can learn what it is made from rather than being given only an abstract description of its scent. A brand that began with four basic fragrances offers an entry point to enjoying perfume while getting to know the outlines of its materials.

Refilling the Same Bottle and Replacing the Spray

For in-store measured refills, an empty AUX PARADIS bottle is replenished with the same fragrance in the same quantity. The bottle is cleaned with alcohol before perfume is poured into it again. Rather than simply selling refills, the brand extended the way its products are used to include bringing the bottle back.

Screw-on sprays have challenges as well as advantages. Even the current official explanation notes that they may become stiff or clogged and that the causes have not been fully established. The use of a high proportion of natural fragrance materials is considered one possible factor. While maintaining a removable structure, the brand provides replacement nozzles when problems arise.

Reuse means more than keeping a bottle. It also means being able to replenish perfume, deal with faulty components, and arrange collection or separation for recycling when the bottle is no longer needed. At AUX PARADIS, these are not separate added benefits but parts of a connected system for keeping bottles in use longer.

Room to Enjoy Layering Fragrances

AUX PARADIS also proposes enjoying two perfumes layered on the skin. The order in which they are applied changes how the fragrance develops, allowing different combinations to be enjoyed with the same perfumes. This is not about mixing a different scent into the contents of a bottle, but about broadening expression when the fragrance is worn.

Using one fragrance repeatedly and enjoying it layered with another: the bottle stays with its owner for a long time, while the wearer can vary its effect according to the day’s mood. This, too, reveals a brand that thinks of perfume not as something reserved for special occasions, but as something to keep using in daily life.